We had quite a busy day today. We were up pretty early and down to breakfast by about 8:00am. Our plan for breakfast today was to exercise some restraint but that plan went by the wayside pretty quickly!

We sampled plenty of what was on offer on the breakfast menu and it was about 9:30am before we headed back upstairs to get organised to go out.

The breakfast room at The Connaught.
The breakfast room at The Connaught.
Breakfast at The Connaught.
Breakfast at The Connaught.

We caught a cab from the hotel to Notting Hill and took a leisurely stroll down Portobello Road, which was very nice. Notting Hill is a very nice area with some beautiful houses and shops.

Andrea outside Alice's Antiques (Gruber's in the Paddington movies!).
Andrea outside Alice's Antiques (Gruber's in the Paddington movies!).
Keith on Portobello Road.
Keith on Portobello Road.

From Notting Hill we caught another cab to take us to Little Venice in Paddington. We walked along the canal and looked at the many and varied boats moored in the canal before hailing another cab to our next destination, the Tate Modern.

Little Venice in Paddington.
Little Venice in Paddington.
Andrea in Paddington.
Andrea in Paddington.

The Tate Modern is a modern-art museum housed in the old Bankside power station on the River Thames. It is one of the largest modern art galleries in the world. A lot of the art was not to our taste but we were incredibly impressed by the building itself. The view across the city from the observation area on the tenth floor was very nice, even though it was subdued by the dreary London weather today.

Inside the Tate Modern.
Inside the Tate Modern.

We left the museum and went for a short walk down to Shakespeare’s Globe, a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre (of which William Shakespeare was a part owner) that was destroyed in the 17th century. We had planned to just have a quick look but we ended up taking a guided tour that went for about an hour and was well worth the time invested. The theatre is in active use during the warmer months of the year only since it is an open-air building and not really conducive to use in the colder months in London.

Andrea, inside the Globe Theatre.
Andrea, inside the Globe Theatre.
Keith at the Globe Theatre.
Keith at the Globe Theatre.
Andrea outside the Globe Theatre.
Andrea outside the Globe Theatre.
Keith outside the Globe Theatre.
Keith outside the Globe Theatre.

From the theatre we walked across the bridge to St. Paul’s cathedral. We were going to wander in but, on principle, we didn’t want to pay the 40 pounds required just to look inside! So, we hailed another cab and headed back to the hotel for a rest before dinner.

For dinner we had made a reservation at Pollen Street Social, Jason Atherton’s restaurant just down the street from our hotel. We had a fantastic meal and returned to the hotel by about 8:30pm.

We are now heading off to bed. Tomorrow we are planning on visiting friends up near Oxford in the afternoon. We’ll probably find something to do in the morning but we’re not sure yet what that might be!