"By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show." Samuel Johnson

We were sad to leave Paris but London beckoned so we caught the Eurostar from Gare du Nord after going through customs (French and UK) at the train station. The train trip takes only two hours from Paris to St Pancras Station in London. It's an enjoyable trip with a lovely light French-style lunch served along the way. When we arrived we thought we should get a London cab experience and our cabbie was almost a stereotypical Londoner in some ways, in other ways he was 'orrible an almost put us off the idea of London altogether. "You'll find there are very few real English people in London madam. I'm not being racist, but.." Yes, he was one of those! He spent the whole trip from St Pancras to Earl's Court telling us how terrible London and Britain were and how we should be careful all the time because of all the criminals "'oo are mainly Afro-Caribbean sir - if I say that, I'm called a racist, but I'm just saying it 'ow it is. I want to emigrate but me wife said no. That over there is 'yde Park madam, an Englishman was stabbed by two muslims there the uvver day, 'e's figh'ing for 'is life now. The problem wiff this country is that no one wants to work because you can live like a king on the dole. A family of muslims claimed they was refugees and were put up in a palace while a ve'eran of Afghanistan, wiff no arms or legs, 'as to live on the tenff floor of a block of flats wivout a lift. It's the troof, it was in the paper madam." Turns out, he's a member or at least a sympathiser of the English Defence League, a crypto-fascist racist organisation.

So, by the time we got to our digs (above), which are apartments rather than an hotel, we were as miserable about the prospect of London as he was!
But we still set off the next day (Tuesday) for some adventures, even though we both were thinking that we'd much rather be back in gay Paree. I thought we should get the Underground at Earl's Court and get off at Piccadilly Circus. Neither of us has been to London before but I knew PC was famous. The train ride was good and the underground system is as easy to use as the Paris Metro; we bought an Oyster Card each so we could use the trains and the buses without any hassle. It's a great system which we should have in Sydney but the government keeps stuffing it up.
So we wandered from Piccadilly and came across a lovely park: St James's Park and immediately Annette was completely captivated because of all the cute little squirrels running around the place; they're quite tame too:

It's a beautiful park, full of lush greenery and huge trees:

And tantalising views of fantastic-looking buildings:

And suddenly we realised that Buckingham Palace was on the edge of the park!

And there was pomp and ceremony going on all over the place:

Queen's Guards have to stand out in the sun and not move.


Net got friendly with some bobbies at the palace.


The Palace's gates

But the Household Cavalry was even more impressive and gave Net goose-bumps:

They line up in two groups facing each other, the horses and rider keeping completely still until the order is given to ride off.
Net managed to strike up a friendship with one of the young Guards, though he was slightly reticent:

Then we walked up to Trafalgar Square, a happening place, with Nelson's Column, huge lions and the National Gallery:

The National Gallery is mind-blowing for an art freak like me. It's got a better collection of paintings than the Louvre and isn't nearly as big or confusing. I found myself sitting in front of Titians, Rembrandts, Tintorettos, Botticellis, Leonardos, Caravaggios, Rubens, Holbeins, Van Goghs, Veroneses and works by hundreds of other great painters and there was hardly anyone else around to distract me!

Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne, just one of the many staggering artworks at the National Gallery.

London is very different to Paris but they're both absolutely amazing places. London seems much busier and more business-like and the traffic is crazy. There are red double-deckers everywhere and we went on a great tour of the city at the front up the top for the a small fee taken off our Oyster card:

We lunched at English pubs on sausages and mash with mushy peas and I drank lots of beer where I'd only drunk wine in Paris. When in Rome .. hang on, that's later...!

The Houses of Parliament on the Thames are awe-inspiring:

The Burghers of Calais by Rodin

And Westminster Abbey is just across the road:

And the London Eye is on the other side of the Thames:

The next day we wore ourselves out even more, taking in St Paul's:

And divers other sites, including the Royal Courts of Justice:

Australia House:

And even Samuel Johnson's house near Fleet Street; it's four stories high and gives you a great glimpse of 18th century urban life in London:

We even tried shopping at Harrod's but found it too labyrinthine and luxurious for us common Penriff folk so we thought we'd chill out in Hyde Park and Kensington gardens:

Once again, we'd overdone it and walked scores of kilometres and taken many buses and tubes.
Tomorrow we leave old London Town and set off for Barcelona!