Leanne and I

Leanne and I

Monday, November 2, 2015

Bond and a walk around town

This week a few of the Friday pub guy met for a James Bond day. It ended up that there was 6 of us and first stop was the Bond in Motion
  http://londonfilmmuseum.com/home/
It had most of the cars from all the movies and some scale models. It was interesting to see a Honda ATC-90 and a Ski-Doo snowmobile that were used in the filming. My boys had owned both models, and i think they drove them just as hard as in the movies. They also had two cars from the latest movie.
Next stop was lunch at a local hamburger shop. Most of the burgers in London are not all that good, these were great. The must have the meat shipped in from the states. After that it was on to the movies. Here in London when you buy your tickets you pick where you want to sit. There is a section in the middle that has wider and more comfortable seats, these cost more than the regular seats.
The movie was good, your typical Bond flick, he drives fancy fast cars, kills the bad guys and gets the women at the end of the movie.
After that we went to the Duke's Hotel  https://www.dukeshotel.com/dukes-bar/
the bar was a frequent stop for James Bond author Ian Fleming and where the famous "shaken not stirred" line came from. The place was packed so we moved on to an american hotel/bar that was around the corner and had our martini's.

Leanne took Coach for a long walk on Saturday morning, all around Holland park, Kensington garden and Hyde park. After she got home we went to a french restaurant for breakfast. The hollandaise sauce on the eggs Benedict is the best we have every had.
Near the restaurant is a roof garden we have been meaning to go to,  http://www.virginlimitededition.com/en/the-roof-gardens
Its now owned by Sir Richard Branson so there is a little advertising with it.
It was built in 1938 and sits on the 6th floor of an office building, there is also a dance floor and a restaurant on the 7th floor. And it does have some wild life, ducks and pink flamingos.


After we left the gardens we picked up Coach and went to another walk of London.  This started near the Thames river and ended up near the theater district. First stop was the Roman baths
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Baths,_Strand_Lane
seems like the Romans were putting baths in every town around here----must have been a smelly bunch. 

From there it was on to look at a gas lamp, not just any gas lamp. This lamp is the last one that uses sewer gas for the fuel. Its on 24 hours a day. I know your day is complete just know this.



Fro there we went to the Embankment park,
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Embankment




lots of statues of men we didn't know


At the end of the Embankment park was the York water gate. This was on the edge of the water and was the entrance to the York house. It was built in 1626 and now sits 165 yards from the river Thames.

http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazine/DestinationsUK/York-Watergate/







Behind this and to the left is the oldest wine bar in London,
http://gordonswinebar.com/
seemed like a good place to stop and take a break.




Just down the street from the wine bar was the Ben Franklin House

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin_House
He lived and worked there for 16 years.


From there we walked down to Trafalgar Square, 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafalgar_Square

this is where it got interesting. It was supposed to look like this



But it looked like this



The rugby finals were being shown on a few big screens that they had set up. The place was packed as was the rest of the area we were trying to get to. We decided to end our walk, Leanne took Coach home and we met up at an area with a few restaurant we had noticed the week before.
These restaurants were down a dark alley, there was an Italian, French, Iranian, Turkish, Indian and a few British pubs.  We picked the Turkish and will go back again. 

Sunday Lee went on her morning walk, it was a bit cold and foggy.




of course there will be a picture of Coach.


This is a great shot of the Albert Memorial in the fog.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Memorial




They did  a 5 3/4 miles walk. When they got home, Coach ate and went right to sleep.


Today I saw the Queens Guard all dressed in red




Last week Leanne saw them in black.


This is the history about them,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Guard






that's it for this week.













3 comments:

Leanne and Don, across the pond said...

leave your comments

Anonymous said...

test

Unknown said...

I love seeing London with you guys! And I'm wondering about the oldest wine bar. Sounds like a good place to me! Are there any local wines? And I loved the foggy pictures, especially the one of Coach. I miss him too.