Inns of Court # 7

Inns of Court? What does that even mean?? That was something I was asking myself the entire walk! And no, sadly I have no idea what it means. I do know however that me and leading walks probably are not the best combination, I'll give myself the benefit of the doubt this time and say it was the silly walks book though! Tonight Amanda G. , Sarah S. and I did the Inns of Court walk.
We started off at the Temple tube station and made our way up Milford Lane to Essex street over to St. Clements Church and the Royal Courts of Justice. The Royal courts are HUGE and look very much like a royal building. I was surprised to learn that they are used mainly for civil courts and the criminal cases happen in a different court house. Probably not intriguing to anyone else, but I really like law so I found it interesting :)

We made our way by a TON of pubs and lots of drunk people and a large amount of creeper guys hanging out on the corner of Lincoln Fields. Probably wasn't our smartest idea to do this walk later in the evening, but oh well we survived!! We made the corner around Lincoln Fields and made our walk to High Holborn Street. The walk was going pretty smoothly, probably due to random facts of information in the book I found interesting! Holborn is where our path got a little tricky! We were able to find Gray's Inn and the gardens, but once we reached the Griffen we struggled!

Little did we know that after a certain time of day most of the public gates and walkways are closed making our walk pretty... well adventurous! We wandered around for a good 5-10 minutes trying to figure out where on earth we were supposed to go and then a nice stranger gave us some directions and informed us that the gates we needed were closed! We got back on track and made it to the Knights Templar. It was great weather and not many people were out so it was nice to wander through the courtyards by the Knights Templar chapel and other courts of the old monastery. After making it through the gardens and thinking we were locked in we found the way out and made our way back to the tube station!

Bankside and Southwark #6

Okay - So I was really tempted to title this "Bankside Yo." I have no idea why, but Bankside just seems really gangster to me. Hahah, you probably all think i'm super weird now! On to the walk. I lead my very first walk.. oooh big accomplishment, I know. Our walks are usually a team effort, but for homework sake I lead this one. It was a pretty quick walk and it wasn't until later last night when we went back to the Globe for All is Well that Ends Well that we realized just how far we had walked! The "we" I am referring to is Emily Stewart, Lauren Deaver, and myself. The Blackfriars tube station was closed, so we got off at Tower Bridge and started from the other end of the walk. It was super busy at the Tower of London with lots of wonderful tourists all around! We made our way around the tower and onto the Tower Bridge. I love the Tower Bridge, I think it is awesome! With all of the bright colors it reminds me of Disneyland!

We cross the bridge and made our way down towards the water along Queens Street. It felt great to walk along the river. The sun was out and it was just a great day! We turned at the Hay's Galleria and passed the London Dungeon and through the tube station. We then got to walk around Borough Market, which I absolutely love! I love markets and Borough has great food and awesome samples!! After the market we headed back towards the water and passed by Clink Museum. Clink used to be a debtors prison which I thought was really interesting! We kept walking along and passed the site of the actual Globe Theater and the Rose Theatre Exhibition. Then we came to the new Globe theater! We didn't stay long because it was crowded and we were coming back for a play that night!! We then hopped onto the Millennium Bridge and headed to the tube station to come home!

Bloomsbury anyone? # 5

Bloomsbury was a great walk! Short, sweet, and simple and we got to see some pretty fun things as well!
We started off at Tottenham Court Road and headed towards Bedford square. Along the way we passed the YMCA, which this will probably sound really dumb, but I didn't know they had YMCA's in Europe!
After Bedford square our walk took us behind the British Museum. Silly us, we didn't realize we were behind the Museum until the end of the walk where we went by the front... ooops! Oh well, there was a great Lion out front ( or back) and we thought we'd cozy up to him for some photos!

We continued our walk going down Handel street, named accordingly because Handel would give performances in the Hospital on that street. That was pretty fun fact that I learned along this walk! We went through St. George Gardens which I thought were beautiful. I love the gardens here and small park spaces - they are just so happy!

Just a fun tree arch we found!

One of the coolest parts of this walk, I thought, was getting to walk by the home of Charles Dickens! I couldn't help but get a picture on his front door :) It was fun to think what it would have been like to have been his next door neighbor! I think it would have been pretty awesome!! There were plaques on many of the buildings which told different writers who had lived there. From the looks of it, there were a lot!

A few streets down and couple corners to turn revealed a giant hospital. According to our handy dandy walk book it was a Hospital for Sick Children. It took up the entire street! We continued on our walk and crossed Cosmo place into Bloomsbury place. From Bloomsbury place we headed to Bloomsbury square and then past the front of the British Museum and then back to the tube and home!

