On the Buses

Sunday 8^th September.

Sleep-in day! All of one hour! Today’s plans include a visit to The Wallace Collection in Marylebone and a trip out to Brick Lane. By bus! Yes, we feel we’ve mastered the Tube and now we’re getting more adventurous on the buses. The 73 takes us from up on Euston Rd straight to Marble Arch. Sitting up the top, it’s a great ride, although we don’t jag the front seats. There’s a triathlon in Hyde Park today and there are people everywhere heading towards the park with their chairs and picnic baskets. That’s good, maybe there won’t be as many people where we’re going, ha ha. We zipped passed Marble Arch the other day on the HOHO bus, so a closer inspection is warranted.

Suitably impressed by it and the horse’s head adjacent (The Godfather Part 1 comes to mind), we head off to find Hertford House, Manchester Square, Marylebone, home to the Wallace Collection. We arrived just after 11.30 but still in time to join the highlights tour. A very knowledgable woman was conducting the tour throwing in enough humour to keep it from being dry and boring. I missed the very first bit about how the Wallace Collection came to be but it was along the lines of 5 generations of collectors, 4 Marquesses of Hertford and the ring-in Sir Richard Wallace. The French had some claim to many of the items, but Sir Richard cleaned up and it was a toss up when he died as to whether the French or British would take possession of the Collection. I’ll have to read up about it now that I’ve heard bits of the story, I’m curious. As the lady guiding the tour said, “we don’t buy or sell, borrow or lend”, so pretty much everything will always be on display whenever you go. Trevor found his Damascus steel sword, so he was happy, and the variety and scope of the Collection was mind boggling considering this is not a name on everyone’s lips when they’re planning a trip to London. We turned around at one point and saw “the Laughing Cavalier” by ?? maybe Hal, sorry can’t remember, but it you’d know it if you saw it. There’s another painting of Venus and a cherub and it looks like Venus is saying ‘pull my finger’!!

Pull my finger!

Could have easily spent more time there, but stomachs are grumbling so back to Oxford Street in search of food. Mary said Marks and Spencer have a food hall, so we go there thinking we’d pick up some cheese and ham and a couple of bread rolls and sit in the park and have a picnic, but of course, it’s been raining so we find a couple of ready- made sandwiches and a bottle of drink and sit in the food hall and eat.  4.30 pound for lunch for both of us. Not too bad.

The number 25 bus will now take us to Aldgate East, closest stop to Brick Lane, the curry centre of London. Oh, if only we hadn’t eaten already!! Several restaurants have their Tripadvisor awards in the window, and most have a spruiker out front trying to lure in the customers. Not being terribly hungry, but never ones to pass up a street food op, we follow our noses to an indoor market where all sorts of delish goodies are on sale. There are several undercover markets that we explore when the rain starts and we certainly aren’t going hungry.

We walk the length of Brick Lane and then realise it’s over 1km to the tube station, so make our way there and arrive back home around 6pm, weary but happy with our adventures.

After dinner and with a second wind, it’s time for a bit of night photography, I didn’t carry a tripod all this way for nothing! On the Tube and back to Tower Hill,

Tower of London by night

walk down past the Tower and to the pier, the best vantage point for the Bridge. And it’s seems to be a very badly kept secret. We get asked to take some people’s photos in front of it, then we watch a nice Asian girl take some photos of another couple “in front of the Bridge”, problem being that you can’t see the Bridge in the photos. I can’t help myself and I grab the guy and ask if he would like a photo of themselves in front of the Bridge, but with the Bridge showing. He checks his photo and realises they could have been standing anywhere! No Bridge in sight! They happily pose for a few more, then I finally get a spot to set up and snap away at the Bridge for myself.

Talk about timing, just as we leave, a coach load of terrorists, sorry, tourists arrive, cameras in hand and swarm toward the river. There’s quite a cold breeze blowing and as much as I’d love to go elsewhere and take some more shots, I realise that I’m out of puff and turn for home.