Our London Visit Day 4 Part 1 – The Geffrye Museum

Dark clouds were hanging over London on that morning and it was rather cold, so it was an ideal day for visiting a museum. The Geffrye is one of the less well-known museums in London, even though I don’t understand why. Maybe because it is not close enough to the “tourist areas”.

It was not far from the place we stayed, however. We took the Northern Line to the Old Street Station and a bus from there. The bus driver was very friendly and showed us the way from the bus stop to the museum, though we didn’t even ask for it – that’s London :) From the bus stop we had to walk a little, but not much, to get there.

Despite the cold weather there was a family having a picnic on the lawn in the front yard, much to our astonishment.

The museum itself can best be “described” in pictures and so we were glad that it was allowed to take photos inside.

As you can see, it is very much worth visiting – and don’t miss the shop where you can buy lots of books on home and gardening, gifts, cards, souvenirs, etc. ;)

Our London Visit Day 3 Part 2 – Meeting old and new Friends

At noon we met Savitri at Victoria Station. Savitri had been my landlady during my time as a secretarial student at Pitman College in 1987 / 88. Two years ago during our visit in London we stayed at her B&B in Lewisham which had not been possible this time.

With her and three or four other women who accompanied her we took the tube to Embankment Station and from there had to cross the Thames on Hungerford Bridge (we had a great view from there as you can see on the photos) to get to our destination, the Southbank Centre.

Obviously a lot of people had the same idea, as many events were taking place there over the Easter weekend. Hermann and I decided to visit the “Real Food Market” where food from all over the world was sold. As the weather was fine we were able to sit outside on stairs – along with many other people – and eat lunch.

After a little rest in our flat we set of to Oxford Street for a little souvenir shopping.

Later in the afternoon we met with a new friend who before I had only known from Twitter and Facebook – Laura Porter from About.com London Travel. Even though unfortunately the sky had darkened and it got colder we took a long walk in Hyde Park – Hermann and I didn’t have an idea how large it really was. It is one thing to see it on a map and another to “conquer” it – or even parts of it - on foot.

We had an interesting conversation with Laura on different aspects of London and Britain and some other topics. It was such a pleasure to meet her in real life :)

After this walk we were really done for that day, so it was time to return “home”, as we already called the holiday flat by then ;)

Our London Visit Day 3 Part 1 – Platform 9 ¾ and St. Sarkis

We only had to go two tube stations on Piccadilly Line to reach our fist destination on that day. It was the famous Platform 9 ¾ at King’s Cross Railway Station. This was the platform from which Harry Potter took the train to Hogwarts. Not the real one, though, but just a sign and a luggage trolley “disappearing” in the wall, so that people can take photos in front of it. The actual filming location was situated between platforms 4 and 5.

Our next destination took us to Kensington, one of the most expensive parts of London. We took a Circle Line train to High Street Kensington. Here even the tube station itself is worth a look – it even has got its own little shopping mall inside.

From there we didn’t have far to go to reach Iverna Court and Iverna Gardens in the centre of which stands a church of the kind we had so often seen during our visit to Armenia in 2009. However, St. Sarkis is in London and in one of the best places in London, too. It had been built in 1923 for the survivors of the genocide in the Ottoman Empire which had taken place during World War I and in which more than one million Armenians, Aramaeans and Greeks were murdered systematically and with the utmost cruelty.

The church is surrounded by houses which at least partly seem to contain flats, and we wondered what it would cost to buy or rent such a flat. Far too much for us, at least ;)