London: Day 4
by Vincent | May 15, 2015
After the rainy day yesterday, today turned out to be just a gray day with some fleeting glances of sun.
Host Cafe in St. Mary Aldermary church
First things first: coffee. We heard about a cafe called Cafe Below and we wanted to go there for coffee/lunch, it was nearby St. Paul’s cathedral.
Well today we decided we didn’t want to walk all the way to the tower bridge district (central London) so we took the tube from Sloan Square up to Mansion House station. When we exited the station we saw a church and there was a sign that said “coffee.”
We assumed it was the cafe we were looking for… we didn’t realize it wasn’t until we had ordered coffee and then looked around — we weren’t below anything. We actually were in Host Cafe in the St. Mary Aldermary church. The coffee turned out to be “divine” just like was advertised. The orange cake was also fantastic.
We were loving the whole church cafe scene in London — France should get on that, there’s so many churches, it’s a pretty sweet place to have coffee.
Monument
A short walk away from the church, we headed to The Monument. Monument is a dedication to the Great Fire and you can pay an unreasonable amount to walk to the top of it. So of course we didn’t. But we took some pictures.
All Hallows at the Tower
Another church, this was nearby the tower of London and we had read it had some cool crypts. It did.
That barrel was on Shackleton’s ship to the Antarctic. Neat!
Tower of London
The Tower of London is one of the prime attractions in London and with that reputation comes a premium price tag to match. It is no less than $37 per person to enter the Tower. If you visit London I hope you’re made of money because this place is expensive. Needless to say, we skipped the inside of the tower and instead walked around it and admired the view. One day we’ll come back and we’ll go inside, but as our trip is winding down, we opted to save instead of spend.
Tower bridge
Close to the Tower of London is the Tower Bridge. This impressive bridge dominates the riverview with its contrasting blue against grey stone.
Leadenhall district
Since it was lunch time, we wanted to actually go to Cafe Below. So we headed from Tower Bridge back through the financial district of Leadenhall towards St. Paul’s Cathedral.
The Leadenhall district is filled with towering skyscrapers including the namesake itself, the so-called “cheese grater” shown here from below.
We also walked through a neat arcade.
Cafe Below
It was a long walk from Tower Bridge but we made it in time to the Cafe Below before it closed. Here’s what you should know if you plan to visit: dishes go fast. We got there an hour and a half before closing and one of the primary dishes was out. We still got what we wanted but when some other folks were seated next to us 20 minutes later, most of the dishes were gone.
The food was really good, I had BBQ pulled pork shoulder with potatoes (on the right) and I loved it. Celeste had a butternut squash and red pepper curry which she also loved. The price was just a little higher but it didn’t break the bank — I even had a beer with my meal. It was a good price for the quality of food.
St. Paul’s Cathedral & Millenium Bridge
From the Cafe Below we headed towards the cathedral close by. It featured some surrounding gardens where people were enjoying the afternoon sun. The building itself was impressive but we did not go inside — again, everything in London is expensive.
Directly across from the cathedral was the Millenium Bridge which you might remember from Harry Potter when the Death Eaters snap it. In real-life though it was in one piece, safe and sound, with hoards of people crossing it.
We did not cross it, though we did take some photos of it.
We opted to pass underneath and keep along the river as we made our way towards one of the big markets in London — Spitalfields.
Spitalfields Market
We arrived at Spitalfields near closing time but it didn’t appear anyone was packing up. We walked around and admired the stalls, filled with stuff we couldn’t bring with us. This is one of the biggest problems we ran into while in Europe — the markets are great but there’s no way to bring home anything we’d buy! On day 3 we had bought some souvenirs when we went to the Crypt cafe so we didn’t pick up anything at Spitalfields.
Instead after having walked so far that day, we sat on a bench and connected to the free Wi-Fi. It was fast. So we sat, people watched, and caught up on the news of the day. We sat there for maybe an hour using the free Wi-Fi, reading articles, and just relaxing.
Finally, it was time for dinner.
Ted’s Fish & Chips
We headed back towards Tower Bridge because this whole time in London we had not yet had fish and chips. This was unacceptable. We had read most of the fish and chips places were by the Tower Bridge area so we headed back there. In the morning it had been busy but nothing like in the evening. Even though the Tower of London was closed, there were still tons of people around the grounds and river walk.
We had read about a place with good fish and chips called Perkin Reveller which was next to the Tower Bridge. We found the place and also discovered it was insanely priced — 18 pounds for a fish and chips. No thanks.
So we opted for what most people seemed to be doing around us, and we headed to the little stand called Ted’s Fish and Chips. It was as you’d expect a fast food stall to be: average. Still, the fries (chips, sorry) were good and the fish was cooked, so… we met our requirement. We sat on a bench overlooking the river and watched people endlessly take selfies. One couple, mostly the lady, probably took 300 selfies in the same general area within our view. One gentleman asked me to take a picture of him which I did happily. There certainly is a wide variety of cultures that come to visit London, it was pretty cool to watch.
That concluded our day and we headed back on the tube to our apartment, marking only our second ride of the day. Needless to say, this trip we had our FitBit friends beat. Booya!
PS. Want anything from the shop?
