When we first moved to London, Heather and I both made a list of the top 10 places we might like to visit while we were living in Europe. Copenhagen made our list.  Now, we’ve been in London for a year already and we are running out of time to visit all the places we’d like to. This trip ended up being a solo trip for me.  Heather is heading out on a 10 day business trip next week and offered to give me a weekend away from the boys to regain my sanity before the boys and I hang out together for 10 days without Mom.

I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed wandering aimlessly around Copenhagen, discovering the city on my own time.  The first thing I noticed was that the Danish are the first people I’ve run into who seriously don’t seem to mind or even notice that it’s cold. I assume it’s because the weather is always that way and they are used to it. I wandered down a major shopping street on Friday evening when it was below 0F and there were tons of people out shopping and hanging out on the street, not even dressed appropriately for the cold.  Compare that to London, where everyone breaks out their winter parkas as soon as the temperature dips below 50F.

The trip to Copenhagen from London is straightforward, like reaching many cities in Europe. There are direct flights from Heathrow to Copenhagen, which take about 1:30. The arrival terminal has a distinct Scandinavian feel, wood floors, modern, minimalist furniture. I took the Metro for a 15 minute ride and I was in the heart of Copenhagen, Kongens Nytorv (Kings New Square). By mid afternoon, I was in my hotel room in the Nyhavn area of Copenhagen.

I started my official site seeing on Saturday morning with a nice 6 mile run from the hotel around the lakes.  It was a great way to see the city. I managed to see the Royal Danish Guard Fife and Drum band practicing early in the morning. It was a very cold morning, while running around the lakes I saw several swans breaking the ice as they tried to swim along. I had read that a lap around the lakes was a popular running location and they were right. I definitely wasn’t the only crazy person out running at 8AM on a Saturday in freezing conditions.

The other highlight of Saturday was my discovery of the Christiansborg Palace and the ruins underneath which are open to the public. I discovered this while walking towards the History Museum, also worth a look for a quick lesson in Danish history.  The ruins are accessible from the cellar of the palace and it is a very well put together exhibit describing how the original castle was built by Bishop Absalon in 1167.  They also point out that the current palace is the 3rd Christiansborg Palace, the first two having burned to the ground over the past several hundred years. Both burning due to malfunctioning wood burning stoves.

I started my 2nd and last day in Copenhagen with another run. This time my goal was to see the “little mermaid” statue, which is ranked as the top tourist attraction in Copenhagen. I had started walking towards the statue late on Saturday but decided I wouldn’t make it before it got dark. I decided it would make a nice run destination.

My other big find on my 2nd run was the Kastellet, an old fortress shaped like a pentagram.  I noticed a number of people running on the ramparts and decided to check it out. It made for an excellent run (in the light snowfall).

My final site seeing was a canal boat cruise before heading to the airport for the flight home. Here are few photos from the cruise, including the new Opera House.

We are planners. We tend to plan way ahead so there are no surprises. This actually helps with small kids – so when things go wrong, you always have a sippy cup full of water and box of cheese crackers to keep everyone happy. But, we simply didn’t plan for this trip. We booked the cruise on a whim with minimal research. The Virgin Holidays sales guy told me the boat would sell out because we’re trying to book over term break. The cruise ports of call looked interesting, the sales guy said there were kids clubs and we were assured of babysitting.  Since Kevin was off school for 10 days, we decided to book 2 days in Rome before our 7 day cruise. We booked a hotel room and a shuttle from the airport but gave little thought to what to do and see with our 2 days in Rome. 

I flew home from a Redmond, WA business trip 12 hours before we flew 2 time-zones in the opposite direction. So, I was useless in the preparations and also too tired to be useful the first day or two as well. Dave and I were both sick (my sinus and his stomach) and the kids were so tired they behaved like little drugged zombies (which was actually helpful). Regardless, we got ourselves out the door in a cab at 4:15am to Heathrow.
Unfortunately, our hotel shuttle driver “couldn’t find no parking” and was an hour late to pick us up. Dave was doubled over our luggage at the airport holding his stomach while I had a number of frustrating calls with the hotel attendant who spoke broken English. We had a very large “quadruple” room in Rome, which was a long 87 steps to the 4th floor. Hardly ideal with a stroller, a 2 year old and 4 year old. Oh, and the place was under construction, so on one side of the stairs, behind a thin sheet of plastic and no railing, was a 20 foot drop off. Europe is not a litigious place.
Things got better though, especially after a nap. We spent the next 2 days checking out the highlights of Rome. Kevin’s highlight was buying a refrigerator magnet of “the broken building” (the Coliseum). Dave’s highlight was a solo tour of the Vatican Museums. Ryan enjoyed the strawberry gelato everywhere we went. And I was simply happy hanging out with the family with no Skype chat, work email, or product problems to think about.
All in all, we accomplished quite a bit given our lack of preparation. We saw the Vatican Museums, the Castle St. Angelo,, the Coliseum, Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, and took a double-decker bus tour of Rome. On departure day, we took a train from Rome to Civitavecchia (the cruise port). I even pushed both kids in the stroller over a mountain for 2 miles to find a bookstore to buy kids’ books in English. (In our hasty planning, we forgot to bring any books. And our kids are major bookworms.)

