As it was a cold but sunny day we decided to take a walk in London with the aim of ending up in a vegan café that we have never tried before. Actually we never made it to the café as we became too absorbed in enjoying the walk, one of the pubs, and Daunt’s bookshop.
The pub we went to was The Golden Lion which has a classic interior and an upstairs theatre bar, the staircase to which has some lovely old photos of stars of screen and stage.
On the subject of pubs, there is a remarkable concentration of them just off Pall Mall / Piccadilly and around St JamesSquare. Check out this screenshot from Google Maps – there are five including two Red Lions!
The first Red Lion in the bottom left hand corner is accessed by a narrow walk through called Crown Passage, which is like Diagon Ally in the Harry Potter books with a mixture of shops including this lovely green one:
Our walk to get to this point saw us pass a couple of interesting sculptures which merit further research:
In Eagle Place, a narrow cobbled thoroughfare, we had some friendly banter with a group of men trying to push a trailer out on to Piccadilly.
The man in the orange work clothes was just passing and mucked in, for which they were very grateful. Our role was supervisory / managerial for which they thanked us. Every task needs proper management oversight.
Our walk up New Bond Street took in a wealth (literally) of art shops, ranging from the traditional to this more modern offering:
But some of the shop windows were worth looking at in their own right:
Marylebone Street has some nice shops, including one where we got into friendly banter with a five foot nothing shop assistant who I did not realise was trying to get past me until my wife tugged me to one side. You had to be there, as they say. But I would make a serious point. When you are very tall (I am six foot three) with corrected vision you have no more idea what is going on below your level of gaze than an airline pilot above the clouds does. Have some sympathy you shortarses!
Also of note on this street is the Waitrose clock:
I think every Waitrose branch should have one.
We finally ended up in Daunts which is a beautiful and famous London bookshop:
My only gripe is that there are no chairs but if they had some I suspect people like me would camp out there all day …
Eyecatching 