The blog for this group of pictures follows the photos.  Click

on this first pic of the street scene to see the giant bubbles

floating across.  It kind of gives you an idea what Camden

Market is all about!  Interesting place and lots of cheap,

cheap stuff to buy!  You can see in that next photo, Terry

fits in really well here!!

We finally had one of those bad days on the tube you

hear about so often the last Sunday in July.  We had

planned to take another guided walking tour around

the famous square mile of ancient Roman London

and needed to meet the guide at 10:30.  We gave ourselves

plenty of time, but there were switching problems

at one of the stations on the route and it brought

our train to a complete stand still for about 20

minutes.  Needless to say we were late and completely

missed the group.   But, since it was near by, we decided

to climb the stairs of the Monument built by Christopher

Wren to commemorate the great fire in 1666.  Everything

associated w/ Wren seems to have hundreds of stairs

up a narrow winding staircase!  I think it was about

300 and some this time and another nice view at the top!

The monument isn't on the orginal location, but about

200 yards away from the site on Pudding Lane.  There's a 

photo of Marisa doing part of stop, drop and roll out in front

of the building on Pudding Lane where the exact spot is.

Always having a back up plan, we decided to then go up

to Camden Town for the market and walk along the

Lock to Regents Park.  Camden is where Punk lives on

and just about everyone has purple hair!  Pretty wild

stuff.  The three of us Eastsiders kinda stuck out a little!

After lunch and a little shopping, we walked along the

lock, which is home to hundreds of house boats.  It's

a beautiful walk and is lined with some of London's

most elegant (and expensive) homes.  We came across

the Warrick Avenue Tube Station, and being huge

Duffy fans, Marisa and I had to get our picture outside

of it.  And being extremely tired from all that walking

and climbing, we decided to just take it home to 

Gloucester Rd and skip the park!

After climbing the Dome we took the tube out to The

National Gallery - an awesome collection of European

art from the Medieval and Renaissance period up thru 

Impressionism and 1900.  It's nice to get out of the crush 

out on the streets and surround yourself with these amazing 

works of art. The National Gallery sits behind Trafalgar 

Square and a 185 ft statue of Lord Nelson who died defeating 

the French fleet here. (See below for the blog and pics on 

climbing the Dome.)

We did make it back to St Paul's to climb the Dome.  And 

it's well worth the 400 some odd stairs to get there, 

some really beautiful views of the city. We stopped at the 

Whispering Gallery on the way up to see if what they say

about is really true, it is! You can stand on one side of the

Gallery that circles the Cathedral and whisper into the 

wall and the people standing on the opposite side can 

hear it loud and clear! The genius of Christopher Wren. 

Of course there are visitors from every country where 

ever you go in London and the lady standing behind 

Terry and Marisa in the white shirt we think was 

from Portugal.  We were standing at the door to the

stairwell, but couldn't move down because an elderly 

woman was having trouble getting down the steep 

winding staircase and everything had come to a stand 

still.  So, I took a few photos while we were waiting, 

but of course she and her friend didn't know that and 

were very upset that they couldn't get down. When we

finally could leave, they followed us all the way down, 

speaking Portugese in very angry voices! We could only 

pick up a few words and "Americanos" was one of 

them!  Oh well, hopefully they stayed for the Evensong,

they would have felt much better afterwards!