London, London, Oxford

Sat 25 Mar

Plan: Walk down Oxford St, catch Big Bus to Trafalgar Square, walk to Westminster Pier, river ferry to Tower of London.

Actual because of road closures: Walk to Carnaby St (+ shopping), Big Bus to Tower of London via roundabout route. Last visited here in 1994; still a very interesting site especially if you want some knowledge of English history. Followed a Yeoman Warder around on a free tour - lots of "dad jokes" e.g. "We'll beheading this way next."

Took the river ferry back to Westminster and the tube back to Bayswater. Pub dinner at our local, the Prince Albert.
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Sun 26 Mar

Last full day in London. Tube to the Millennium Bridge then walked across to the Tate Modern Gallery. I was suffering from a cold that someone on a plane/train/street had shared with me. So after viewing one level of the gallery, I found a comfy chair while Steph made her way through the rest. I may have been snoring, but I didn't hear anything and I was a bit more refreshed when Steph returned.

View to St Paul's Cathedral from the Millennium Bridge

Back across the bridge and another tube to Camden, to have a look at the markets there. The place was crowded with lots of stalls selling all the usual stuff, t-shirts, food, cheap jewellery and so on. Crowded trains on the return.

Likes this T-shirt - hope you get it.

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Mon 27 Mar

Packed all our stuff and tidied the apartment then walked to Paddington Station to get the train to Oxford. Very comfortable way to travel. Then had to walk about a kilometre to the Hertz depot to collect our hire car. On the way we broke a wheel on Steph's suitcase - bumpy footpaths are a bugger. Got a surprise at Hertz - we were expecting a Ford Fiesta but ended up with an Audi A3!

Leather seats, auto wipers & lights, 2 cyl highway economy mode;
but took me 5 minutes to find the handbrake ... button!

Thankfully, we brought our TomTom GPS with us so we easily found our way to the Oxford Guest House where we'd booked - it's about a 5 minute walk to where our friends, Peter and Lesley are staying. We went with them to a local pub for a delicious dinner.

At the local with Peter & Lesley