Anyway, we got ourselves to the cruise ship in Civitavecchia. We sailed on Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas. The Virgin Holiday sales guy (that pressured me to book before the boat filled up) did do something right. He talked me into the “family suite.” Our room was amazing.

It was on the 8^th deck in the very FRONT of the boat, room #8200. The room had 3 huge circular windows, and when we looked out, we could see the bow of the boat and the Helicopter landing pad. Kevin had his own tiny room, with a set of “boink beds” (he called them). Dave and I had our own room with a King bed. The living space in the middle, which a couch, coffee table, television, closets, etc is where Ryan’s pack n’ play was set up. We also had a nice bathroom and the shower was bigger than ours in London. We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect room set up. We were ready to sleep and get rested up…..little did we know…..

The boat’s tour route took us to:

· Day 1 – Boarded by 5pm

· Day 2 – Palermo, Sicily

· Day 3 – At sea

· Day 4 – Athens, Greece

· Day 5 – Ephesus, Turkey

· Day 6 – Chania, Crete

· Day 7 – At sea

· Day 8 – Returned to Civitavecchia port

Day 2 was everyone’s favourite. We stopped in Palermo, Sicily. With bathing suits and sunglasses in hand, we headed for the nearest soft-sand beach. We spent several hours on the beach – Kevin made sand castles, we all went swimming and enjoyed the day. It was warm and relaxing.

Our short bus ride back to the boat was very exciting. A nice Midwestern family of 7 had a run-in with the Italian bus mafia. Their little freckled white kids were crying, the father was pleading, in English, explaining that he purchased bus tickets for everyone in the family. The Italian bus mafia guy was yelling in Italian. The poor Midwesterners got off the bus, all in a tizzy, and just started running. I’m guessing they won’t be back visiting Palermo, Sicily anytime soon.

About the boat – these huge cruise ships are a really impressive site. Fourteen decks in total, several swimming pools, miniature golf, arcade, rock climbing wall, huge dining halls, shops, dance clubs, etc. It is a bit overwhelming and very over the top. It’s also embarrassing in some ways. So many overweight Americans, standing in line at all-you-can eat buffets, a chocolate cookie in one hand and an ice cream cone in the other. This particular boat was built in 2004, carries over 3000 passengers, 1200 crew and is over 1000 feet long.

We ate dinner in a fancy dining room with a family of 4 from the Netherlands.

Their 6 and 10 year old girls loved Kevin and Ryan. The food was delicious and had a wonderful variety. Our dinner seating was at 6pm and we could not finish before 8. When you think about the magnitude of feeding nearly 3000 people all at the same time with variety of selections, I can’t complain that it took so long. Most breakfasts and lunches we ate in the “Windjammer” cafe – buffet style piles of food which all starts to look the same after a few days. Dave and I enjoyed one dinner in a fancy steakhouse while the boys ate fish sticks in room service with two babysitters. The babysitters were part of the housecleaning crew, didn’t say more than 5 words and Kevin said they never got off the couch for the entire 2 hours. I don’t believe everything Kevin says, but I believed that.

Children in nappies (diapers) were not allowed to swim on this boat. (This is something that pushy sales guy neglected to inform us….and, it wasn’t in any of the fine print of the documents we got before the trip.) Dave and I discussed this issue at length, as newly-turned-2-Ryan was not potty trained. He loves the water and we had planned to spend a fair amount of time in the pool. So, we decided he was ready for a crash-course in potty training. He did quite well, actually! We pushed the bathroom often, and he had very few accidents over the course of the trip. So, we swam in the hot tubs everyday. The pools were not all that great. The larger swimming pools were cold and filled with salt water (directly sucked in from the ocean, perhaps?). They were also too deep to stand in, so it made it difficult to hold kids and swim with them. But we enjoyed the hot tubs.

