Hammersmith

Weather - Sunny, hot - Min 18, Max 29

Summer has arrived and it’s hot, especially in double decker buses. For our last full day of sightseeing we put our ‘hot weather plan’ in place which is the same as the ‘rainy weather plan’ and stayed indoors as much as possible. This involved going to covered markets and galleries.

We were keen to return to Covent Garden with its multiple markets. We took a double decker bus and as it’s a long weekend and it’s sunny there were people making the most of the good weather. The bus was packed and hot. At the bus station new signs had appeared overnight warning of the dangers of the heatwave.

Then another appeared on a London social media which was more apt.

The wonderful Covent Garden cafe where we had morning tea about a week ago had one spare indoor table so we were lucky. The cafe had more and different cakes from which to choose and Henk chose the Tiramisu whilst I chose the same as I had last time which was the Diplomat Strawberry Cream Cake. Needless to say we had a late lunch after consuming such delicacies.  

As it was hot the popular Covent Garden performers were under cover rather than in the sunny Piazza outside the church. This time it was a juggler performing with an enthusiastic crowd, 

From Covent Garden we walked the short distance to the National Portrait Gallery in St Martin’s Place. On entry we walked through a corridor to the galleries and we were surrounded by portraits. We immediately recognised Anna Wintour. It was her first painted portrait from 2009.

There were hundreds and hundreds of portraits from the 1500’s to the present day and many of the paintings had good background descriptions. This one is Charles II as a baby holding a small spaniel, a breed which later took his name.

From the Portrait Gallery we walked passed Trafalgar Square which looked completely different from last week and we caught another hot bus to the Tate Britain. 

We booked tickets online to see the Whistler Exhibition which only opened two days ago. The earliest available tickets were at 4.15pm so we first had a late lunch at the busy cafe. We had two hours to wait but Henk asked if we could enter earlier and we were allowed in. 

Both of us knew very little about Whistler except he painted his mother and the painting was the star of the movie, ‘Bean’ starring Rowan Atkinson. The exhibition is large and Whistler’s groundbreaking works of art have been brought together from all over the world. We didn’t know that whilst Whistler was born in the USA he spent his early life in St Petersburg and most of his adult life in London and France. 

The highlight of course was seeing the large painting of Whistler’s mother which is titled, ‘Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1 (Portrait of the Painter’s Mother). 

Just like ‘selfies’ today, Whistler was conscience of crafting a suitable personal image and his self-portrait as a young man shows a bohemian style adopted by him smoking a modern cigarette with a straw hat and a cravat. 

When we finished viewing the exhibition Henk was ‘arted out’ so he returned to the gallery cafe and I went on exploring. The gallery’s collection goes back 500 years so there was much to see from the Tudors to Bacon’s and Lucien Freud’s work. It would need many visits to appreciate it all. I loved this 1594 painting which had a good reason why he wasn’t wearing trousers.

When we were returning home via the underground the announcement said that our line, the major District Line, was suspended. Thanks to the app Citymapper Henk was able to work out how to get back to Hammersmith via the bus system. No reason was given for the suspension. 

For our last night of dinner we went back to our ‘local’ The Blue Anchor. Given it was a Saturday evening and it was sunny we booked a table online for 7.15pm. We were lucky we booked as this was the scene outside the hotel as we entered.

As we left the pub we started saying goodbye to our familiar surroundings; goodbye Hammersmith Bridge, goodbye to Capability Brown (surrounded by many hire bicycles) and on we went until we were back at our flat. It was a lovely evening along the Thames River and the tide was almost at its peak. It was a great last day of sightseeing in London. 

Tomorrow we pack and move to the airport hotel for an overnight stay for an early flight on Monday morning. 

We have had a memorable and contrasting holiday, firstly finishing the SW Coast Path from Minehead to Barnstaple which, in turn, completes the 1000kms that we have undertaken in four stages over 22 years and then three weeks in London. 

London has been amazing and we feel we have hardly scratched the surface. We wish we could stay longer as there is so much more to see and experience from the major historical attractions to interesting nooks and crannies. 

Our AirBnB at Hammersmith has been an excellent location because of its close proximity to the Underground and the bus station and the Thames Esplanade with its pubs and restaurants and scenic views. 

We will be back.

This now finishes this blog and I’ll hand it over to Henk along with the hundreds of photos I’ve taken so he can put it all into a photo book.

And finally, I did a summation of what we have seen and experienced so we can use it as a reference for future visits.

Markets: Borough, Portabello, Camden, Covent Garden, Jubilee, Brick Lane, Spitalfields

Main Attractions: Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Kensington Palace, The Globe Theatre, Chelsea and Belgravia in Bloom, Royal Albert Hall, Harry Potter ‘The Making of Harry Potter’, State Opening of Parliament procession

Churches: Southwark Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral, St Martin-in-the Field

Museums: Victoria and Albert, Science Museum, London Transport Museum, William Morris Museum, Sherlock Holmes Museum, Natural History Museum 

Galleries: Tate Modern, Tate Britain, National Portrait Gallery, National Gallery

Gardens: Kew Gardens, Hyde Park, Keningston 

Shows: Grace Pervades (The Royal Theatre Haymarket), Paul Simon (Royal Albert Hall)

Other: The Thin House, Maggie Jones Restaurant, Little Venice, Neal’s Yard, Harrods 

Hammersmith

Weather - Sunny and warm - Min 14, Max 28

The warm, sunny weather has arrived in London with the hottest day of the year so far. It’s just in time for another bank holiday weekend and there are warnings on the news about being sunsafe. We gave ourselves a rare morning off and caught up with the washing. 

