Friday Apr 4

Today, we walked for miles, as we took in St. Paul's Cathedral, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and Wellington's Apsley house, followed by a visit to Harrad's. We booked our train tickets for Sunday to Canterbury, where I realized that I neglected to replace the battery in my camera, after charging it last night, so we had to return to the hotel to get it. It's a good thing we have transit passes. (although one of us lost his pass somewhere, somehow, today, and had to get another one.

St. Paul's was interesting, especially walking on all the markers for those buried under the floor of the crypt. Very extravagant with much gold etc. although not as bad as some others we've seen. We walked down Fleet street, and through the court buildings area. We stopped at a small sandwich shop on the banks of the Thames for a bite to eat at lunch, then continued across the Blackfriars bridge, and along the riverfront walk in Southwark to the Globe theatre.

We took the tour and learned that this is the third version of Shakespeare's Globe theatre. The first burned down after a cannon was fired during a performance, catching the thatched roof on fire. Out of 3000 patrons, one ended up with his trousers on fire, which he promptly extinguished by throwing his beer on the fire. The second was torn down during a puritan era of the British government, This latest one was built in the 1990's, and they had to obtain special permission to put a thatched roof on it to make it look authentic. This roof is protected by a sprinkler system, and is said to last 50 years. In the time of the original Globe, they were able to put 1000 patrons paying 1 pence and 2000 "better class" paying 2 pence, and a few behind the stage on a balcony who paid 12 pence so that they could be seen by their peers. Today, due to fire regulations, they can only admit 700 at 5 to 33 pounds each, which is still relatively the same price.

We went for another walk to catch the tube where I realized that I'd misplaced my 3-day transit pass! Horrors! Jan was on one side of the gate, and I was stuck on the other without my pass. I was faced with the option of getting a one-way ticket to our destination for 4.30 or a day pass for 5.40. Guess what I chose? LOL I'll have to do it again tomorrow. Apsley house was interesting, I can't figure out why they need 6 different drawing rooms, one next to the other! There are a lot of expensive paintings, and thousands of plates that were given to Wellington by Kings of other countries.

We walked to Harrads and wandered through two floors before we got tired and left. Jan did find me a watch there, but it was a little out of her price range for this trip....27,000 pounds!!! I found a nice chinchilla coat for her but it had no price tag so I couldn't get it (we have no room in our luggage to bring anything back anyway! :>)

we finished off by walking down the street to a pub and having dinner. A great first day, all in all.

This picture we found quite intriguing. It is made up of the small individual pictures of all patrons to the cathedral over a three day period in 1999.





Tomorrow, we hope to visit Hampton Court and possibly Mme Troussard's.