We started the day by going out in search of a towel. We had both dyed our hair before leaving and Victoria worried about leaving dye on the Airbnb towels, so we hit up a Primark. Victoria’s friend who works as a flight attendant had said it was a good place to get supplies.
We had a quick coffee at Cafe Nero and headed over to the mall to find the towel. There was a small market outside made of vendors in tents. Inside it was… a typical mall. We found a towel and a few more odd bits and bobs inside.
We picked up some apples from the outdoor market and tried Windsor apples for the first time. They are pretty good! Very juicy.
After a short pause in the hotel to write yesterday’s blog, we headed out toward Leicester Square on the Picadilly line. This train seemed to be one of the trains which exemplify, “Mind the gap.”
Some of the trains are at a different height from the platform, enough to be a significant step down when entering the train.
There was a lot to see at Leicester Square. We hit up Chinatown by accident, with the intent of getting some fried chicken at Good Friend. It turned out to be Taiwanese, and delicious popcorn chicken as well! We drank bubble tea and wandered the street for a short time on a roughly direct path toward the British Museum, stopping only to check out a comic book store (“Forbidden Planet”) on the way.
The buildings all seemed old and full of history. We walked through the theatre district on Shaftesbury Avenue. This was remarkable to us as our friends had once lived on Shaftesbury in Toronto. So we took a selfie under one of the signs to send them.
One of the theatres had a giant display for a Harry Potter show.
Once we arrived at the British Museum we were struck by the sheer scale of it. It is truly massive, and quite a sight to behold inside and out, with it’s stone columns and vast corridors. The organic styling of the skylight around a giant circular center makes for great selfies.
I took too many photos inside and I’ll leave you with a taste of them here.
We stayed until closing time, which is at 5:30PM on a Thursday apparently. So before we were rushed out we tried to find the Royal Game of Ur replicas in the gift shop but were informed they hadn’t made any new ones for a while.
Victoria was a little sad, but we left to head back home. Our legs were aching from all of the walking we had done so far on this trip. Apparently we had surpassed the WHO recommendation for “weekly active minutes” for the week by Tuesday!
On our way back we took a diverging path and happened to find the Phoenix Garden by accident but it appeared to be closed.
Walking further we ended up at Picadilly Circus and I took a panoramic shot.
We decided to take in one more sight before going home, and stopped in at Trafalgar Square. Again there are many photos taken here. There is a lot to take in! Definitely one of the more touristy destinations. We also didn’t realise that Canada House was right beside it.
We had dinner on our way home at Rooster Piri Piri. I didn’t hear an option for spice level so I was given medium, which as it turns out is very mild. Lightly zesty at most. The sauce was delicious though and they made a mistake in our order and we ended up with free yam fries, so that’s a plus!
Wearily we returned to our hotel, grabbing some ice cream bars on the way to cap off an excellent day. I took a muscle relaxant and slept well for the first time in the whole trip!
