Walkin' our feet off!

We're walking our feet off, but , well, we have to, considering all the stops we are making in pubs!  Now don't get me wrong, we are visiting other sites as well but they won't add any calories like the pubs do!

Yesterday, Thursday 4/15, we got a late start leaving about noon.  We had gotten a book the day before about walks in London since I had left our old copy at home and the walk we decided on was the one that would take us through Lincoln's Inn Fields which is the largest public square in London surrounded by schools and homes that are definitely in the upper income range.  The Royal College of Surgeons is one and many of the other buildings are connected to the field of law.  Here's a website you might look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln%27s_Inn_Fields

Anyway, the first place we went to is Sir John Soane's house.  He was a brilliant architect, son of a bricklayer, and designed many prominent buildings in London.  However, his legacy is the collection he left in his home on Lincoln's Inn Field as a free museum to the public.  I had visited it almost 18 years ago when I was Ellen's guest for a month and it was one of the memories most vivid to me.  I wanted John to see it.  This man collected things like you wouldn't believe.  Lots of Egyptian antiquities, books, statues, etc.  The house is so full of his collection that you can barely walk around and they can only allow 50 people in the house at a time.  Here's a wwebsite to the museum: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_John_Soane%27s_Museum.  It is so overwhelming - I mean there was a 3,550 year old sarcophogas in there, for goodness sake, along with about a 5000 volume library and the complete The Rake's Progress (8 pieces) and The Election (4 pieces) by Hogarth.  Those alone are mind-boggling.

Anyway, enough of John Soane, from there we walked across the Field and sought out The Old Curiosity Shop immortalized by Charles Dickens.  I had seen it years ago and wanted John to see it.  We walked right past it, though, it's so small and had to be directed back to it.  It hasn't changed from the outside and actually the inside hasn't changed much (there are areas where you can hardly stand up) but it's now a shoe shop!  Expensive shoes, yes, but really!!  Ah, well, times do move on.

From there we went walking through The Temple Church - a round building - about eight hundred years old, maybe more -with a magnificent organ that was being played by a black man while an older man, I think the church's organist, watched and as we sat there listening I couldn't help but wonder - who is he?  From where did he come, is he from England, Africa, Jamaica?   What challenges did he have to overcome to become an organist in a famous ancient medieval church?  I was awestruck by him. 

 We never did find out but it was just part of what I have been thinking while I've been here in London - the variety of people is astounding.  So many different races and colors and languages - and the blending of all of them into this one society.  You see mixed groups, mixed couples, outfits that leave you staring, haircuts that are jaw dropping.  We saw a young woman yesterday - I'm not even sure I'm capable of describing her hair - her scalp was shaved except for the top and that was like dreadlocks but short, sticking out from her head and fluorescent red!  I mean, there are a lot of odd haircuts, outfits, etc. here that nobody looks twice at but this one had people turning around as she walked by!  Then we saw another one today - a really pretty girl - and one half of her head was a very attractive blond color, long and the other half was dark black with a red patch in the middle which hung down into her eyes.  Whoa - it was almost attractive!  Maybe I'm changing!



Our walk took us down to the Thames and as we strolled along the river toward Parliament we noticed Somerset House, "a spectacular new-classical building in the heart of London, sitting between the Strand and the River Thames.  During summer months a grove' of 55 fountains dance in the courtyard..." to quote from a brochure.  One of the displays was the River Sounding done by a sound artist Bill Fontana.  Never heard of him, never heard of a sound artist but it was interesting.  It was sounds from the River Thames and to hear the underwater sounds, shore sounds, etc. you had to walk through the lower tunnels of the Somerset House, areas where the general public never walked and also to see projected images (which we think were live) from the riverside and the bridges.  So there you were walking in these tunnels listening to these underwater sounds.  It was pretty cool.  In fact, we spotted a few of the places that we saw in the projected images the next day (today) as we walked to the Tower.

Well, by this time we had walked over 4 miles and it was time to start home.  To do that, you have to figure out where your tube station is which could be another mile.  It's  a.7 mile walk from the Hammersmith tube station we come to to home so yesterday all together we walked 5.9 miles!  My feet were talking to me and it wasn't nice!

Oh, and I forgot - the pub we ate at in the City was Ye Old Cock Tavern.  For real.  I won't tell you what I said to John.  You figure it out.

Time for bed.  It's 11:30 and hopefully tomorrow, I'll write about today - another good one but only 4.5 miles!




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