My goodness, we managed to pack a lot into our day and a half in good ol’ London-town. We had uncharacteristically good weather for at least half of it, too! You would suppose that after a 24 hour journey we would have been just shy of a coma, but we were running on adrenaline and determined not to miss a thing. Not only did we see the sights of Covent Garden Markets, Trafalgar Square, Regent and Oxfords Street (a little bit of shopping was on the agenda!), Park Lane, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Big Ben and Parliament House, The London Eye (didn’t bother going on it, though), across the Thames to Southbank, then back to our dwelling on Strand; but we also managed to fit in a damn fine lunch and dinner, too.
Lunch was at the fancy Cecconi’s, watching all the smartly-attired business people power-lunch. I had the crab ravioli, hubby had the rabbit ragu with papperdelle pasta. Delish.
Dinner was on London’s Southbank, at Skylon, located at Royal Festival Hall. I had the butter-smoked lobster, accompanied by a fennel, cashew and pear salad with a paper-thin tuille-like crispbread for entree, and the pork cheek (melt in your mouth!) with sweet onion puree, stuffed courgette flower and apple cider jus for main. Oh drool. And a selection of house-made sweets to accompany our tea and coffee. Double drool.
I also picked up a few souvenirs along the way — a two-colour screen printed tea towel, a beautiful Wedgewood tea cup and saucer, and some original etching artworks of London’s architectural icons.
We knew that our short stint in London would whet our appetite for more UK travel. We definitely want to return, to spend more time exploring the city and country-side. Oh to see the big estates from Jane Austen’s day! Mr Darcy is waiting for me at Pemberley, I just know it!
FYI, in the latest Pride and Prejudice film (the one with Keira Knightly) Pemberley is represented by Chatsworth House, which you can read about here.
