Everyone sleeps in but me but time is money so curtains wide opened to complaints from all but away we go. Out the door by 9, grab some Subway for the subway and off to Kings Cross to Platform 9 3/4.
We foolishly stopped at Marble Arch and got off the subway to try to get on our tour line bus but it didn't start for another hour. We grabbed a red line bus and hopped off only have to walk 30 minutes with the BPH (backpack from Hell) that seems to be attached to me for life jammed full of water bottles and things we NEED ( don't need) for the day.
We arrived at Platform 9 3/4 to a very long line of people posing for official photos. Thankfully we had some wifi and waited patiently for our turn. When we got our turn, we took family and individual photos and purchased 3 of them as they were quite good.
Kings Cross is a major train station with an information board filled with departures and arrivals. There are hundreds of people everywhere coming and going. It isn't very far from where J K Rowling has a flat that supposedly cost 65 Million Pounds...
After purchasing the photos, we walked around the Harry Potter store only to realize what an empire this has become. I cannot imagine how crazy the DisneyWorld store in Florida must have been at the height of the last book/movie. Now with the release of the new book, there is a renewed interest in Rowling work and revitalizing the merchandise market nice again. Simply astounding.
We had to get Starbucks for you know who (she who will not be named 😊 ) and crossed the street to the bus stop to wait a long time for our bus.
Then a decision was made to walk another 20 minutes to find another bus stop. Good thing we spent hundreds of dollars on transit to spend the entire day walking in circles to locate buses. 😒
After we finally found a bus we hooped on to rest our feet and headed around the downtown core for awhile we got off at Covent Garden.
Wow. Farmers market on every performance enhancing drug all at the same time. Blocks and blocks of vendors inside and out selling everything on the planet.
You name it. You can buy it here.
Highlights included a wooden stick you can hang 2-4 clay pots in (would be an amazing Mother's day art project), individually painted running shoes and greeting cards that open up to the most incredibly laser cut origami on the planet.
We wandered a bit and found some street performers who entertained us for awhile.
We left to wander a few back streets and find the oldest pub in Covent Garden - the Lamb and Flag. We met Krista's uncle Nick and wife Catherine for lunch. We had our own private reserved table on the top floor and had a lovely lunch catching up with them.
We left and went to Covent Garden to look at some art and part ways with them. We found a nice print of London to add to our dining room walls of travel.
We decided to head back to the bus and see the NE line before our bus priveleges were no longer valid. Along the way we stumbled on the Lion King theatre with a lottery of tickets for only 25 pounds. We entered all 4 names and came back 30 minutes later. Sure enough Krista won 2 but we needed 4. Upon discovering that there weren't any others available, we gave ours to a family of 8 that had won 6 and they were incredibly grateful. Good deed of the day done.
We hopped back on the bus and went to Trafalgar Square where we snapped a few photos of Canada House and some of the statues there.
We again had to walk a ton of blocks to Buckingham Palace gates as Krista thought we might be able to get photos of the boys with a guard but they were tucked way away behind fences. We would come back on Monday morning to the official Changing of the Guard.
We walked across Green Park (likely no relation) and to the tube. Everyone was was pretty walked out for today so we headed back to North Acton station.
We hit the bank machine and pulled out another 500 lbs ($878.50 CDN) for tomorrow's attempt at scalping some Soccer tickets for Arsenal Liverpool and grabbed a pizza at Domino's before heading to the hotel for 10pm.
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