At 11.30am we headed off to a wonderful restaurant called ‘Maggie Jones’s’ at Kensington. It was only a short ten minute journey from our flat via a double decker bus. I chose the restaurant because it’s been a popular one in Kensington for over sixty years serving old style English comfort food with rustic decor and has an interesting back story. 

In the 1960’s ‘Maggie Jones’ was originally called ‘Nan’s Kitchen’ and it was a favourite haunt of Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones who lived nearby in Kensington Palace. It was a place Margaret could go to be away from the press and the paparazzi. She always booked the table under the alias Maggie Jones so in the 70’s the restaurant changed its name. Because of its background it’s become popular.

The small two-storey restaurant is in a side street away from the busyness of the Kensington High Street. The owner kindly seated us at the front window where wheelchairbound Lord Snowden would dine on his favourite dish, Chicken and Artichoke Pie at the round, scrubbed wooden table. I sat where he would have sat and he would have good views of the passing street parade. 

As the restaurant had just opened for the day the owner had time to talk to us about Princess Margaret and the association with the royal family. She pointed to the booth where Margaret and her friends would dine and we could see why she chose the restaurant. The high-backed corner booth on the bottom floor was  perfect for privacy.

The menu is old-time English with some good choices. We chose two courses from the set menu for £39.95. I had the duck liver patê followed by roast pork belly with apple sauce with green beans and Henk chose the pork belly followed by the apple crumble. We both shared the patê and the crumble as the serves are humongous. The host obviously knew this as without asking she brought extra cutlery and plates. All was delicious, especially the crispy pork crackling. The plates are all mismatched and many were Spode.

The restaurant decor is rustic with hanging baskets, dried flowers, old dressers, empty birdcages, buckets and old gardening tools. We both remarked that there was not a speck of dust in sight.

The host brought out an old women’s magazine which an American diner had recently given to her. She was clearly chuffed at the generosity and was going to have the cover framed for the restaurant. The magazine was devoted to Margaret and even included her measurements. She clearly was tiny as a young woman. 

After lunch we were going to go to the National Portrait Gallery but we had stayed quite some time at the restaurant and decided to take the bus home. We had a very pleasant, fascinating long lunch, our bellies were full and we needed an afternoon nap.

At six o’clock we headed out to the Thames Esplanade to make the most of the sunny, warm evening. Everyone else had the same idea and were either in the parks soaking up the sun, dining at the outdoor areas or at the pubs. All the summer gear has now come out. The Thames River tide was high and there were many small sailing boats zigzagging across the river. 

We walked west and after 45 mins we reached Fulham Palace, the historic house of the Bishop of London. The position is currently vacant after the previous Bishop was appointed recently as the Archbishop of Canterbury. The palace was closed but we could walk around the stately buildings and the garden. 

We arrived back at the flat ready in time for the ‘1% Club’ game show at eight o’clock. Even after the 1.5 hour walk we weren’t hungry so we settled for yoghurt for dinner.

Tomorrow is our last full day of sightseeing before heading out to the airport on Sunday. 

 

Hammersmith

Weather: Initailly cloudy then sunny, warm - Min 12, Max 23

Our only plan today was to go to the Natural History Museum at South Kensington. It sits close to the V&A and the Science Museum. We arrived at ten o’clock and we continued our morning routine of coffee and a pastry to start the day. The exterior of the 140 year old museum is elegant and has been undergoing extensive renovation and looks like it’s almost complete. We saw it at its best in clear weather. 

Entry to the museum is free and is dramatic with the 25m skeleton of a Blue Whale suspended from the ceiling high over gallery. 

The oldest and most valuable fossil in the museum is a small bird-like dinosaur around 147 million years old.

Prior to leaving the flat we booked in for two paid exhibitions, ‘Our Story’ with David Attenborough and the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition. The Attenborough exhibition was a cinematic experience with 360° film footage surrounding us. It was narrated by Attenborough and lasted 50 mins. It was sobering viewing with the message that humans may be intelligent but not being wise in the treatment of our planet.

We had lunch at the museum’s cafe. It was a bit manic with a lot of school children and many were very young. I think the teachers need bravery awards. Whilst eating we organised our afternoon sightseeing. Following lunch we saw the international Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition 2026. This is managed by the museum and a record 60,000 entries were received from 113 countries. There were about five categories and the winner of the Behaviour Invertebrates category was a Western Australian, Georgina Steytler with her photo titled Mad Hatterpillar. 

We hadn’t heard of the hatterpillar which gets its name from the retention of the head skeleton with each moult and looks like headgear. 

From the museum we walked about seven minutes to The Thin House on Thurloe Square in South Kensington. It is a block of flats and only 1.8 metres wide at its narrowest part. It was built on an area of land leftover from the building of the tube in the late 1800’s. It is a triangular building so it does widen further down the block to 10 metres. 

From the Thin House we were only a ten minute walk to Harrods in Knightsbridge. We walked passed elegant, expensive houses with classical porches. 

On arriving at Harrods we headed to The Coffee Bar in the food area and had a later afternoon tea sitting on high stools around a bar area. It was all very stylish. We chose scones with jam and clotted cream and made half a Devon Cream Tea and the other a Cornish Cream Tea. 

The food hall was busy with both tourists like us taking photos and Londoners shopping for their groceries. There was a wide range of wonderful goodies including chocolates made on the premises, dried fruits and cakes. Having a late afternoon tea we knew we wouldn’t feel like a big dinner so we bought two Harrods beef salads specially packaged to take away. 

We arrived back at the flat at 4.30pm. It was very warm. For the first time today I didn’t wear my spencer or singlet and on tonight’s news it seems record temperatures may be reached over the next few days.