We got up and opted to walk to the Bath Farmer's Market instead of another English breakfast at the guesthouse. We walked around the city a bit before catching the 11am train back into London.
Bath is famous for their Roman Baths. Below is the free view of the most famous one. It was about $20 to enter and I got a good look at it from the pictures online.
The train took us into Paddington Station just West of London. I normally don't do this, but I was not feeling the desire to do heavy research into London attractions, so I just bought us tickets on the London double-decker bus tour for next 48 hours. I figured it was a good way to see a top level view of the sights without doing much more walking. They had a stop outside the train station. We got on and followed it around for an hour until it got somewhat close to our hotel on the East side of town.
We got to go over London Bridge and Tower Bridge. You can see the excitement in Amy's face to be sitting for a change.
We also swung by the Tower of London. This just a section of it below. Really the only shot I could get without 10 people in the foreground.
After dropping our bags at the hotel we walked down to the river. We stumbled into a pub and ended up staying for dinner. We finally tried the Bangers and Mash. I was commenting on how their diner sausages taste like American breakfast sausages and their breakfast sausages taste like American Dinner sausages, or something to that effect. I thought it was a very interesting observation. Then I looked down and I was trying to cut the sausage with the dull side of steak knife and knew that it was in fact not profound, rather I had once again overdosed on edibles again.
The next day we walked over to the Borough Market on the south side of the Thames River.
Our first stop was The Ginger Pig to try their World Famous Sausage Roll. We got 2 and that was really a bit much. We are not big meat eaters and this was basically a serving of meatloaf crammed into a pastry. It was good, just a bit glutenous.
Our next stop was the Black Pig where we had "The Best One." Another meat feast, but this was by far the best sandwich or meal we had all trip. I will post a video below with details. Basically Pork, and some other bit parts.
I had to get a shot of a this personal instagram photo shoot happening on the Tower Bridge. THis man was killin' it!
Included in our Hop-On-Hop-Off bus fair was a river cruise. We actually had a great guide who told us the all about the bridges and monuments. On the shore in the picture below is one of Cleopatra's Needles (The other is in NY). Amazing to think that just hanging out in plain site are these Egyptian relics.
Of course Big Ben and Westminster Abby made the list. We got back on the bus and finished the loop we did not do the previous day.
We closed out the tour by stopping at the British Museum. I was a little unsure if I wanted to visit this place. Kinda along the same lines of my refusal to go to zoos, I felt promoting a museum filled with objects taken from other countries by force was a little uncool, but my curiosity won out. I had just finished a book on the discovery and translation of the Rosetta Stone and that was my primary focus.
The collections from Parthenon of Ancient Greece and 1 dozen mummies from Egypt were, as I feared, a bit off-putting. I really see no reason why these should not be in a local museum. If you want to keep one mummy fine, but do you really need a whole room full? But, I did pay to go in, so I am no better than others for this tragedy.
We closed out the trip with diner at a Turkish restaurant by the hotel.
We had a great trip. Amy did excellent on the trail. I don't know if she is happy about that because now she may be dragged on another one.
My yard is littered with hiking trail signs now
Until Next Time,
Darren
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