London Day 1 Somerset House

Having arrived at our apartment in the dark by bus, we now had the fun of navigating to the nearest tube station. Not as easy as expected as the signage was a bit strange. A short trip via the underground we arrived, reached the surface and walked along a major street to get to Trafalgar Square. I remarked that the street had a very "government" feel to it. Well so it should, it was Whitehall after all. Looking at the map later I realised I'd walked past the end of Downing St without noticing. At Trafalgar Square we met up with Lee's cousin and her partner Pat. From there we all walked over to Somerset House. This now holds the Courtauld Gallery, which was currently showing an exhibit of Impressionist and Post Impressionist works. After viewing some fine art we had coffee at the basement cafe before wandering off on a lane discovery trek. I had earmarked Cecil Court, a short street of antiquities bookshops. After finding it and perusing there a while, we wandered the area around Covent Garden (famous for the opera house there). There was debate whether an operatic busker was miming. We found a suitable place for early dinner - a steak house with a theatre menu. From there we walked a bit more, said goodbye to Delia and Pat then carried on to meet Barbara and two of her friends for drinks at Giraffe on Southbank and a lively discussion. Took the tube back to Canary Wharf station where we tried in vain to find a supermarket. Eventually a security guard pointed out the obvious - it was late, on a Sunday. Canary Wharf was not going to have a full scale supermarket open around there. Instead we found a nearby mini market and were soon home.