Gym's Ramblings: Keeping an Eye on London

Yesterday we went on a hike. We left the hotel around 10 o'clock after breakfasting in the room and and strolled out into the neighbourhood. Our planned route would take us by Buckingham Palace and to the London Eye. We didn't ask anyone how far it might be, we just started walking.

It was a pleasant morning and although the trees had shed their leaves the lawns are still green here and the joggers are still wearing shorts. As I made these observations, I recalled just having had to shovel the snow off my driveway in Calgary and it occurred to me that jealousy might be an appropriate emotion. We hoofed it down Constitution Avenue which draws you to the palace along a wide pathway with separate lanes for cyclists and horses. The only horseback riders in the park yesterday morning were a squad of police on beautiful horses that were unfortunately not in a good position to snap a photo of because the sun was behind them and had not risen over the trees. There were also many cyclists despite it being December. We came to the palace at the Canada Gates which lead to the Canadian War Memorial and which are across the street from the palace. We then crossed Spur Road and stood under the Victoria Memorial and stared at the palace for a few minutes, but nothing was happening so we proceeded down Birdcage Walk. We observed the very fat grey squirrels and the white pelicans as we made our way to Horse Guards Road a the far end of the park.

The Horse Guard building is pretty cool and we ended up there only because it was between us and the Eye which we could see behind it. The parade ground was where Henry VIII held his jousting tourneys and the buildings are guarded by very colourful mounted and dismounted members of the Guard. There is an archway through the centre of the building which conveniently kept us on line to our objective. We hung a left at the Thames having chosen to cross the Waterloo Bridge and proceeded to the Eye arriving at about 11 AM. We purchased fast passes which are really not that much more expensive and strolled right into one of the cars. The car was about a third full with approximately 20 people in it and we were the only ones speaking english. There were scandinavian, french and other languages being spoken and until then we had taken it for granted how close we were to those other countries and how easily Europeans can get around these days. The day was clear and we got good value for the price of the tickets.

On the way back we chose to cross the Westminster Bridge and passed Big Ben on the way back to St. James Park where I'd intended to retrace our steps back to the hotel. Little did I know that Mrs. Gym had a must-see shopping venue on her list of priorities that day. After a few minutes of pouting I decided I would accompany her on her mission since it would take us into an uncharted area and normally I don't mind getting lost. Linda will only hazard getting lost if there is shopping involved.

The target store was somewhere in Covent Gardens and the item was some kind of runners neck-warmer. I was still pouting as we passed Trafalgar Square on our way to the Cotswold Outdoors Store in the massive shopping area of Covent Gardens. The Boss strode into the district determined to conquer and amazingly she sniffed out the route and spotted the store like she'd been there a hundred times before. She bagged the coveted items in two shades which undoubtedly matched her other gear and then submissively handed the reins over to me to find our way out of the area. At first, we wandered around the shops in the area and enjoyed the pedestrian-only mall which is a really lively shopping destination. Then we wandered a bit in what we hoped was the general direction of home until we got a fix on a very reliable landmark, the Hilton hotel which is one block from our base-camp. That landmark guided us down Piccadilly to Park Lane and home.

When we got back I brought up Google Maps and it calculated that we had walked 6+ miles. I was surprised by this but the stroll was easy because we saw something new at every corner and the hike was not a slog by any stretch of the imagination. We had lunch when we got home, followed by a quick nap and then a workout so that Linda could get her 8 kilometres on the treadmill. I had to stretch my neck and back out and get some of my weekly program in but it was a pleasure because they have a beautiful spa and fitness facility here at the Four Seasons with great views of both parks. We slept well last night.