With some sadness we said goodbye to London today. There are always more things to do and places to see so we fit in a few of them today. The weather was very cold but dry when we joined a London Walk entitled Darkest Victorian London. The guide met us at Monument Tube Station. The Monument is a 166 foot memorial to the Great Fire of London. We learned about the disgusting lack of sanitation, the quirky street patterns that survive from the Medieval times, the forgotten Southwark Cathedral, the role of the docks, the huge scope of global trading in Victorian times, and the beginnings of the trains. Charles Dickens kept sneaking into the conversation as many of the places are settings in his books and today streets are named after characters he created. After the walk our lunch was at the George, the only remaining coaching house in London; the equivalent of a railway station or airport nowadays as somewhere to go for inter-city transport.
Looking past the ancient buildings we often had a view of the Shard, one of the newest London buildings. It is the tallest building in Europe at something over 1,000 feet high, and its facades are all glass. Visitors are allowed to go partway up to an observation deck at the cost of £25 per person to regard the peripheral views through dozens of virtual telescopes, which are similar to iPads enabling you to zoom in or out, or call up the same views at different times of day. It didn't seem like good value when the weather would obscure the view. Instead we went for coffee and slabs of chocolate cake on the ground level cafe of the Gherkin.
Back to the flat for a stab at packing before our sole trip to the theatre. We felt lucky to get tickets to a sold out performance of the National Theatre's "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time". No half price tickets and we now know why. It was wonderful. The staging was so creative with hidden cupboards in the walls and floors, hidden stairs that appeared out of the wall, lights, graphics, and a post encore scene complete with confetti. All of that without seeming to be overproduced or gimmicky.
We managed to further postpone packing by putting this blog entry together, but now have to finally accept the party is over and we will be on our way to Heathrow in just a few hours. See you all soon!
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