Terracotta Army

Our day out to London got off to a good start when the train pulled into King's Cross ten minutes early.  That made up for the horrible tea they had been serving!  We took a quick peak at the newly refurbished St Pancras which we were impressed by before heading for the Underground into the centre of London.  We've done the tourist things many times before so there wasn't much we really wanted to do but we did want to see what Trafalgar Square looked like with the new pedestrianised section.  The difference was amazing.  I wasn't the only one taking pictures!  We had a short wander round the National Gallery and stopped for lunch in the Cafe then took a walk across Trafalgar Square - checking out the latest work to fill the unoccupied plinth, not to our tastes, I'm afraid.  Getting across the road to reach Whitehall was a nightmare.  It seems a lot of people are happy to pay the congestion charge!  And as it's been awhile since we've been in London we'd forgotten just how crowded it gets.  A walk down Whitehall took us past Big Ben looking very clean  and onto the Embankment for a look at the Eye and a short sit down.

We took a different route back to reach a station on the line we wanted and found some peace and space away from the crowds and horrendous traffic on The Mall even if the sun was in our eyes.  A walk through Green Park, looking just as lovely with the leaves off the trees took us to the station and it was time for our visit to the British Museum.  We were a little early and sat in the Great Court which is a fabulous place especially the roof.  Then finally it was time to join the queue and enter the exhibition.  It was as amazing as we'd expected.  There were some wonderful exhibits and to see the statues up so close and looking so fresh and lifelike was a great experience.  Then it was back to Piccadilly for some shopping at Fortnum and Mason before heading for the Underground in the rush hour where for a minute the platforms were so full they wouldn't let people go onto them.  When we got down the escalator all you could see on one platfrom was a sea of people so if it had been even more crowded than that I was glad we'd missed it!  We weren't so lucky with the train home - ten minutes late in but finally we were back, exhausted but having had a wonderful time at the museum if not in among the crowds!

Some more pictures of our day in London are here

tags: london  st pancras  trafalgar square  national gallery  big ben  the london eye  british museum  terracotta army  pbase  

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