What do you do with a free day in London?

Before you answer that – let me provide some background.

We are compulsive schedulers when we travel – and always thought that an unscheduled day represented a wasted opportunity to see something new. As we both move into our 60’s we are trying to be semi-spontaneous and keep some open days while traveling and see what comes up.

I had attempted to get tickets to the Churchill War Rooms before leaving Washington – but it appeared that it was sold out for the days we were in London. As we were contemplating what we might do with our unscheduled day – Noel checked on line and we were able to get some tickets.

It was an amazing experience particularly if you enjoy World War II history.

We headed to the War Rooms a bit early and had a light lunch at Storey’s Cafe – which was located just down the road a bit from Big Ben and a block away from the War Rooms main entrance.

There are no bathrooms available once you start the tour – so we all made a quick pitstop, grabbed our audio tour equipment and started our tour through the War Rooms as they would have looked during wartime from the early 1940’s.

For some reason Noel was listening to a lot more commentary on her audio headset than I was – and it turned out that for the first few rooms I had accidentally started the commentary for children instead of adults. Once I restarted the tour with the adult audio tour – it was much more in-depth!

As I have posted these blog entries several friends have suggested other things to see and do “if we have time”. Some suggestions are historical, some are restaurants and a few are bars.

So a question to my fellow travelers – is it possible to spend more at a bar having drinks than you spend on a nice dinner afterwards?

As an experimentalist at heart you just have to run a trial or two and see what the answer comes out to be.

A former work colleague (thank-you Glynda!) suggested that we go by Duke’s Bar while we were in London which is famous for their martinis. Dukes Bar was a favorite of Ian Fleming – the author who created James Bond – meaning several of the drinks had a Bond theme to them.

After finishing our tours of the Churchill War Rooms – we decided to walk about 1 km through St. James Park to Dukes.

It was a pleasant stroll in a picturesque environment. It also gave us a chance to do some urban birding!

It turns out that Dukes was on several other people’s lists for places to go – so we had about a 45 minute wait for our table and had a chance to visit with some of the other folks while we waited.

It was an amazing experience and an awesome recommendation.

The martini’s are handcrafted from a martini cart that is placed next to your table. The mixologist then puts on a bit of a show while making your drink. The gin is chilled in a freezer – so there is no ice in your drink. As a result – patrons are limited to two drinks at a setting. One was plenty for me!

We sat next to three British guys who were spending their time away from work and hitting several bars and eating establishments before returning home. It turns out that they all are executives at Ernst and Young and met at Oxford and commute back and forth between the U.K. and U.S. for work. One of them had a daughter getting ready for her first year studying Chemical Engineering at Sheffield – so we chatted a bit about studying engineering and why Chemical Engineering is an awesome degree.

Q: What do other engineers call a Chemical Engineer?

A: Boss

They invited us out for more drinks at another bar – but we passed and asked them for a recommendation on a nice Indian restaurant. They recommended 1947 London – which has a Michelin starred chef. The food was delicious and a nice way to end the day.

After such a late night on the previous day (British Museum and Phantom of the Opera) – we enjoyed heading back to the hotel early and catching up a bit on our sleep.

For my fellow birders – I did snag a photo of a gray heron in St. James Park – another new bird to add to my lifetime list.

Until next time …