Sunday, July 20--British Museum, Coventry Gardens and Trafalgar Square

Our last day in London town, our sadness over leaving the old President hotel etched on our faces with large sized grins and sighs of relief - just one more night in our pp, (private purgatory).

We decided to head out in a new direction with our goal of visiting the British Museum, Coventry Garden and beyond.  We had a delightful brunch at a French restaurant and then just headed out to see the British museum.  Our waitress had told us how she went to the museum any chance she had and now I understood what she meant - that place is huge with a capital H.  We spent an hour marveling over the antiquities and then gave in to aching legs, sore backbones and a strong desire for ice cream.

Panorama view of the British Museum--Massive!

Also Impressive inside--but very hot

Escapee from Easter Island

Pure gold

Oldest Chess Set--dug up out of the sand in England

On the way out

After adequate refreshment, our loins were sufficiently girded to continue our stroll. To our surprise, Coventry Garden is not so much a garden as an area of town - a very nice area filled with interesting shops, boutiques and restaurants. We walked through Coventry Gardens replete with street performers and every method known to man, or woman to remove every last Pence from the unwary tourists pocket into theirs.  We are talking mugs, T shirts, ashtrays, bottle openers, dishes, pictures of the Queen, Beatles and Lady Diana and on and on.  We apprised the situation and immediately headed on, wallets left intact, well mostly intact.

Coventry Gardens, not a rose bush in sight!

Lots of kids, so much chaos, they were literally climbing the walls.

We consulted our handy map and navigated our way over to Trafalgar Square.  It is truly an amazing area with architecture that is a treat for the eyes, statuary, street performers, music, laughter, and thousands of like minded tourists sharing the milieu.  A lot to take in but unfortunately, our demonstrators for Gaza were also part of the scene.  Police cars, helicopters and motorcycles were making their presence known but the protesters were banging away on drums, garbage cans and anything else that could make a unholy racket.  My attitude about these things is that s#*% happens and when it does, I don't want to become front page news in The Register Guard - it was time to boogie.

Big Ben in the distance

The National Portrait Gallery--also an impressive structure

Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square

Guarded by four huge lions, and one Blue Chicken

Lots of kids climbing on the lions.  And where the hell did the blue chicken come from?

Close up of Lord Nelson himself, tight bum huh?

We again turned to our handy map and headed to China town via Leicester Square.  We thoroughly  enjoyed a relaxing dinner of Chinese sweet and sour and good conversation about all the sights and sounds we had shared over the day.  Rather then face the tube again, we took a London taxi back to El Presidente for our last night in hell.