London 2007 – Day 1
We made it to London, didn’t have any drama at the airport either. We got on the National Express bus and took it to Marble Arch, the area where our hotel is located. Henry found the hotel off of Priceline and it was amazing deal! We got to the hotel room and didn’t want to leave. It was nice to check into a hotel with a “queen” or “king” size bed and not to have two side-by-side mattresses. The mattress was also very comfortable. What we really wanted to do was nap, but what we did was go out and look for lunch and some leisurely sightseeing.
We decided on Indian food and Michael Caine‘s restaurant Deya was in our neighborhood. For our starters we got the grilled salmon and chicken tikka. Both were very good. Henry got a lamb platter and I got the goan prawn curry for our entrees. My goan prawn curry was good and came with a lot of side items. Henry’s lamb platter was not as good. But we did enjoy Deya. The odd thing about Deya, we got there around 1:15PM, left at 2PM and we were the only people in the whole restaurant.
After lunch we walked through Hyde Park, it looked nice, but nothing special. We were cutting through to get to the Museum of Natural History and Science Museum. They looked a lot closer on the map, not that it was really far away. Both museums were free. The Museum of Natural History was very very hot, there was no air conditioning. We stayed as long in there as we could, but after awhile we just could not bear the heat. We walked next door to the Science Museum where it was less hot, but still pretty warm.
Next stop, to the British Museum via the Underground. Beware that the Underground costs £4 one way ($8 USD!). We got the day passes for £5.10. It was a serious shock to Henry and he assumed we were just reading the chart wrong. At the British Museum, we saw the Rosetta Stone and parts of the Pantheon. Anyone know why they won’t give the pieces of the Pantheon back to Greece? There was a sign addressing this and said to pick up a leaflet for an explanation, except there weren’t any leaflets. Quite disappointing.
For dinner, we visited a pub, Porter’s. It was decent English food. The prawn and seafood cakes were very good, as were the fresh rolls. Seriously! After the bread we had in Rome, the rolls were delicious. I got the roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and Henry got the seafood pie with chips. Henry’s seafood pie was better than my roast beef and he was surprised not to find any bones. We both got St. Peter’s Brewery beer. I still do not like beer and find it really gross.