London, Day 14 - 27th February 2016

Monument is a good area to stay. Monument itself is a business district, so it means that outside of business hours, we sort of have a part of London to ourselves. On a weekend day like today, it's quiet and peaceful. 

That also means there are no food stores open, but the tube is only a 3 minute walk from our hotel.

Before breakfast we did a short walk in the brisk wind to St. Paul's Cathedral, before crossing the Millennium Bridge (Yes! The Harry Potter bridge!) to South bank.

St. Pauls Cathedral

For breakfast I had arranged for us to meet with my not-so-cousin-cousin (my uncle's girlfriend's daughter) who has been living in London for the last 2 1/2 years or so. She met us at the Borough market, a food market at London Bridge.

The View from London Bridge

The market sold cheeses, wines, meats, craft beers, cakes, slices, pies and all sorts of multi-cultural food. I was tempted by a sweet smelling brownie and a goats milk hot chocolate. It was a good choice on such a freezing day.

The day only seemed to be getting chillier, so we all decided to head to head to the nearby historical 'The Old Kings Head' pub for a mid-morning warm up of the alcoholic variety, for Hugh and my cousin anyway. Being a non-drinker in London, I was discovering in the short 18 or so hours I had been there, was quite limiting. Non-alcoholic alternatives were hard to come by in pubs, so I got very acquainted with the green apple-bottomed bottles of Appetizers. The other alternative that they sometimes served for non-drinkers was what they called lemonade, but was in fact an a mind-numbingly sour tool of torture.

After this brief pause, we all walked back over London Bridge and made our way into the city. Sarah assured us that the walk was only '10 minutes or so', but we had to keep re-assessing this time-frame for the better part of an hour. It was actually a great way to walk into central London though, as we got to see quite a lot, and she kept up an impressive commentary of every landmark we passed.

The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

The aim was to get pub food for lunch - an absolute must on my list of things to do in London. This feat was easier said than done, as every pub we passed was bursting at the seams with long waits for tables. Probably another good hour we came across a pub, The Crown, that had enough sitting room for the 3 of us, and our pub lunch was served quite quickly (fish and chips for me!).

After lunch (which was quite late in the day) Sarah left and we made our way back to Monument, where we had a quick dinner at the Fire Hydrant (it took me about 20 minutes to work out the name connection) before heading back to bed.