London - Day 6 - Elderberries, Pigeons, and Cat Food

Today we went to St. Paul's Cathedral to climb to the Golden Gallery. A cathedral has stood on the site of St. Paul's for over 1400 years, and this cathedral has survived over 300 years. 

They had a pretty good audio tour that was on an iPod touch. It was cool because it included some photographs and videos.  Using the iPod, we were able to see pictures of how the cathedral was bombed during the Blitz...quite amazing. 

In addition to seeing this amazing structure from the cathedral floor, we climbed up 257 steps to the Whispering Gallery. This is basically a circular walkway in the interior of the cathedral dome. Supposedly, if you go to one end, you can hear someone whisper at the other end (like in Grand Central Station or the U.S. Capital) but this didn't work for us. However, it was a great view down into the cathedral. 

Next, we climbed up 119 more steps to reach the Stone Gallery. This is a circular walkway on the exterior of the dome. There was a great view of the city from here but it was through the stone facade.

Finally, we climbed up 152 MORE steps to arrive at the Golden Gallery. The steps here were very narrow and we had to duck at some points. We were basically climbing between the interior dome and the exterior dome.  When we got to the top, we were on another circular walkway almost at the very top of the dome.  This time there was just a wall that was about up to my chest, so it was all spectacular view.  In addition, there was a little spot where you could see the cathedral floor a long, long way down below.  It was a lot of steps to get up there but it was worth it.

We found Pigeon's cousin, Harry:

After St. Paul's, we went to Recipease, Jamie Oliver's restaurant/cooking school/store in Notting Hill, for lunch.  This place has a great atmosphere and the prices are reasonable.  We didn't really like our lunch, but I think that was a mistake on our part for trying to be too adventurous.  We both ordered the same thing.  Here's a description from the website:

Recipease board £7.95 
A traditional board of Red Hill Farm’s handmade pork pie, award-winning Westcombe Cheddar, celeriac & pear remoulade, our delicious radish, coriander & gherkin pickle, crunchy lettuce with a green goddess dressing, crisps & Orkney crackers. 

The pork pie was cold (on purpose) and Mark said it tasted like what he imagines cat food to taste like.  Not exactly a glowing review!  I had elderberry soda, made from real elderberry flowers, with my lunch.  It was interesting but not something I would drink on a regular basis.

After lunch we walked around the shops in Notting Hill.  However, Mark seemed slightly comatose...probably from the lack of food.  Then we headed over to find Abbey Road Studios and walk across the most famous crosswalk in the world.  Abbey Road was interesting in that it is a busy street with tourists constantly going out and stopping in the middle of the road to take pictures!  The cars kept beeping!  Also, families seemed to get very frustrated with each other here.  We saw multiple families getting annoyed at each other for not taking the picture fast enough or posing right or whatever.  Kind of sad, really. Especially considering that a double-decker bus was often about to run them over!

Next, we headed over to the Oxford Circus area (via the famous London buses) to do a little more shopping.  We only went to a few places - HMV, Topshop, and Liberty.  I continue to be amazed by the department stores in London.  Liberty was one of the coolest stores I've ever been to and I so wish we had one at home.  I didn't even look at the clothes, but the home goods sections were fantastic. 

Mark found a couple of CDs at HMV, including a Styx CD that he didn't already have (gasp!)

To end what turned into a busy day, we went to a great Moroccan restaurant called Momo for dinner.  This restaurant is in a nice little restaurant row type area.  The decor inside makes you feel like you've stepped out of London and into Morocco.  We had our best meal yet.  For starters, we had the Wood Pigeon Pastilla (don't tell Pigeon!) and sea bass ceviche.  For our main courses, we both ordered the same thing again - the chicken tagine.  It was excellent.  I would definitely recommend this place to anyone coming to London. 

Postscript from Mark:  I am starting to think that someone should send help.  After our "lunch" today, Karen said to me: "I let you have lunch today...but only because it was Krap."  (I switched the "C" for a "K" in honor of Krapsington.). Also, Pigeon is worried too.  He found out about our starter choices at dinner and knows the pigeon was selected by Karen.  He is quite certain that we may have eaten his cousin (Harry, The Pigeon Duke of Wellington).