Sunday 22nd September - London

We decided we had earned a sleep in today, and didn't get up till 8. Stopped to consider our options - we had planned to do a city walk of some sort this afternoon, but had a morning to choose something else. We finally decided to go out to the Camden Markets.

Now it seems that Sundays are the day they do line repairs in London - first, parts of Waterloo station were closed - we had to go over to the above ground station to get down to the underground. Then we found that we would have to go by a replacement bus for the last few stops........ it all adds to the experience :)

So, finally at Camden, we started to explore. Lots of stalls - we checked out souvenirs, sweatshirts, T shirts ......... then we found a 'side street' with more, and that led around to ......more, which led to ......... It was HUGE, and that was only the first side of the street! There were so many different types of food too. Even the town crier was out! We decided to ditch the afternoon walk, especially as transport didn't look too reliable.

We had paella and sangria for lunch, and walked some more. There were buses everywhere, and a couple had 'Hampstead' as their destination. On checking our maps, we found it wasn't far away, so decided that would finish our day nicely.

Arriving at Hampstead village, we first had to decide which direction to go to find 'the Heath' - only one false start, and we were surrounded by green. What a beautiful (and huge) area to have in the middle of a city like London. We followed one path, and found ourselves on a hill with a beautiful outlook over the city and surrounding hills.

Errol had done a walking tour in the area when he was in London last time, and recalled a view over water, so we walked on in attempt to find the same. Some time later, and several paths later, we asked for directions for a about the fourth time, and finally made our way back to a road. We wandered around the streets for a while, Hampstead is a very pretty area

Back down to the buses, and we found one that seemed to be going to Waterloo, so we climbed on. The number of people trying to get on the bus was crazy, it may have had something to do with the train line disruptions. It was sardines time in the aisles, so we were very pleased to have seats. There was lots of traffic on the streets too. Then the bus stopped at Russell Square - end of line, everyone off. Luckily, there is a tube station there too, so we transferred over to that, and walked back into the hotel just before 4:55.

We had arranged to catch up with Chris Brumby (the son of longtime friends) at 5, so had just made it in time. We were thrilled when Chris arrived with his sister Elysa as well, and spent a delightful couple of hours chatting.