Tuesday 1 September

London
London continues to enthral. The Underground is fantastic to get around on and the Oyster card is really simple, easy and efficient. We are wondering why Melbourne didn’t just buy it from London, instead of the Myki fiasco.

Anyway – we spent a bit of time planning the next stage of our adventure – trips to Liverpool and Bath – all done. We took the Tube to South Kensington to start the trek to Harrods. On the way we stopped at the Natural History Museum but didn’t go in, the Victorian & Albert Museum and did go in and the Brompton Oratory – a Catholic church – as we have been surrounded by C of E we thought we should also do a Catholic one. You need to record your attendance at Mass every week to ensure the Parish Priest can endorse the application for the children to attend the Catholics schools. Glad we’re passed that one.
Then off to the true spiritual home – Harrods. We displayed appropriate reverence at the Di and Dodi memorial, by not guffawing loudly, and were very moved by the additional ornate display and bouquets of flowers at the front window, as it is 12 years this week since they sadly left us all.

Then we walked to Buckingham Palace. The Palace is open to tours during August and September, and there were no queues, so we thought we would see how it looks, but when we were going to be charged 16 pounds each we decide against it. You’d think the world’s richest woman would be generous enough to let her loyal subjects in for free or at least a token amount. What a cheek. Bring on the Australian republic, I say.

We took the tube around to St Paul’s. It is magnificent. We took the 257 stairs to the Whispering Gallery – that’s a lot of stairs, but we did it. The Whispering Gallery is about half way up to the top of the Dome, and that was high enough to be amazed by the beauty of the architecture, painting, gold leaf, sense of light. We took the 257 steps down and walked around and entered the crypt to see the to the tombs of lots of soldiers and admirals, and Florence Nightingale, Lord Nelson, Duke of Wellington, Turner, Francis Bacon and more. Very quiet, peaceful and reverent.
Back at the hotel now and we will be heading off soon to see Troilus and Cressida at the Globe.

Although it has been just five days in London, I do think Samuel Johnson was correct in saying when you tire of London, you tire of life. Well we are pretty tired physically, but are thrilled by everything we see.