Wednesday 12 October

Sausage, fried egg, back bacon, mushrooms, fried potato, baked beans and toast

Today was a sightseeing day.  We got up late and had a full English breakfast at the Angus Steakhouse on Praed Street.  This fuelled us for the day.  We walked by the Serpentine across Hyde Park, in front of Buckingham Palace, across St. James' Park to Horseguards Parade.

From there we followed a group of schoolkids in green uniforms as far as Trafalgar Square, down the Strand to Fleet Street, past the Law Courts, pausing for a coffee, then into the Courtauld Gallery.  The bad part was that tghe second floor with the impressionists was closed until the afternoon but the good news was that entry was free.  This is a beautiful small collection, well displayed in exquisitely decorated small rooms.

The London buses still use roller destination blinds, even worse, one of the franchises is let to the RATP which operates the Paris Metro and they even use the RATP logo on the buses.  I was surprised to see some RM  buses in regular operation.  These have a back platform with no doors at all.

We paused for a pint/half pint of Bombardier Best Bitter which was very well hopped and then continued on to St. Paul's Cathedral which was closed for the day.

Fleet Street

Plan B was to back track to Portsmouth Street to find the Old Curiosity Shop, made famous by Charles Dickens.  This is an interesting building almost hidden away by the London School of Economics.

To get back to Paddington we used our Oyster Cards on the top deck of a No. 23 bus.  This was much cheaper than the Hop-on, Hop-off tours and we saw a great deal:
Charing Cross, Trafalgar Square, Regent Street, Picadilly Circus, Regent Street Oxford Street, marble Arch and St. Mary's Hospital.