Dave took a day tour in Athens while I stayed on the boat with both kids. I had been to Athens before with my friend Jennie and we toured the dirty, chaotic city of Athens and spent most of our time on the wonderful Greek islands. So, I knew I wasn’t missing much.

We did a tour called “Easy Ephesus” in Turkey. It was for the old, handicapped, and wheel-chair bound passengers of the boat. There was very little walking (to really see Ephesus, you have to walk 2km up a big hill which wouldn’t have worked with our stroller) and the whole tour lasted 2.5 hours. The “evil eye” necklace and bottle of water in the tour gift bag kept Kevin and Ryan busy for at least 20 minutes. Ephesus’ main claims to fame are the Virgin Mary (the last place she lived) and the Temple of Artemis. The Temple originally had hundreds of columns, but there is only one original left, and it’s in the British Museum (about 500 meters from where I work in central London). The kids enjoyed the “hunt for dead people” in the Ephesus museum, but otherwise were bored of looking out a bus window at the sites.

That evening, the trouble started. Kevin threw up all over Dave, the floor, the bed, and himself just before going to sleep. He had been suffering from mild diarrhea for several days before hand, but he has a sensitive stomach and it isn’t uncommon. He spent the night in bed with us and a metal garbage bin, throwing up every 20-30 minutes until long after midnight. This vomiting cycle continued if Kevin consumed any food. As long as he didn’t eat or drink, he didn’t throw up. Déjà vu to our Ixtapa, Mexico trip. Dave took a break and got off the boat in Chania, Crete. It was nothing to write home about, so, I won’t.

Kevin was a tough trooper. He complained little, given how he must have felt. But he continued to throw up throughout the day. And he was on day 5 of diarrhea. The next day, I took Kevin to the ship doctor. They gave him a shot (of what? I don’t know) to stop him from throwing up since he was starting to get dehydrated. They also quarantined him to his room for 24 hours, plus another 24 hours after that of avoiding the buffet eating areas. That basically meant Kevin had to spend the remainder of our cruise in our room. Dave and I took turns carrying trays of Windjammer buffet food back to the other members of the family.

Our room’s housecleaner was Marvin. Marvin was a very nice man with a wife and 8 year old son back in Honduras. He was very good to the boys and very talented with towels. He made a different towel animal every day. If I wasn’t quarantined to our room, I would have gone to the animal-towel-folding-class.

We returned to London in one piece, but exhausted. We left the boat on Sunday at 9am, wandered for an hour trying to figure out what we were supposed to do, waited around Civitivecchia 3 hours for a train to the Rome airport, waited in the Rome airport for 3 hours, took a 2. 5 hour flight to Heathrow, then an hour taxi ride home.

This is a picture of Ryan guarding the luggage (while playing with Dave’s iPhone) and Kevin sleeping in the bottom of the stroller.  Everyone was so delighted to get home. Kevin and Ryan were hugging their animals and running around the house like madmen.

The next day was Halloween. Kevin was feeling pretty good by this point, though weak and still tired from the trip. He was VERY excited about dressing up as a superhero and getting lightning bolts painted on his face. He went to school for half the day, so he could enjoy the parties and still have a nap in the afternoon.

Dave and I got away for a whole weekend, to Paris, without children. Our wonderful nanny graciously and bravely spent Friday afternoon through Sunday night at our house, with our two rowdy, dirty, and loveable boys. I’ll get to their weekend in a moment; but now, on to Paris…

We took the train from London’s St. Pancras station to Gare de Nord in Paris. The train ride was 2 ½ hours long. There was a very chatty blond student from California who talked non-stop to the British chap seated next to her. She covered her entire life story, which, at the age of 19, isn’t much to cover. But she was excited about it all, and the chap pretended to be.

I’m not sure what I was expecting for the underground portion of the trip, but it was anticlimactic. I was hoping it would be like an aquarium, with fish and treasure chests and scuba divers whizzing by. Okay, not really. But, it was just like an extra long tunnel. That’s it.

We managed to find our way to the hotel – Hotel Jardin de l’Odean  – via a crowded metro ride and short walk. Our hotel was in an ideal location right near Luxembourg Gardens. Our room was small but quaint with $4 Toblerone and $5 bottled water.

