Day 24: Sep. 27, 2018 - The National Portrait Gallery & Tea at The Langham

Today looks like it will be another busy one. We want to

• take a City Walk (#1: St. James) in the Heart of British Power in London,
• visit the National Portrait Gallery,
• and take tea (reservations at 13:15).

We decide to get an early start. At about 9:00, we head out to the Underground. We exit where the walk starts, Trafalgar Square. We admire:

Nelson's Column

It’s early enough that we aren’t in a rush. We have plenty of time, so we step into the National Portrait Gallery. We promise ourselves that we won’t spend much time on the early years, we’ll go through those quickly and spend most of our time on the more recent portrait.

But Ah, the plan goes awry! The first portraits are of the Tudors (Henry VII and on). They are just such interesting characters and we know many of their stories. It’s too hard to glance at them briefly and move on! There are 40 rooms and it takes us two hours to walk through them all. We spend less time on the later portraits.

There are so many interesting pictures/stories. Since we live in the Queen Anne Neighborhood of Seattle, we see ...

Queen Anne

And since we have recently seen one of his fine works:

William Shakespeare

We’re finally back out the door and ready to start the City Walk. This is a most interesting walk through the avenues of power. There are lots of suits around us, as it gets toward lunchtime. We walk through Admiralty Arch, up The Mall, and up Waterloo Place past the Duke of York’s Column to Pall Mall. Then we pass through St. James Square and up …

Duke of York Street

We wander along Piccadilly and come across …

The Ritz

There are many high quality men’s clothing stores along these streets. Heading back east on Piccadilly, we decide to take a look inside Fortnum & Mason. The ground floor contains what must be the highest end food market I have ever been in. Really fine displays of quality merchandise. We aren’t quite in the market for Caviar and Champagne, so we conclude the walk at Piccadilly Circus.

We’ve timed it about right, so we head up Regent Street towards the Langham Hotel. Oops, the walk takes a little longer than I thought it would; I had the location of the Hotel about a half a mile closer to Piccadilly. We walk past the Apple Store for the fourth or fifth time and finally arrive at the Langham Hotel.

Once here, we are transported to another world. The Palm Court in the Langham Hotel is an exquisite venue. This is the easily the nicest place I have had tea. Amy has been in more such locations than I and she concludes that this is the nicest tea room she has been in. (She later concludes that this is the nicest tea she has been served.) The staff is courteous, welcoming and professional. They seem to enjoying themselves immensely. I know we are! The room is modern and elegant, not old and stuffy.

Amy at Tea

Cakes Course

We enjoy the leisurely tea and, of course, eat too much food. After the tea, we decide to do some souvenir errands, then head back to the flat. After a nice rest, we go to the Gourmet Burger Kitchen for a low-key dinner.

This has been another awesome day.