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