Dave was grumpy because he was starving by this point (I still wonder when he’ll learn to take along snacks for occasions like these?) so we wandered a bit, without reservations for dinner or any idea on where we wanted to go. There are many fabulous looking restaurants around the Latin Quarter. We ended up at a Moroccan restaurant called Au Méchoui du Prince. Dave ate a pound of couscous and complained of a full belly all night and until the next morning. I think, even after couscous is cooked, it still expands to 3xs the size once in your stomach.

After an uninterrupted night’s sleep, we got out of bed at the lazy hour of 7:30am. We went for a 3-loop run around Luxembourg Gardens, showered, and headed out for a quick salmon baguette for breakfast.

I talked Dave into joining a formal Paris Walks tour of the Marais area. He originally made some comment under his breath about how his life had changed since his visit to Paris 20 years earlier. Way back when, he said his two lasting memories were visiting Jim Morrisson’s grave and sitting on the steps of Sacre Coeur drinking warm beer and listening to the locals playing guitar. Now, here he is going on a walking tour. “Aren’t walking tours for old people?” he says.  And, I suppose he’s right. But we really enjoyed it. Our tour guide, Chris, was a funny fellow and we were entertained by his stories and information for 2 hours.

After our old-people tour, we meandered without a plan for a while, in and out of cafes and in and out of pouring rain. We walked by the Notre Dame and did some window shopping on the Isle St. Louis. We got on a mission to get a massage, so looked down every narrow alleyway for an available massage parlour. We were delighted to find a place around the corner from our hotel. It was fancy shmancy, and only one woman spoke any English. We started with foot massages (really, I think they just want to clean tourists’ feet after walking all day, they must stink!) and then had massages followed by a steam room. It was incredibly relaxing and well worth the time.

I had researched a place for dinner – asking friends and looking online. We decided on Le Procope – a short walk from our hotel. It served traditional French cuisine and was famous for the Calf’s Head (which Dave ordered). I checked it closely, and can confirm that the eyelashes and other odd head parts had boiled off in the cooking process. I stuck with something more tame – duck breast and vegetables. The restaurant was loud and bistro-like, but we enjoyed the company of a North Carolina couple seated next to us.

Another night’s sleep and we headed out to devote the day to the Tour de France. We met some friends of Dave’s and headed to the Westin – our designated viewing spot. It was right on the 1K banner mark and by 10am already had a good crowd gathering to hold their spots on the fence. We wandered a bit to look at all the Tour hype and then defended our position on the fence over 2 hours before the racers came through.

The cyclists didn’t come zooming through until about 4pm, so we had a long wait. It was sunny and hot, compared to the previous day’s rain. We chatted with Tour die-hards from all over the world. It is interesting to hear how many people join bike tours this time of year to ride some of the stages and follow the race every day. Dave’s friends that we joined were Tour experts – they knew which vehicles would be in the parade, what colour the lead cars were, which motorcycles to look for, etc.

The final stage in the Tour runs 8 laps around the Champs-Elysees, so it is the best viewing spot for the entire 3-week race. Dave and I have been watching the Tour on television for years, so it was exhilarating to be there in person. The cyclists came through on the first lap and the crowd went crazy.

We captured some fantastic pictures of the winners and the sprinters.

We potentially missed the best part of the finishing stage – where all the racers head to their team vans and buses and mingle with fans. We made train reservations back to London for later that evening and ended up in a time crunch to get there. Naturally, the train station temporarily shut down due to an unattended package and our train delayed over 1 hour. Sigh.

The ride home was otherwise uneventful and we were delighted to hear our nanny say that she loved our boys more than ever before. She and the boys spent Saturday “working the locks” at an all-day exhibition for kids and families. Kevin bragged about pulling open the heavy locks to let the water in and out. Ryan spent the day climbing on dangerous structures and flirting with all females in sight. They spent Sunday at our nanny’s house, running naked in the front yard picking apples that had fallen from their tree. (Which turned out to be a fantastic idea, since they made an apple pie together later in the week!)  Here is a picture of Kevin and Ryan and our nanny, Maria.  They made binoculars out of blocks and were reading Super Duck for the 100th time.

Funny, we looked forward to getting away for the weekend without our children and then spent most of the time talking about them. Family is good.

Stockholm is an amazingly beautiful city. Once again, we hit it right with the weather, just like in Sunny Scotland. It reminded me quite a bit of Amsterdam, but without the trashiness. It was clean, a great walking city, interesting architecture, lots of waterways, and fantastic restaurants. It was also the most expensive city I’ve ever visited. I’m thanking Skype for the opportunity to visit, as well as have it paid for.

I had to be in the office for work Monday through the following Tuesday. Because that was such a long time away from Dave and the boys, we decided to have the whole family visit Stockholm together for the weekend in between.

