Today was the first day that we have woken up to overcast skies and we should have known that was a sure sign that the day was going to go down hill fast, we decided that first we would visit St Pauls Cathedral, not a problem we thought as this building was just behind Gordon Ramseys restaurant and hadn't we been there the night before, we left the underground and as we all know that when you should turn right you should turn right but no we turn left and got thoroughly lost, in the end we completed a full circle, finally finding the church.
Inside of the church is breathtaking, I thought Westminster Abbey was beautiful but this cathedral is beyond words and definately my favourite, the artwork on the ceilings cannot be described, we were able to climb the spiral staircase (yes another spiral staircase) to what is called the whispering gallery, and I now know why they call it that as it is 30 metres from the cathedral floor and 257 steps to get to there and believe me when you get there all you can do is whisper as you are so out of breath, but there is more, you can go on further, another 376 steps takes you up to the stone gallery and wait there is more, another 528 steps and you get to the golden gallery which actually takes you outside of the building, and would you believe if you make it all the way to the top you receive a certificate, naturally we were not out to prove anything, 1st level was enough for us.
Leaving the church our next to do list was shopping on Oxford Street, not a problem you would think, back into the underground to catch the train to only hear over the loud speaker that due to industrial action the train line we wanted was not running, turn around and work out what line to take, which ended up getting on one train for a few stations, get off, walk through more tunnels to catch another train, finally getting to our destination, shopping heaven, a successful time was had by both of us, then we decided to move on to Convent Gardens, not a problem or so we thought, once again back into the underground only to find out the strike action now included another line, this time we headed for the information counter and a very lovely lady advised to take this train, get off walk through the tunnels to catch another line. And what station to get off. We get to Convent Gardens station and walking through the tunnels we realised that there were two ways of getting out of the underground, the signs along the way advised that the lift was the best option, but when we got to the lifts there was a hell of a line up, no way we are not getting back in line and headed for the stairs to only see the notice that states that there are 193 spiral steps to the top and we were 15 stories underground, no way, we headed back to the lifts to wait our turn,once at the top and wandering around we found Jamie Olivers Italian Restaurant and decide to have a late lunch there, the food was amazing.
Convent Gardens is a beautiful suburb, very quaint and old, a lot of little alleyways with old style english shops and pubs.
After a few hours there just window shopping it was time to head for the hotel, but as we had wandered all over the place we couldn't find the underground, so once again round and round in circles we went, yep eventually we got back to the hotel.
Today was a day that we could not seem to get our directions right and ended up going round and round in circles.