London - Day 2
You can't fly from Australia to London without talking about the jet lag. We wake up at 4am and we're wide awake, but thankfully get back to sleep. It's still an early start and we're up at 6am. That's fine, we've heard there's plenty to see and do in London!
Courts does a bit of research to find somewhere for breakfast. Every cafe seems to serve up the same fare (full English breakfast) so we find one nearby and set off. The sun is not out today and we definitely won't be wearing shorts. About a 5 minute walk and we've reached the Barbican Cafe for breakfast. We both get a full English breakfast which is sausage, bacon, eggs, baked beans, toast and hash brown for Courts and bubble and squeak for Jeff. The breakfast includes a proper coffee too. The other patrons look to be local tradies, so we think we've made a good choice. We have. The breakfast is huge and will keep us going for awhile.
After breakfast we head back to the hotel to add a few more layers and then we set off for the day. We're planning to get a ferry to Richmond today so set out confidently for the tube station. We arrive at the wharf and ask at the ticket booth about ferries to Richmond. She tells us to go down to gate D. We do and no one is there nor does it appear a boat will be coming any time soon. We ask someone else about a ferry to Richmond and she tells us to go ask back at the ticket booth. Not sure what sort of show they are running down here but its a very fragmented system with many different operators (including Uber ferry). We give up on this plan.
We're in the vicinity, so figure we may as well go and check out Buckingham Palace. Stacks of tourists around, as expected. It's really quite an underwhelming and tired looking building. Not too much further in the direction we were heading is Hyde Park, so off we go. Now this is more our cup of tea. It's green, there are daisies growing in the grass, squirrels, ducks and other large looking water birds. We even peep a swan nesting! We need some sustenance so we stop for coffee and cake by the lake. Gorgeous. We check out the Princess Diana water fountain memorial, Royal Albert Hall and Kensington Palace; a far lovelier palace than crusty Buckingham. We finally make it out the other side of the park. It's massive!
We step out of the park into Kensington and we like. It feels a bit more like old London with the shop fronts and cobbled streets, while still being modern and trendy and not as touristy. We've already walked a stack of kilometres today so we decide to hop on the double decker bus to rest and vaguely head in the direction of Camden. We score a premium seat up top right at the front. We're loving driving through towns watching people go about their business.
Eventually we hop off and get the Overground to Camden. We check out the markets (there are a lot of markets in London) and they are fine. Some of the stalls feel like ones you'd see at the Royal Adelaide show. We check out the canal and watch a boat go through the lock. Jeff is very excited. We cross over the bridge and it seems this is where Camden Town unravels somewhat. More market stalls but it's a sensory overload. Everything is a little… weird. And maybe the jet lag is making us a little woozy. Whatever it is Jeff needs a subway and he's never been happier when he's able to order a Tex Mex chicken subway.
We head back to the hotel to rest and freshen up (no naps, we can't trust ourselves yet). We hop on the bus just outside the hotel and we're headed to Soho tonight. Lots of flashing lights and signs and more of the same shops we've been seeing in every tourist part. We decide on Chinatown for some soup. Sadly it's very underwhelming and the whole of Chinatown looked a bit average food wise. Seems we were spoilt with Adelaide's Chinatown.
It wouldn't be a Mills holiday if we didn't go to a casino. We head into to the nearby Hipperdrome casino (of Jamie-T fame) and turn around and leave fairly quickly. Not a vibe. We cross the road to one of the many very English looking pubs (the something and the Porcupine?) and have a pint. This gives us a burst and we head off to a different casino in nearby Leicester Square. We lose £20 and promptly leave (this one is a dingy hole). We have a short wander around the square but it's more of the same fashion and souvenir shops. We head home to bed having made it to 10:30pm tonight.