So High SOHO # 4

That was the name of a store we passed on our SOHO and Trafalagar square walk.I had to laugh as it was just so incredibly Eugene and it kind of made me miss my hippie home! London is fabulous and parts of it remind me a lot of home. I went to Borough market this last weekend and it reminded me so much of the farmer's market in Eugene and Camden markets was like walking into the British version of the Saturday market! Oh home... but enough with that and on to walk number 4!

We actually started a Charing Cross station in Trafalgar Square and walked to Soho instead of the other way around. It was a fun walk and it definitely exposed some different areas of London! I love Trafalgar square - it reminds me so much of San Francisco with all of the museums and people and of course the giant square with the fountain. We stopped to take a pic by the fountain and dip our hands in the refreshingly cool water! It was delightful and really fun to sit and people watch for a moment!

We trekked on to Leicester square. It was full of construction for the 2012 Olympics. I have to say I am really sad we are here now and not then, it would be so fantastic to be here for the Olympics. Another trip maybe?? We'll see what Laren says ;)

Then came China Town which really reminded me of San Francisco and gave me the urge to go back! It was great - we walked through it and just enjoyed being there. I loved all of the flags that were hanging and seeing the mass amounts of diversity among the people. I love how diverse London is! It is fun to constantly be hearing other languages and seeing different ethnicities. It is a really eye opening experience!

Soho came next! It was hmmm.. interesting to say the least! When I think of the word Soho I think of very trendy and artsy and a little on the odd side.. I'd have to say that's how I felt about the Soho neighborhood. The red light district just so happens to be in this neighborhood ( in case you were wondering) and we came across this lovely treasure of a sign. It was one of the funniest things I had seen in a while. London has fantastic signs - much better than anything in the U.S.!

We made our way back to the subway station and headed for home!

St. Pauls and Fleet Street # 3

I'm not sure what it is about doing walks backwards that is appealing, but it seems to happen a lot! Rather than starting at the cathedral and walking towards Paternoster Square we headed towards Queen Victoria street. This walk was rather short, but very sweet! It was felt very windy as we seemed to turn in U's quite often.

We stopped and took a look at St. Bride's printing library. According to our handy dandy London walks book it  has an old wooden hand printing press that was often used from the 1400s to the 1800s. Right beyond the printing press we saw the St. Bride's church which is also known as the printing church.

We kept walking on and came upon the house Dr. Johnson who wrote the first dictionary. That was news to me and quite fun to see. Although I have to say the flower wall right past his house was a much more appealing site to see on our walk!!

There were some other interesting sites such as the old courthouse and the sun clock at Paternoster Square. That was actually pretty cool!! We ended the walk by stopping to grab a deliciously fruity drink at Starbucks and basked in the warm sun while we waited for our St. Pauls tour.

The Grandeur of Westminster and St. James # 2

Oh Westminster! The only time I had seen Westminster before the walk was at night and it was great to see it in the day and be able to really see it! We started our walk at the Wesminster Tube station and headed towards Parliament,, doing the walk backwards. I was so amazed at the intricate architecture of the buildings of Parliament. I am always in such awe of the details that all of the buildings have. We have tons of technology and neat contemporary buildings, but I absolutely love older buildings such as Buckingham Palace and Parliament.

After Parliament we walked on over to the Jewel Tower and through the Deans Yard. I had no idea that Westminster Abbey is now a public school, but was informed of that by the book. The Dean's Yard so was quaint and peaceful I loved walking through it. This walk was one of my favorites because we got to walk by Buckingham Palace. I think that area is just gorgeous with the Palace and the two parks St. James and Green park.

St. James church is surprisingly over by Green Park instead of St. James park and it didn't really look like a church. There was a big sign out front that identified the church, but it was also a small cafe which was rather odd to me. Then I started thinking about the other churches we had visited and most of them had a cafe either in the crypt or on the premises, definitely different!

We had already visited the horse's guard for the royal wedding. In fact we stood at the Horse's Guard for a good 5 1/2 hours while we waited and watched the royal procession. So we hopped on the tube at Piccadilly Circus and headed home for dinner!

A stroll through Regents Park # 1

To start off our Regents Park we took a lovely stroll along Regents canal and headed up to the top of Primrose hill with our group. It was beautiful as you could see a almost all the way to Greenwich. Before we dove head first into our walk we took a detour to Camden Lock and grabbed some lunch. Camden markets were amazing! There were so many neat booths and all of the food looked and smelled amazing. I can't wait to go back!

After Camden Markets we walked back to the London Zoo along the canal. At the zoo we turned and headed into Regents Park. Our first stop on the walk was a very large, very old drinking fountain. A kind man helped us figure out how to turn the fountain on, and it provided us with some refreshing water!

We continued to walk through the beautiful fields of Regents park and people watch as we went. The parks in London are fantastic! I love them! They are huge and full of people and space and happiness!

We also made a stop along the way at Queen Mary's Garden and visited the mermaid fountain. We finished our walk on Marylebone Road.