Almost everyone we’ve met in London is welcoming, polite, and thoughtful; a great example being the ads for the Considerate Constructors org on most of the building sites we walked past...
at one of the above sites, this is the walk- through under scaffolding: it’s enclosed, is lit at night, and has windows cut in. (Not all of them are like this, but quite a few were, especially those that involved restoration of a building facade on a “listed” property.
We both had a great time exploring the Museum of London! This is a piece of the Fatberg that clogged part of the sewers here a few years ago, and had to be cut up with high pressure water and hand tools. Behind the sample is a photo of one of the lucky workers who had to crawl tiny tunnels and chip the concrete-like fat deposits off the walls and floors by hand. The London Museum describes its responsibility as “preserving the history of the city, at its best and at its worst”.
Books for kids at the London Museum deal with heavy subjects in a matter-of-fact way. London lost 4 million people - half its population - from 1935 to 1945; a lot was due to lost housing and jobs from Germany’s bombing in WWII. It’s not hard to understand why the U.K. is empathetic to refugees fleeing war at home.
We spent a lot of time on the tube, which was easy to use, clean, and quiet - seriously, almost no one talks on the train! We got to know the ads well too. Here’s a Portrait Mode photo of us in front of an iPhone ad for the same :)
We found a fantastic pizza pub in Covent Garden, amongst also-fantastic headquarters for Neal’s Yard creamery (where we sampled some amazing cheeses and took some with us) and Neal’s Yard Remedies. We could have stayed here for the whole day...
The storybook courtyard that is Neal’s Yard at Covent Garden
Neal’s Yard, a proper English cheese shop
we had dinner at The Ivy in Covent Garden, featuring a great Art Deco style, over the top service, and high end comfort food, like this San Daniele ham, scorched figs, Gorgonzola & multiseed cracker appetizer, or the Moroccan spiced lamb rump we split later on. We had at least 5 staff wait on us and felt like movie stars. (This place used to be known for the famous people who would dine there and the paparazzi who waited outside - fortunately that’s no longer the case)
we ended our second day at the Duchess Theatre to see The Play That Goes Wrong, a very silly English slapstick comedy about, surprisingly, a play that goes wrong in every way possible... it started strong and got more and more ridiculous until our sides hurt from laughing after 2 hours :) A great finish to day two!
