London, day 7: 19 September 2006
Started: 2006-09-24 16:46:48
Submitted: 2006-09-24 16:55:16
Visibility: World-readable
2220 BST 18 September 2006
Waterstone's bookstore (Europe's largest, according to Rick Steves): 203 Piccadilly.
1130 BST 19 September 2006
Cards Galore: 104 The Strand -- Godel cats.
1530 BST 19 September 2006
In St. Paul's Crypt: Charles James Napier, 1782-1853. Napier's Bones?
I looked it up later: No; the relationship is not apparent, despite the last name. Napier's bones were invented by John Napier in 1617.
1630 BST 19 September 2006
Photo of 60 Queen Victoria Street, London.
1815 BST 20 September 2006
Having fallen a day behind, I'm now documenting yesterday, being Tuesday, 19 September.
The highlight of the day was Rick Steves' City Walk, which started in Westminster (under Charing Cross rail station) and took us down Strand Street, which became Fleet Street and finally Ludgate Hill. Highlights along the way were St. Clement Danes -- now the Royal Air Force's church, after it was significantly damaged by the Luftwaffe, and St. Paul's, which was ... big.
We ate lunch from The Place Below, a vegetarian restaurant in the crypt of St. Mary-le-bow. I bought a BBC keychain at the BBC store on the ground floor of their world headquarters. We saw the monument built to honor the Great Fire of 1666, and avoided paying very much to enter expensive attractions, except St. Paul's.
Next was the British Library, at St. Pancras, which featured the Magna Carta (well, several versions of the very first attempt to limit royal power -- some provisions of which are still English law today), and other historical documents including a King James bible and an autograph of The Messiah.
For supper, we headed to Masala Zone, a trendy Indian restaurant with lower prices for dinner than much of the city. After eating, we headed to Waterstone's, which Rick Steves calls "Europe's largest bookstore", where Kiesa tried to find £8 paperbacks she thought were worth buying to keep her entertained. We succeeded, eventually, and headed back to our hotel for the night.
Tube stops for the day:
- Gloucester Road to Embankment via District.
- Bank to King's Cross via Northern (Bank branch).
- King's Cross to Oxford Circus via Victoria.
- Piccadilly Circus to Gloucester Road via Piccadilly.
For more photos from the City of London, see Photos on 2006-09-19.
