London Wanderings

We've visited various sites, but also been fairly leisurely. I've done a reasonable amount of maintenance (with Laurie's help!), which entails a few trips to the hardware etc - but always interesting! Here is a selection of images - I'll try to put notes before each one.....

Walk around Mayfair - guy having breakfast on left whilst driver waits in Roller...

View from bridge in St. James's Park...

Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) in all her restored glory - speccy...

Guess who....?

Duxford Air Museum - awesome displays - went into 8 planes including Concorde...

Many flying displays - these are the Swiss team....

Lots of Spitfires, Hurricanes etc etc ... (noisy!)

We visited Cambridge the next morning.....

We couldn't get into any colleges, like this one....

Came back to London via Audley End house and garden.....back view....

Front view....

H's of P in the evening after dropping off the car....

St Paul's Church in Covent Garden (1600's) by Inigo Jones...

Millennium Bridge and obedient swans.....

Contrasts in the City of London....

Portico of The Royal Exchange (now an upmarket shopping centre)....

We have visited several historic pubs - good fun....

Went to Apollo Theatre to see Upstart Crow - a bit disapointing but the theatre was great!

Very nice walk on Hamstead Heath and fantastic pub lunch at Hamstead afterwards...

Kew Gardens - the weather changed for the better.....

Royal Palace (little one) at Kew...

Fantastic new bridge at Kew - autumn colours now changing....

There were three big glasshouses to visit - this was the biggest....

Richmond is a fantastic 'village' in outer London - spectacular views over Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park. 

Richmond character....

Ted Lasso's pub and street in Richmond (used in TV show)

 

Bordeaux

I haven't posted for a while as we've been a bit busy and not doing touristy things regularly. Here are some snaps from Bordeaux on our way over to London. We stayed a night and had a good look around. 

Caves and Stuff

We have been busy getting to some great places. The pictures show what we've been up to. The weather has turned a bit wonky - but we've pressed on. I finally got into Abbey Saint Amand de Coly which was built in the 1120's (!) near Lascaux. The Lascaux IV cave was (again) awesome and the building an architectural treat. Reignac is a fortified manor house south of Lascaux built on a cliff utilising 20,000 year old troglodyte ledges. It's furnishings and bits and bobs are great fun and very interesting. Finally we woke to blue sky and went canoeing on the strength of it. A great 4 hours, landing a few times including for lunch at Roque Geagac and coffee/pastries at Castelnau. The Gouffre de Padirac was awesome. It's a huge chasm (gouffre) next to the town of Padirac. There are four stages: decent; walking a huge underground chasm; an underground boat ride (look closely at pic - bit fuzzy) and then a walk up various levels to amazingly huge stalagmites etc and suspended underground lakes (not sure if blue colour is lights or natural). Look carefully for stairs and people to get scale - its huge. Lunch outside was awesome (with another stand out Cafe Gourmand). It's not far from Rocamador, which we then visited in the rain - even more atmospheric. We walked from the creek at the bottom to the Chateau at the top. With the goffre and Rocamador, our phones tell us we climbed 52 storeys yesterday!