The Ham Nomads

9 Dec 2015. <GB-ENG> London —

Our last full day in the UK, the last full day of our European journey! But first a little catch-up on the computer. And then to dispose of what we didn't want to take back on the flight home. Some of the clothing was posted to Kay in Scotland, and a package of printed materials was posted home. This was to allow our suitcases to come in under the 30kg limit imposed by the airline. (We succeeded!) Our apartment is in a brilliant location — the post office, for example, is only a couple of hundred yards away in Regent Street. And the Piccadilly Market, which we revisited this morning, is only a little further away down Piccadilly.

We decided to go down to Westminster, to Westminster Palace, Westminster Abbey, and then into the War Cabinet Bunkers.

We didn't go into either of the first two, the Palace or the Abbey. To tour the Palace would have taken too long for the time we had available, and the Abbey had an exorbitant entry fee — especially as we had been there before — so we went to the War Cabinet Bunkers, aka the Churchill War Rooms. This was good, in that it tied in well with our time at Bletchley Park and in the underground wartime facilities at Dover Castle.. These are the underground bunkers that housed the British War Cabinet during the blitz, and which have been left in virtually the state they were in just after VE Day.

Churchill's private dining room

The BBC Radio Equipment Room

The Map room

Churchill's bedroom/study

From here, we went directly back to our apartment to continue the task of packing.

Then we walked around the corner to the Prince of Wales Theatre in time for the performance of The Book of Mormon. In the theatre, we were between a girl from Leeds whose birthday was yesterday, and who was bringing her mother along to the show to celebrate, and a couple from Mount Waverley in Melbourne — yes, a couple of Aussies!

After a fun time with Arnold and Kevin (read the synopsis of the show) we returned to base to finish packing and to get an early night — it's a big day tomorrow!