The driver, whose name was Adrian, picked us up at Paddington station right on time, as planned. He had a really nice clean vehicle and was eager to show us many places off the beaten track and ducked and dived down lots of little backstreets along the way to avoid traffic.
One of the highlights for us was Postman‘s Park which is an old London City. This is behind the old Post Office and had been heavily bombed during World War II. At that time, it was a graveyard and many of the original headstands have been kept around the edges of the park. There is a wall created by a well-intented individual, to show tiled dedications to people who died performing deeds to others. The language used is very colourful and occasionally humorous however it is no longer updated and there is plenty of room for more tiles in the future.
Nearby is remnants of the old Roman wall which has been built around with modern buildings which makes for an interesting contrast.
Other than that we were pointed out special building and shops of interest, many Gentlemen’s Clubs where the rich and famous go. These buildings are well known to taxi drivers but remain largely anonymous for the general public. Adrian shared many interested stories about how each building and club came to be.
We also visited St James's Park, which used to be a private park shared only by the residents and businesses surrounding it but is not open the public during daylight hours.
Just after midday our tour had finished, and we were given an option of where to be dropped off. I decided I wanted to see BMW Park Lane to look at the motorcycles. On the way there we did pass many sites including Parliament and through Westminster, past the Abbey, and on to Buckingham Palace which was nice to see again. The roads were very busy and as we approached Park Lane there were motorcycles everywhere completely jamming the roads. By chance, today there was a protest ride where an estimated 7,000 to 11,000 (depending on which news article you read) motorcycles were descending on London, to ride to Parliament starting from Park Lane. Adrian was able to drop us off in the back Street just behind BMW where we said goodbye and from there I went to take photos of the motorcycles while Helen waited on the corner looking at real estate agent windows (dream on Helen!). I took the opportunity to ask some people why they were protesting and learned about Soldier F who is being charged related to events in Northern Ireland on Bloody Sunday, and that a good many of the motorcyclists there were ex-military riding in support of Soldier F. A helicopter hovered above us and we may well have been on the televised news that night.
After that excitement and a quick nosy at BMWs, we walked back to the tube and found our way back to Paddington station where we met up with a friend of Helens who recently moved to London. Here we chatted for about an hour for coffee is and caught up on news.
Next we went to Piccadilly Circus where we saw a Big Ben made of Lego and had a light dinner at TGI Friday’s. By now my jetlag was catching up with me and we had to wake up at 4:30 in the morning for a flight to Barcelona, so it was time to return to the hotel to pack our bags and go to sleep.
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