Later that morning, it was time for another London Walk. We got the Tube to South Kensington, where we met a wonderful guide who took us around "The Wonders of the V&A". The Victoria & Albert Museum is my favourite museum, and has the finest decorative arts collection in the world. I've visited many times in the past, but still haven't even seen half of the enormous collection. The great thing about this particular tour was that we spent two hours with our guide (a V&A lecturer, no less) who showed us about a dozen key objects, and discussed them in depth. None of them were things I'd seen before. Our visit also reminded me of how wonderful the building itself is. After the tour, we had lunch in the fabulous museum restaurant (partially designed by William Morris!), and afterwards bombed around the always-awesome fashion and costume gallery and a fab exhibition of hats curated by the milliner Stephen Jones. By that point, however, I was seriously flagging, so I left J. to explore the museum some more before I headed back to the flat and crashed for a few hours.
I knew I'd need energy for the evening, as we had tickets to go see a show that night. We got the Tube to Brixton and walked over to the legendary Brixton Academy, where we saw...the Ting Tings. Hahaha! I was actually more excited about the venue than the band, but the Tings put on a pretty fun, high-energy show. And shockingly, we were not the oldest people in the audience - not by a long shot!
Saturday morning, I had a little lie-in, while J. went out for some last-minute shopping. We planned to meet at 11am for our final London Walk of the week, "Old Westminster". But I forgot the Jubilee line on the Underground was closed for engineering works that day, and so had to detour, arriving at the meeting point just in time. J. didn't make it, though, and so we had a frantic flurry of text messages before she arrived at the station in a cab and we hurried to catch up with our tour group. Luckily, we didn't miss much - we had a great two hours strolling the streets of Westminster, looking at the Houses of Parliament, the Jewel Tower, and the Abbey. Then we ducked into some of the back streets, visiting enclaves like Smith Square to see where many of the MPs live while Parliament is sitting. Not only were the rows of Georgian terraced houses beautiful in themselves, but their facades carried fascinating echoes of the past - from 18th-century street signage, to faded public notices dating from the Second World War. Off Smith Square, our guide pointed out this notice, which reads "Public Shelters in Vaults Under Pavements in This Street". It showed passersby where to go if an air-raid siren went off and a bombing raid was imminent:
After our walk finished, we hightailed it back to Westminster Abbey, which was closing to visitors at 1.30 pm. Luckily, we just made it inside - there was quite the queue, and we waited about a half-hour to gain entry (and paid £15! It used to only be a fiver...still, the place needs money to keep it going, so we didn't mind paying up). It was my second time visiting the Abbey, but it's a place no one could ever get tired of - so much to see, and so evocative. The royal tombs, the stonework, the wood carvings, the windows, the layer on layer of the most incredible history. And to top it all off, while we were there the choir began to rehearse, sending shivers down the spine.
Afterwards, we got some lunch and walked to Victoria Embankment, where we sat in the garden for a bit and ate, before heading home. The busy pace of sightseeing was starting to catch up with us and we were feeling pretty zonked, so we took a few hours of R&R back at the flat, and did some packing as well.
Then at 7, we headed out to meet friends for dinner in the East End, on our last night in London. We decided to walk, and spent an hour strolling over Tower Bridge (on a beautiful, warm, sunny evening no less), up the Hill past the Tower of London itself, to Aldgate. From there we went up Whitechapel High Street, past beautiful Spitalfields Church, Spitalfields market, and the Ten Bells (a Victorian-era pub known to have been frequented by several of Jack the Ripper's victims). We were bound for a curry house at the north end of Brick Lane. Once home to London's Jews and the Hugenots before that, nowadays Brick Lane is the heart of the Bangladeshi community and the street is lined with curry houses, all of which have (sometimes very pushy) touts out front trying to lure you in. So we came in from the western side, to avoid all that, and met up with my friends C., P. and baby J., as well as some other folks who we holidayed with in Venezuela two years ago. C. had taken me to eat at this particular restaurant, Aladin, last time I was in London, and I loved it. Fabulous food, great service, and you can BYOB which is another plus! We ordered a ridiculous amount of food (which cost almost nothing) and wolfed it all down. It was a great evening, which ended with a stroll back to Liverpool Street with C., P. and baby, and we all caught a night bus back to Southwark!
