Olde London Town

After a couple of days in Cardiff, we took a Megabus over to London (less than £20 round trip!) and then we took a train from Victoria Station to my uncle's house. We hadn't seen my uncle and his family for three and a half years, so it was absolutely wonderful getting to spend time with them. His children have grown so much, and we had a blast hanging out and playing with them. My uncle and husband even had time to have a couple of jam sessions in the evenings. Seeing that ~ and singing along ~ was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip.

On our first full day in the city, we decided to do something different. Having been there numerous times before, we've already done a lot of the tourist-y destinations. Instead, we opted to do a cool sounding walk out of one of my uncle's books about the city: an old, historic city walk. We saw some sights that I had never seen before, and I'm so glad we did it.

We started at The Monument:

This building was erected to commemorate the Great Fire of London in 1666. It's 202 feet high, which is how far away it is from where the Great Fire broke out on Pudding Lane:

The Monument was also, unknown to me until I started climbing it, my hidden workout of the day: 311 steps to the top! 

However, once we got to the top, it was well worth it: 

After we had taken in the view at the top, we walked next to and then across the Themes. By that time, it was lunch time, so, using our handy dandy guide book, we found one of the oldest pubs in London to have a pub lunch before continuing on our "tour." 

Talk about comfort food! I love a good pub lunch. It's good, cheap food, and it's usually nice and hearty to help warm you up and keep you going, even if you're hiking all over London. 

Our walk took us by some amazing hole-in-the-wall places that we would not have known about otherwise. 

I had no idea there were still pieces of the old wall of London still standing:

There were so many hidden jewels down those side streets. 

Some of them were familiar. 

And some of them unexpectedly took my breath away.

I wish I had a picture to do this site justice. The above picture is a church that was bombed out in World War II. Instead of bulldozing it or trying to build it back up, they made a gorgeous statement about the resilience of the city and life springing from the ruins. They made flower beds in the exact places where there were pews, there's an aisle between the two sides of the church, and, instead of stone columns, they had roses climbing up wooden columns. I could not get enough of strolling down the aisle and taking in the peaceful, yet slightly melancholy atmosphere of the church. 

After the church, we went to an older section of the city: 

Where William Wallace met his grisly end.

One of the oldest corners of the city.

Oldest church in London

The oldest remaining houses in London ~ out of the grasp of the Great Fire of 1666.

Meat Market.

While in this section of the city, we met a sweet Cockney man who grew up in the area come talk to us about the history of this part of the city. He was in a long line of men who worked at the legendary meat market, and he even showed us where his dad and grandfather used to set up shop and the grooves from all of the carts over the years banging into the wall. It was very interesting, and he hung out with us during his entire tea break before getting back to work renovating the inside of the market. Talk about hospitality!

After the meat market, it was getting late, so we went back to my uncle's house for the night. The next morning, we went to one of the most moving museums I've ever been to: the Churchill War Rooms.