Day 03 - London
After breakfast we decided to walk the south bank of the Thames. Our first stop was the Tate Modern museum. Many of the museums in London are free, and this was one of them, so we decided to go in - not feeling compelled to spend a huge amount of time if the kids weren't interested. However, we were pleasantly surprised and could easily have spend even more time than we did. The exhibits were a mixture of paintings, and various types of contemporary art displays, with interactive media exhibits that kept the kids interested. Kristie was happy to snap a photo of a Picasso piece and I enjoyed the work of Jenny Holzer who displays statements designed to elicit emotion from people. One room just had page after page of phases and statements wallpapering the room, but she also displays messages in lights and many other forms.
Before we left the Tate Modern, we went up to a viewing gallery on the roof for a view over London, which was good, but the kids found a playground outside the museum that had triple swings in it. Needless to say on leaving that's where we spent the next half an hour.
From the Tate Modern it was on to the Borough Markets. It is a pretty place, mainly tucked under the train lines approaching London Bridge. There was all sorts of wares on sale for the unsuspecting tourist, but its mainly a food and produce market. We bought some delicious Spanish Nectarines, and saw some not so appealing produce in the form of dead animals, ready for the cooking. Rabbits, Partridges and even a whole shark in a seafood stall. The kids were a little grossed out to see/think about our food once being live animals!
After the Borough Markets we stopped into the Shard before deciding that we might return late in the afternoon so that we could see London by both day and night. But not this afternoon, as we have Matilda tonight. We continued along Southbank passing the old PwC office at London Bridge that I had worked in before, then onto a new precinct by Tower Bridge, housing the likes of both EY and PwC offices. It was quite a nice modern plaza - complete with fountains and plenty of outdoor seating to take in the Thames, Tower Bridge and the Tower of London on the other side of the river.
Getting late in the afternoon, we walked across Tower Bridge to the Tower of London, but given that I had been into the Tower of London and seen the Crown Jewels before, and no-one else was particularly interested this late in the day, we jumped on the Tube to headed back to the hotel for a short rest before dinner and the theatre.
A quick dinner over the road from the hotel at an Italian cafe and then we walked to Seven Dials in the West End, to the Cambridge theatre to see Matilda for the 4th time. We were told before the show started that more than half the cast was new and had just completed preparing for their roles, and Matilda herself was performing the lead for the first time. We thought she did pretty well considering, but did notice a couple of times she was almost singing faster that the music was playing. Kristie and I nodded off a couple of times before intermission, but as usual, by the end of the show we all (except Madi who slept through the second half) had smiles from ear to ear. It is such an uplifting - good triumphs over evil, story that you are left wanting to see it again and again.
After the show we walked back through Covent Garden over the bridge at Embankment to the hotel, where we were all asleep within minutes of our heads hitting the pillow.
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