LONDON 5: Last looks...

Parliament Square with flags of all the Commonwealth
nations, plus Big Ben on the right, London Eye at center back

Sa 28 May 

(written late Saturday)

Today was a more unplanned day, which allowed us to take some last looks at London. It's actually one of our favorite things to do when traveling—just walking around, looking at different parts of a city, and running into serendipitous sights, like the fashion you'll see at the end of this post.

Orange = Thurs.; Yellow = Friday; Purple = Sat.
The top purple marker is the Kings Cross area, the
next lower down is Piccadilly, the bottom three
are Buckingham Palace, Westm. Abbey, Big Ben
The red one, lower left, is our hotel.

Google London and the Kings Cross area

Our first task of the day was to try to see the Google London office in the King's Cross area. Doug had brought his Google badge; a Googler can typically gain access to any Google office, worldwide, with their badge. Google offices are often situated in the heart of cities, in prime locations with good views, so they can be worth tracking down. At the Kings Cross Google office, we were able to get in, but doors to the outside terraces were closed on weekends, so we couldn't get as good a view as we were hoping for. 

Round building is King's Cross Tube station; long building on right is King's Cross train station. Foreground is Google terrace that was locked.

Still, it was fun to wander around the London office, and afterwards we had great urban life viewing in Granary Square, a huge public space filled with a big grid of unpredictable spurting fountains, and currently also featuring award-winning photographs from a travel photography contest. We had lunch in the area, and it was a fun, very lively city scene.

F&M Shopping

Beloved Son & Daughter-in-Law had made a few requests for us to pick up at the snazzy fine food department store Fortnum and Mason. We tried to find the items at a smaller branch store in the Kings Cross area, but decided we'd have better success at the main store on Piccadilly—plus we hadn't been to that area yet on this trip, so were curious to see it. It was easy enough to get there: take the Piccadilly line from King's Cross to Piccadilly Circus. Fortnum and Mason's main store was packed with enthusiastic shoppers, but Doug managed to find most requested items, while I rested on a chair. Then we walked along Piccadilly, an impressive upscale street, with lots of taxis and lots of banners celebrating the approaching Jubilee.

London Classics

We ended the rest of the day with a lot of walking around, catching last glimpses of London classics. We'd seen many of them on our earlier 1999 trip, so didn't make an effort to spend a lot of time at them this visit, but it was nice, and very London-y to see them again.

We walked through Green Park, with its rent-a-deck-chairs, to the Buckingham Palace area, prepping for the upcoming Jubilee. Then we cut through St. James Park to get to Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and the Houses of Parliament. Doug was disappointed that Big Ben isn't chiming right now (he grew up with a living room clock that chimed like Big Ben), but I was excited because Big Ben was more sparkly than I'd remembered. We found statues of the Burghers of Calais, by Rodin—the same statues that are at the front of Stanford's quad (Rodin's sculptures often had more than one casting made of them). It's appropriate to have them near UK's seat of government, as the Burgers were an example of courageous leadership, willing to sacrifice themselves for their city (you can read their story here).

Lastly, we walked along the Thames, with a good view of the London Eye, before reaching the Embarkment Station area. We had dinner at a yummy little ramen shop there, before heading home to Earl's Court. Seeing the London classics was a fitting way to end our stay in London.

Next Post

It's hard to believe it's our last night in London. Tomorrow we do our COVID testing and then hopefully fly home. I'm ready to go home, but also sad that the trip is ending. Tonight at dinner, we already started talking about where we would go and what we would want to see, on a return trip.

Happened upon a Festival of Fashion put on by
the University of the Arts, London. I'm drawn
to the one on the right, what do you think?