Today started out raining but stopped by mid-afternoon. Our first stop was something touristy but hard to resist. It was 221B Baker Street, the fictional address of Sherlock Holmes in London but a real address here. If you look above the Bobbie, you can see the address in the glass. Baker Street is only one tube stop from our hotel, so how could we not go?
The building today is a tiny walk-up filled with antiques from the Victorian era made to look like Holmes' flat, complete with his study where he received his clients and a spot for Doctor Watson to sit and listen as well.
And right next to the Baker Street tube stop is Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. Madame Tussaud was born in 1761 in France and began working with wax figures and exhibiting them throughout Europe. When she was unable to return to France because of the Napoleonic wars, she settled in London and opened her wax museum, and the museum has been in London ever since. Of course, the collection continues to be modernized to keep up with changing tastes but some of the oldest works are models of heads from victims of the French Revolution.
Some of the most popular wax figures are the British royalty and I was able to pose with two of them. Other pieces of note were all James Bond actors and a wide array of actors, singers, and sports figures.
I have to say that all the figures look amazingly lifelike, even when you look very closely.
That includes Chewbacca and Yoda and the one that looks like me!!!
So now for a bit of what a typical Sunday in London is like. We popped over to our local pub, the Albany, for a bit of Sunday Roast and some football (soccer) on the telly. A Sunday roast consists of roast beef (or chicken if you prefer) plus roast root veggies. Ours came with carrots, parsnips and potatoes. This is all topped with gravy and Yorkshire Pudding which is the bread-like item on top. It was absolutely delicious and very filling.
The match on the telly was Arsenal versus Chelsea and our crowd was all Arsenal supporters. They lived and died with each play and went crazy when Arsenal scored the only goal of the match. This photo was taken a few seconds after that goal.
To close out the evening we went to see a comedian, Dara O'Briain, up in Milton Keynes, which is north of London. 35 minutes by express train on the way up and over an hour via the local on the way back. Dara is Irish and the long-time host of "Mock the Week" on BBC so he is very well known over here. The show was a sell-out with a crowd of maybe 2 to 3K. He was very funny, but sorry, no pictures. Got back to the room around 1 am.
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