The first workweek I was there, I put in seriously long hours. I was in the office by 9am and didn’t leave before 10pm. Pizza was delivered to the office or we grabbed dinner and returned to work. That said, my team had a great time together and got a ton done. We are normally located in 4 geographic locations spanning 10 hour time zone differences (not the most efficient of working conditions). We were extremely productive once all in the same spot.

The Skype office is situated in a massive red-brick building that was once the home of the Munchen Brewery. Right next door was a ballet dance school for young women. And next door to that was a “kitchen” that served awesome chicken Caesar salads (I had one every day for lunch).

Dave and the boys flew in on Friday about noon. They had to leave Heathrow airport at 7:15am, which required a 4:30am taxi ride. Dave is a hero for getting both boys (likely very grumpy at that hour) dressed and out the door, to the airport, luggage checked, through security, and onto a plane. Ryan is 20 months, so he’s still a lap child (we’re too cheap to buy him a real ticket) so the flight was uncomfortable, but thankfully just 2.5 hours. He squirmed and cried and whined. Kevin was a stellar traveler and a trooper. Kevin pooped once during the flight; and since he still requires “help” wiping, all three of them were crammed in an airplane bathroom. Imagine that, will you? Again, Dave = hero.

We stayed at the Hotel Diplomat, one of the nicest hotels in the city. The hotel staff mismanaged my reservation, so they gave us the Executive Suite for 3 nights at a standard room rate. It had two rooms – perfect when accompanied by 2 children. Ryan had a real crib and Kevin had a lumpy and bumpy sofa bed (which, by day, was an outstanding trampoline). The hotel celebrates its 100^th year of service in July. The elevator was an original. A brass door on the outside, and a sliding door on the inside. Kevin quickly got the hang of the doors and became the “elevator door man” for the building. He’d stand outside and say, “Everyone in please.” Then he’d close both doors and nod his head like he approved.

For dinner, we went to Ciao Ciao Grande, a pizza/pasta place near the hotel. The hotel staff said it was kid-friendly. [Side note: most restaurants in Stockholm are not kid-friendly. The wait staff are generally, um, how shall we say this? Unfriendly? Snobbish? They seem to sneer at children. Sometimes the boys can be a bit loud, dirty, and messy.] The boys got quiet when the pizza arrived. As you can see below, Ryan approved.

After dinner we ran around a church cemetery. Funny, cuz that’s what we do all the time in London too!

Hotel Diplomat is in a perfect location. It isn’t far from Gamla Stan, which was mentioned often in the Girl with the Dragan Tatoo series.

View Stockholm in a larger map

 Djurgarden, which is an island mostly made up of green parks and running paths, is also a stone’s throw away. Dave and I took turns running in the mornings along these fantastic paths through the park.

Breakfast in the hotel was included (and at a price tag of $30/person, we were glad). Kevin and Ryan ate 1 pound of bacon each morning between them, and drank 10 “shotglasses” of smoothies. They also ate eggs, pastries, fruit, and cereal. They offered hard boiled eggs. As it turns out, that is time-consuming for children – perfect activity to allow a parent to actually eat.

Saturday was our first full day of site seeing. We went to Skansen “the world’s oldest outdoor museum.” It was an awesome place for kids. Lots of animals to see (some to pet), a funicular train car (although, a very short ride), old Swedish houses up on stilts, men and women in traditional Swedish garb, and bumper cars! Kevin and Ryan played hard and wore themselves out. You could spend a few days there and never see it all. The views from the top were fantastic. Kevin had some trouble reconciling the live reindeer we saw. There’s Santa’s reindeer, then Daddy ate reindeer for dinner, then there’s these reindeer? Hmm….how does this all work?

On Sunday, we went to the Vasa Museum. A co-worker of mine told me the story of the Vasa. The Swedes are a proud bunch, and wanted to show the world of their riches. So, King Gustaf II Adolf demanded that the Vasa (a ship) be built with two rows of cannons on each side instead of one. In addition, every inch of the boat was decorated with fancy wood carvings. In 1628, the Vasa made her maiden voyage. 1300 meters into the Stockholm harbour, it sank. The Swedes were so embarrassed, they pretended it didn’t happen. They ignored it for 333 years. Finally, in 1961 the Vasa lifted out of the water, excavated, and restored. It is a beautiful site to see. (Unfortunately it’s very dark in the museum and hard to capture properly)

We packed in the activities. Some other highlights from the weekend included a boat ride around Djurgarden, a trip on the Tunnelbana (Stockholm’s subway), a trip up the external elevator on the Globe  (which is affectionately called “the boob” by the locals), and an unexpected glimpse of the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace.

