We were up at about 08:00 today, rain and drizzle in the forecast for today, but I like it!
Yesterday had no rain and tomorrow is forecast to be free of rain, but we will see! It is cool today, about 55 degrees. I dressed in Levi's and a brown cashmere sweater with brown boots. Mark wore Levi's and a green flannel shirt. We ate breakfast and then called AZ cars. Aman picked us up and off to train station - 5 Pounds. Got our ticket for today covering train and tube.
We are off to the US Embassy to pick up our cards of introduction so we can go and sit in with Parliament on Monday before we leave. Then off to Westminster Abbey.
The trees here are all in full color, quite pretty, the weather cool. I like it very much.
Last night (Tuesday) we had a wonderful dinner with Shelly at the Maybury pub. I had lamb shank which was tasty but tough - not cooked long enough. Mark had fish and chips. I had 2 beers, more than in the last two months!
We took a fast train from Woking into the Waterloo station, non stop. I like it :)
We decided to go to the US Embassy first so we picked up the Jubilee tube and took it to Bond street and walked to the Embassy in the light rain. We found the South pavilion entrance and after a few minutes of confusion by the guard, we had our cards. They never actually let us inside the embassy. We stood next to armed guards with machine guns while we waited for our cards. They were very nice and we spoke with them a little.
We decided to go to Westminster Abbey first today, 2 stops back down the Jubilee line. No lines today, I assume due to the rain. Rain jackets and umbrellas worked great for us :-)
We used the Network rail card 2-for-1 entry ticket along with our rail ticket to get entry. We toured Westminster on our own for about 1 hour using the audio guide and map. At 14:00 there was a guided tour so we went back to the front to pick that up. It lasted about 1 ½ hours and took us into places not open to the regular tour. The tour was great and the guide did a wonderful job and had a great sense of humor.
After the tour we stopped into the cafe and had cream of celeriac soup, bread, hot tea and lemon cake. Leaving the cafe the rain has stopped now. It is about 16:00 now so we did not have time to go to the Victoria and Albert museum. So instead we went for a stroll across Westminster bridge and took some photo op shots, a must for this bridge :-)
Seeing the London Eye there we decided to go ahead and go onto the Eye today. Again no lines :-)
We had a car with only 5 other people. The sights were amazing even for a grey day. We used the National rail 2-for-1 entry ticket for the Eye also.
It was now about 17:30 so we decided to head back to Woking. Waterloo station is very close so we walked that way. We took what looked like a direct road and ended up walking through a graffiti lined tunnel under the Waterloo station tracks. There were three guys in the tunnel adding to their artwork. There was even a lounge in there called "The Vault".
Made it to the station and found the first train where Woking was the first stop. Leaving in 9 minutes, perfect timing! We found track 8 and boarded and found seats. Just in time because the car filled up with people and left exactly on time at 17:48.
Back at the Woking station we lookup up one of the recommended restaurants from Shelly, "Latino" a great Italian place. Google maps showed us it was just around the corner from the station so off we went. Wonderful Italian food! We had a great bottle of Barbera, some olives, Insulate Capri, spaghetti carbonara and spaghetti bolognese. For dessert tiramisu and creme brulle with raspberry and decaf cappuccino and Limoncello. he brought us 2 more drinks of Limoncello on the house.
We picked up a taxi at the station and headed back to Shelly's. 20:30 and home, what a great day in London!
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