DBS Euro Trip 2013 - Portobello Market and Buckingham Palace

After our marathon Death March the day before, where we estimated we walked 7-10 miles that day, our final full day in London we bought a 1 day Underground pass.  Well worth the investment, especially because we used the heck out of it in that one day.

We got up and rode the Underground to the stop closest to Buckingham Palace called Victoria, just a couple stops from our hotel.  Our goal was to see the Changing of the Guard ceremony; DB~ was hoping to see the announcement of the new Royal Baby.

The Changing of the Guard ceremony is full of pomp, that's for sure.  Hundreds and hundreds of people cram against the fence on the sidewalks surrounding the huge roundabout outside the Palace.  At the entrance to the Buckingham Palace roundabout are two pillars, each inscribed with one of their main territories or overseas "subjects" -- we saw Canada and Australia.  I think these are the Dominion Gates.  There are other gates with other countries on them, but we weren't sure of their significance, such as India and Pakistan (perhaps former colonies?).

The ceremony itself involved guards riding in on horseback wearing their normal military uniforms, then going into a side area to change into their "beefeater" outfits.  When they reappear, there's a whole thing of marching and signaling to the current guards, plus measuring out the extent of their area to protect through marching.

Then...a royal marching band came in and started playing...."Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves, followed by some Lady Gaga (I think), and some other pop songs.  It was...odd, to say the least.  This was followed by some dirty and rude Indian guy sneezing on DB~'s back of her neck.  This was followed by DB~ telling me it was time to go.

Using the Underground again, we did a transfer to a second line to the Notting Hill station.  Not so secretly, DB~ hoped she would see Hugh Grant milling about randomly.  What we were there for was the Portobello Market.  We thought it would an outdoor flea market of sorts, with some boutique shops on the street.

What we got was a 2 mile long road (at least) jammed with between 10,000 and 20,000 people surveying all sorts of antiques, old books, clothes, food markets, and food vendors of food from all around the world.  Literally, all around the world.  Venezuela, Netherlands, Ghana, Morocco, Jamaica, India, and tons of other countries were represented.

We walked until we felt we saw it all, even though there was more road left.  I bought a couple of James Bond vintage edition books -- one for my father-in-law and one for my friend, the two biggest Bond fans I know.  DB~ got a cool set of old typography wooden blocks that she made spell "LOVE" on a wooden stand.  I think that's for me and not The Bachelor/Bachelorette series, but I'm not 100% on that one.  With all of the people jammed into this street and crowded against each other, I can't imagine how much merchandise is swiped during a typical Saturday.

After the Market, we rode the Underground to Westminster Abbey and walked to some other areas relatively close to our hotel.  That night we went up to Southbank to a restaurant called Giraffe, which was pleasantly good.  It felt a little chain-y and slightly like a London version of Cheesecake Factory, but the food was very good.  For our last night in London, we drank on a cool floating bar across the street from our hotel.  It was a renovated boat called the Thamsis Bar, decorated all colorfully and funky.  We were jammed on there with a bunch of other Brits, just chit-chillin' on a Saturday night.

London was a super cool town.  I would absolutely go back there, as I felt we only got the tip of the iceberg on the attractions.  We didn't really do an inside tour on any of the facilities.  Instead we just saw the exteriors on all of them.  There were lots of other restaurants that we wished we could have eaten at, as well.  Plus, we didn't see a show in the West End -- DB~ is a huge theater girl and I...love DB~ so I go to the theater with her sometimes.

DBS Euro Trip 2013 - Borough Market, London

There's a term among food blogs referring to the pictures as "food porn".  Well, while we were in London we went to the equivalent of a "food gangbang" in the form of the Borough Market.  It's located just downriver from the Southbank District, nestled in this section of open air warehouses and under a bridge.

We were greeted by a vendor selling hard cider, which we immediately purchased.  At 8% alcohol on a hot day, this immediately went to our heads after we chugged it a little too quickly.  The rest o the market was alcohol-free for us, but no less exciting.

When I ask DB~ what she wants me to pick up at Giant Eagle for dinner, it's mostly "chicken" or "fish" -- when the London version of DB~ could say she wants me to pick up a "zebra burger" or a "springbok burger" or a "kangaroo burger".  Among many other exotic cuts of meat at this one butcher stand.  The fish mongers were out of control as well.