Next morning, J. (without a watch to hand) was awake at 5 am and got herself packed up and ready to go. Since she was already up, she decided to go attend the 8.30 am service at St. Paul's Cathedral, so we said our farewells, and she went on her way for the day. Later that afternoon, she got a flight from Heathrow to Barcelona, where she continued her trip with a few days of sightseeing and then a conference for her work.
I, on the other hand, had a flight to Dublin to catch. I packed up and checked out of our lovely flat, and was then picked up by the executive coach at 9am. It took two hours to get to Gatwick, as the driver had a couple other pickups in the West End - good thing it was a Sunday and there were no roadworks or traffic. In the end, it didn't matter too much, as my flight was delayed by two hours because of an electricity failure on the luggage carousel (airline staff were taking all the passengers' luggage away on trolleys!).
But by 4pm, I had arrived in Dublin. My friends (and former co-workers) E. and A. kindly picked me up at airport - great to see both of them again! The drive into the city was fascinating - building works have continued apace since I left five years ago, with all kinds of new developments everywhere. Ominously, though, some projects - including a second terminal for Dublin Airport - have ground to a halt due to the credit crunch.
I was even more surprised to arrive in E.'s neighbourhood, near the Grand Canal Docks in Dublin 3. It was an area that was only just beginning to be developed 10 years ago, but it's got lots of impressive offices and apartments now - some newly-built, and others converted from old industrial buildings. E.'s apartment complex includes an old gasworks, which has been converted into smart flats, to quite stunning effect:
On Monday, after breakfast, E. and I headed out so I could undertake an inspection tour of my old haunts. We got the DART from the new station at Grand Canal Docks to Tara Street, then connected to the LUAS (the new light rail service) in Abbey Street. The entire time I lived in Dublin, the lines for the LUAS were being constructed and causing all kinds of traffic disruption. Since I left the city just one month before the service started up in 2004, I was keen to go for a ride and check it out. I was pretty impressed - it's clean, efficient, and seems to work very smoothly. The consensus among Dubliners seems to be that it was well worth all the trouble. We took the Tallaght line across the southwest of the city, intending to get off somewhere along the Long Mile Road so we could walk down to my old digs, but I made the mistake of not looking at a map beforehand. We got off in Drimnagh, but I didn't recognise the neighbourhood at all, so we ended up calling a taxi - we got less than a mile down the road before I figured out where we were! Haha. The cab deposited us at Crumlin Cross and from there we walked down to the old apartment in Perrystown. When A. and I left Dublin, we'd joked that the neighbourhood was going to the dogs and we'd probably find a smoking hole in the ground where the building used to be - but not so! Actually, other than the gardens being a little overgrown, the development looked to be in pretty good shape.
Not wanting to haul ourselves back to the LUAS stop, we hopped the no. 150 bus back into town. The neighbourhoods we passed through are still largely the same, except for some smart new condos in the Liberties (which continues to be gentrified). We got off in the city centre, and E. and I did a little wandering in Kilkenny Design and some of my other favourite shops, before heading for Avoca, where we had arranged to have lunch with our old boss and another work colleague. Lovely to see them - and the lunch was fabulous, as always! Manoman, I love the Avoca cafe. To start, E. and I shared an order of chunky chips, cooked in duck fat and served with horseradish mayo (!!!!!!!!!). Then I had my usual order of yummy soup, served with three chunks of my fave Avoca breads (wholemeal, fruit & seed, and cheese soda). The crowning glory of any Avoca cafe visit is always the pudding, though. I had a slab of lemon curd cake with cream - delish.
After lunch, I did a little pre-emptive Christmas shopping on the lower floors of Avoca, then did some more strolling and shopping in Grafton Street, picking up various gifties. Before we knew it, the afternoon had slipped away, and it was time to head for A.'s house in the Liberties. She lives in a cottage on one of the squares built by Guinness for its brewery workers in years past. A couple years ago, she had the place completely gutted and renovated into a very smart open-plan studio, which ended up being featured in an Irish design mag. She and E. cooked up a fab dinner and we spent another very fun evening drinking wine and chatting.
I made sure to turn in relatively early, though - as it was the last day of my trip. The following morning I was picked up by a taxi at 4am, and whisked to the airport to catch my flight to Gatwick and connection back to Halifax later that morning. I wished I'd spent another couple days in Dublin, but it was nice to get in a quick visit with my friends, and check out my old stomping grounds. All round, it was a great trip - some fantastic sights, good friends, food, and shopping. I will never stay away from Europe for so long again!
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