Monday morning came early after all the fun we’d been having. I had to go to a full day of meetings at work, so Dave and the boys headed to the Science and Technology Museum. The museum featured a travelling NASA exhibition – Saturn V rocket, lunar lander, shuttle cockpit, etc. Kevin’s obsession with astronauts continues, so he really enjoyed this. They also had a hands-on kids’ area and a place to sit in.

Outside the museum, the boys found lots of things to play on. Here they are on a cannon at the Maritime museum next door. Ryan also found these cool police motorcycles on a playground outside the neighboring police (Polis in Sweden) museum. He loves motorcycles at the moment and yells “cycle” everytime he sees on go by.

We all headed home together on Tuesday morning. We took a cab to the airport, breezed through security, and got on the plane. I had a business class ticket with Ryan on my lap. [Side note: only stuffy old men fly business class. And none of them will make eye contact with a baby. They fear responsibility to entertain my son or something if they smile. It’s funny to observe.] Dave and Kevin were in the rear of the plane. The flight home was uneventful and everybody was tuckered out when we got home to London.

I’m starting a new role at Skype  and will be working with the Stockholm team more often. I’ll be returning there every other week for 1.5 days. I look forward to going back again – there is more to see (if I can ever get out of the office) and explore.

I started my trip with a tube ride on the northern line to Euston Station (below). It is right on Euston road where there are several museums.

I wandered over to the British Library which is one  of 12 museums in the Museum Mile. There is a cool statue of Isaac Newton at the entrance to the museum (below).

The library is huge, with lots of very old books (which you can peruse if you become a registered reader). They have taken many of the library treasures and placed them in a single room. Within 20 minutes I saw the Magna Carta (there is no single copy, there are 4 remaining copies, 2 at the British Library), notes from Da Vinci’s workbook, original scores from Hadyn and Beethoven, the Gutenberg Bible and a copy of the original Shakespeare folio.

After spending an hour at the library I wandered south toward the Charles Dicken’s museum, which is just north of Holborn.

On the way I stopped to take a picture of the impressive Victorian era St. Pancras Renaissance London Hotel. (left). As I was taking this picture, some kid on a bike rode by and tried to grab the camera out of my hands (I was looking through the viewfinder so I didn’t see him coming. Luckily I had a good grip on the camera and he didn’t manage to get it.

The Dicken’s museum was a bit of a disappointment. It is currently undergoing a massive and much needed renovation in time for Charles Dicken’s 200th anniversary on Feb 7, 2012.  The current house has been a museum for over 80 years and not much has changed in that time.  The displays weren’t really documented so you didn’t know what you were looking at. The best part was a 25 minute film about his life. I learned his family was in debtors prison in London for a year because his father mismanaged their finances. He was one of six children and had nine children himself. He died at age 57 of a stroke. Below are a few photos from the museum.

After the museum it was time to find something to eat. I have meant to visit the Borough Market many times previously but never seemed to fit in on my explorations. This time I decided I was going to get there. I headed south to the Chancery Lane station (below) which is at the border of the City of London.

I took the central line to Bank and then the northern line to the Borough stop. (pronounced “Burra” in London). By this time it had turned into a warm, sunny Saturday in London. This translates into lots of tourists and that means lots of packed subway cars with sweaty people and stagnant, dirty air. Fun times!

I should have also known that the Borough Market would be a zoo. A note to myself, next time go early on a weekday and you might actually get to look at some of the stalls and get a bite to eat.  The lines were a mile long for all the food and it was elbow to elbow foot traffic (below).

I quickly left the market and decided to just pick up something to eat on the way to my next stop, St. Pauls Cathedral.  After fighting the crowds at the Borough market I decided when I arrived at the Cathedral that I wasn’t ready to fight another set of crowds inside the church. Next time I’ll go visit the church during the week.

I had about 1 1/2 hours before I need to meet up with Heather and the boys so I quickly came up with a new plan. 

I decided to just walk west from St. Pauls Cathedral through some neighborhoods I had never been to before. I wandered through Little Britain, past St. Bartholomews Hospital and over to Smithfield Market before walking to the Holborn tube station for the ride home. I really enjoyed wandering the narrow streets of Little Britain. Below is a typical street view.

I’m looking forward to my next day off to do more exploring in this great city!