Teas, coffees, desserts, fruit, breads.  And cheeses....oh, there were cheeses.  We stopped to get a sample from a nice Swiss gentleman at a stand.  He shaved pieces of a hard cheese right into our hands and we sampled it.  It was a hard goat's milk cheese with a finishing kick of black pepper.  It would be PERFECT as a finisher on pasta.  This cheese was called a Gesper Knoll and a small 3 oz ball of it was 28 Sterling Pounds (around $40 U.S.), so....yeah, it's 'spensive.

There were some many Londoners here for lunch.  What a lucky bunch of limeys to be able to just walk over for lunch to this worldwide smorgasbord.  There were massively huge skillets of paella and curries that were no lie at least 5 foot in diameter.  And they could barely keep them full the demand was so high.

For lunch, DB~ chose a small mushroom and veggie pie from a stand called Pie Minister (she laughed about this name all day long...I could say it to her right now and she would chuckle).

I had two different things.  The first were some vegetarian dumplings from a small Asian stand that was insanely busy.  The second was a pork and Stilton cheese burger on a Brioche bun.

Not only was this my favorite thing in London (tough call, because I loved London), it was my favorite thing on the whole trip.  There were things in the other cities that were very inspiring and impressive, but in terms of pure favorite this was it.

DBS Euro Trip 2013 - London Calling

I haven't written a lot this summer.  It's seems like DB~ and I weren't really doing interesting this year, but we were scrimping and saving every sheckel we could find to take our vacation to Europe this summer.  We decided to semi blitz Europe by going to London, Brussels, and Paris over a period of 9 days.  Eventually, our feet would tell us this would be a bad idea.

Once we got to Heathrow, the best and most economical way into town would be to take the Underground to London.  This was only 11 pounds (about $15 dollars, man the exchange rate sucks) and took us to the Vauxhall station just 10 minutes from our hotel.

The very first thing we see when we get topside from the Underground is the MI-6 building.  I mean...the first thing we see is James Bond's headquarters.  It's a very impressive looking building sitting right on the Thames River, even if the area directly around it is a little edgy.  Thankfully, our hotel area 10 minutes by foot was much nicer.

We were just a couple minute walk away from an area of town known as Southbank, which is a trendy/touristy area highlighted by the London Eye, the giant Ferris wheel that gives great views of London.  To stave off the jet lag, we set our stuff down in our room (thankfully it was ready at 10:30 am local time) and head off to explore.  The first thing we did was ride the London Eye.

The Eye is an engineering marvel in terms of its gigantic nature, but I'm sure that many Londoners consider it to be an architectural blight as it is very imposing on the surrounding skyline.  For as big of an attraction as the Eye is, the line moves surprisingly quick.  Each pod holds around 25-30 people and the Eye never stops moving.  It just slows down a little for the people to get out and then the next group gets on.  There's probably 30-40 pods so at any time there's 1000-1200 people on this thing.  The views really are spectacular.

After the Eye, we had our first meal at a real hole in the wall English pub called....The Hole In the Wall.  I went with Bangers and Mash (sausage and mashed potatoes), while DB~ chose an Onion and Cheese sandwich.  She doesn't eat onions back home, but chose to eat them here for some reason.  It was a nice intro to England and gave us some energy to get through the afternoon.

We crossed the Westminster bridge and headed towards Parliament and Big Ben (look kids, Big Ben...Parliament) and got to hear Big Ben chime on the top of the hour.  When you look at things in London (and later in Brussels and Paris) you realize the amount of detail work that went into construction back then.  It's hard to imagine that any building built today would have such hand carved details and gargoyles and figures to it.

After seeing some more governmental type buildings, such as 10 Downing Street from behind a security gate, it was around 5:30 pm.  We decided to eat dinner now, as DB~ was rapidly losing energy since we both only slept 2-3 hours on the flight.  Across from 10 Downing was a cool looking English restaurant with dark colored wood and brass called The Red Lion.  I had Fish and Chips and DB~ went with a Salmon Filet (she was being very picky about where she selected her Fish and Chips, for some reason again).

The fish was crunchy and the chips (fries, if you weren't sure) were fine.  The British were big on serving peas, so I asked for some other vegetable instead (I had peas with my Bangers and Mash).  It's the tempura batter on the fish that really makes it.  Not surprisingly, it was only us and 2 other American-looking couples eating dinner at this time.

On the way back to the hotel, about a 15 minute walk, DB~ was practically falling asleep as she moved.  We covered a lot of ground on foot, but that was nothing compared to the Death March we would go on the next day.