London 2013: Day 2

We're having remarkably beautiful weather in in London! Today's highs were in the mid-60s, and it was bright and sunny. We walked around wearing light sweaters without jackets, which is pretty amazing.

We both managed to get a very good night's sleep of 10-11 hours. Clearly, we needed it, and we both felt much better today.

We had a nice breakfast in our hotel before heading out for our day. We took the Tube to Charing Cross Station, and took a very nice City walk for the next several hours. We walked out on the Golden Jubilee Bridge and took in the really gorgeous day. From here, we had a remarkable view of The London Eye, as well as Big Ben and Parliament.

Next, we went to check out the newly restored (and so historic!) Savoy Hotel, then made our way to the Somerset House where we went to see the fantastic Courtauld Museum. The museum had a special Picasso show, showcasing his works from 1901. This was very early in his career. He was only 19 years old (!) and had his first exhibition in Paris. The rest of the museum's collection was equally fantastic, with several works by Degas, Renior, Monet, Manet, Seurat, and other Impressionists.

As we walked down Fleet Street, we came across what would me my favorite random-finding of the day. The Australia House, which is the Australian Embassy, is the building whose front was used to portray the Gringotts Wizarding Bank in the Harry Potter films. :)

From there, we walked to the Royal Courts of Justice, where we were able to go inside, sit in during court session, and roam around the building for a while. The architecture is very interesting, as the architect had planned for the original design to be a cathedral. (sorry, no photos allowed inside.)

We walked down Fleet Street for quite a while, passing the original Twinings Tea House (established in 1706!), the Temple Bar Monument (the border of West Minister and the City of London), Temple Church, and other sites along the way. We went into a narrow lane to find Dr. Johnson's House. Dr. Johnson was a writer whose most famous work was "A Dictionary of the English Language". His house is now a museum, which we decided not to go into, but I did take a photo of the statue of Johnson's beloved cat, Hodge, who apparently, dine on oysters. :)

We had a late lunch at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese Tavern, very close to Johnson's House, where he dined often. It dates back to 1667, when it was rebuilt after The Great Fire, but it was a tavern since 1538. It was also a favorite of Charles Dickens, Teddy Roosevelt and Mark Twain, among others.

We headed back to our hotel after lunch to rest for a couple of hours before heading out to our first show of the vacation.