London

We had an exciting and busy week in London – staying with friends, the Olympics buzz, beautiful sunshine and lots of exploring to do. Despite never having been in the UK before, England feels strangely familiar (much more so than the USA), probably because of NZ’s British roots. We made the most of the (rare?) London sun by walking around lots of different areas of the city. We were struck by how different each area felt. In no particular order, here are some brief descriptions and photos from our wanderings.

We spent a bit of time south of the Thames, staying with our friends Susan and Michael. Southbank has a nice riverside promenade, with great views of the Tower Bridge (currently featuring the Olympic rings).

The City of London (the historic commercial centre) has an interesting mix of buildings and some cool little alleyways to explore. We had a nice night out in Chinatown and Piccadilly Circus with Susan and Mike, going to a British comedy play “The 39 Steps”.

Soho and Covent Garden have lots of cool pedestrian streets with a really lively feel. One of the nice things about London is all the parks and squares. In these dense central suburbs they get pretty busy. We found a tiny churchyard to have lunch in, which had office workers perching everywhere. This was the scene as we walked past Soho Square:

South Kensington is really fancy and well-kept. We went to a high-end supermarket called Whole Foods that has trolley escalators and a machine where you can buy tastings of expensive wine.

We went out to the Camden Markets one day. It’s full of alternative stalls – plenty of gothic clothes, retro costumes and a huge superstore full of rave gear. The music in the rave store was pumping, the staff walked around in fluro undies and platform shoes and the whole place was shining brightly under UV lights.

Westminster is full of history and incredible buildings. We explored this part of the city on a walking tour (we’ve come to love these as great introductions to cities). Along the way we saw the changing of the Horse Guards of the Queen. Our guide warned us to keep out of the way, giving us a great view of the soldiers shouting “Stand Clear of the Guard!” before stampeding through the unsuspecting tourists who were scrambing out of the way.

Here are a bunch more photos from our wanderings:

The National Gallery made for an enjoyable afternoon. It was the first time we’d been to a gallery with such a large collection of artwork (1300s-1900s), which gave us a better sense of how art has changed over time. We hadn’t fully realised just how much art was dominated by religion and kings until the last few centuries. Having such a wide range of art in one place also helped us understand our tastes better.

A Wheatfield with Cypresses (Van Gogh)

We would also highly recommend the British Museum. It was really cool seeing ancient sculpture and artefacts in the flesh. One thing we hadn’t realised – the ancient Romans loved colour, so many of the sculptures we think of as plain white stone would in fact have been brightly painted at the time they were made. The museum design has been really well thought out. We loved how many of the pieces were displayed without a cabinet or barrier. It was easier to appreciate the detail, particularly of the sculptures, and it made the pieces seem less distant. It’s amazing to look upon statues from around the world that were carved thousands of years ago.

Pro tip: if you go to Westminster Abbey for the Evensong choral service you get to enjoy the acoustics and atmosphere of the church and don’t have to pay 16 pounds for admission. We couldn’t take photos inside, but it’s truly stunning – easily the most impressive church we have been into. Here are some of our photos from around Westminster.

We didn’t book any events at the Olympics, but still got to enjoy a bit of it. We came across the torch relay by chance, just as we came out of Evensong at the abbey. There were no fences and few security guards, so the inevitable surge of people around the parade meant that this was our best photo of the torch!

We also got to see the men’s road race go by. By ‘see’ we mean ‘glimpse’ - it was near the start of the race, so they came through in a solid lump, taking about 5 seconds!

Our vantage point was from a balcony overlooking the road in Putney. We had met up with a friend, who took us up to a flat with some other ex-pat Kiwis. As well as flags and face-paint, they had a stereo pumping Poi-E and Scribe out to the street :-) Although we’ve met a few other Kiwis along the way, this was our first time hanging out with a whole bunch – the London OE experience.

We didn’t have tickets for the Opening Ceremony, but we got to enjoy it with our friends Kate and Joe who we stayed with for part of our time in London. Unable to easily think of Olympic-themed food, we settled for British instead – eating bangers and mash and drinking Pimms. We did manage an Olympic dessert though. The planes came right over us after the stadium flyover.

We had expected London to be madly busy and crowded for the Olympics. There were certainly lots of people around, but we never had any problems with transport and many attractions were less busy than we had expected. Six days didn’t feel like enough to get to know the city, but we really enjoyed our time here and will definitely visit again someday.

We are a bit behind on our blog at the moment – since London we have been to Oxford, Bath, York, Edinburgh and the Scottish Highlands, so look out for some more posts soon.

Comments from WordPress

• Alice 2012-08-16T09:39:05Z

  Can’t wait to hear about your experience in the Highlands! So great to meet up with you guys! Till later! xxx

Written by Craig Drayton and Sally Robertson