Two Full Days in London

The Heathrow Express is so easy, though a bit expensive.   The Underground with bags is not.   We thought to take the Express and then get a taxi, but then decided we'd do the Underground to Holland Park.   Don't.  From Paddington it requires a change at Notting Hill, and there is nothing bag-friendly about a line transfer.  Stairs, stairs and more stairs.  What would England do about a Disabilities Act with a system that is 150 years old!  We made it, but at significant effect on muscles and joints.

Our BnB, the Kiln House in Holland Park, is everything we remembered and the landlady, Lee, is equally as delightful as during our last visit 2-1/2 years ago.   The mews house is contemporary, probably about 40 years old, built around a  hop kiln.  Very comfortable, very good continental breakfast, and an easy walk to busses and the tube.

And a chance to look at some of the more trendy fashions--very tight jeans rolled up almost above the top of socks, along with rolled beanies.   Ah, the 60s are back!

We had a slow Wednesday afternoon but ventured out to a delightful Persian restaurant for dinner.   It is the Chelem Sotoun, on Holland Park Road.  It's only been open a few days, according to Lee the landlady, and she had not been in it.  We had two lovely eggplant appetizers, served with naan bread that they heat on a hot dome just before serving.  The appetizers were kasha-o-baadenjan, a mix of fried eggplant, walnuts, onion, whey and fried mint, and mirza ghassemi, baked eggplant, garlic, onions, tomatoes and eggs.   Our mains were equally as tasty.  Ben had a ghemieh baddenjan stew, a vegetarian dish of eggplant, yellow split peas, onion, tomato, lime juice and spices. John enjoyed a zeresk polo, a stewed chicken leg in a red tomato and red bell pepper broth, served with a mixed basmati and brown rice with pomegranate seeds.  He enjoyed two glasses of a Provençale rosé.  What was even nicer was the bill, which came in at about USD30 per person.

Yesterday we headed off to the National Portrait Galley for the Man Ray photo show.  It includes Man Ray's work from the start of his photo career in 1916 through to his death in 1976.  As the photographer of the arts crowd in Paris in the 20s and 30s he did portraits of all the greats--Picasso, Braque, Gertrude and Alice, Duchamp, Dali and so on.  One of the most interesting subjects, though, was his mistress Lee Miller, a stunning beauty of Garbo-esque stature.   

Lovely loaves on Regent St

St Martin's

Trafalgar Square

As we left walking down to Trafalgar Square, we avoided a guy passing out flyers until John noticed that it was for a performance of Fauré's Requiem at  St Martin in the Fields, just across the street.  He went back for the paper and we decided to get tickets for the performance for tonight, since SMITF is a place we have never been before.   We will enjoy it.  We're also going to do a repeat performance of yesterday's excellent lunch in the crypt for dinner.  Lunch was soup and a vegetable stew, excellent.  We'll see what they offer for dinner.

Last night we went to the West End for the slapstick farce One Man, Two Guv'nors, at the Royal Haymarket Theatre.  It was hilariously funny, very broad music hall humor, lots of sexual innuendos, and not so innuendo.  Set in the early 60s, it's a belly-laugh a minute and must be incredibly exhausting for the performers.

After the show, we had a late English dinner at Stockpot a restaurant close to the theatre, that was disappointing.   We had planned to have chicken and mushroom pot pies, but they were out of them.  Ben had "sort-of" scampi which may have had some shrimp somewhere, and John had sausages and chips.   We started with an excellent lentil soup, but the dinner did not progress to heights from there.   Best, though, was the price, at about USD30 each, including a Lancaster ale.

Easy ride on the tube home making all connections, but the transfers between lines are quite lengthy.  We had forgotten.  But the tube has been upgraded because of last year's Olympics, with most of the cars in very good shape and stations pleasant, though still small, and still without many escalators and elevators.