(London, England, U.K.)

In between my tour of Parliament and the Jools Holland concert at the Royal Albert Hall, I had an entire afternoon free in London.  As I had stumbled upon so many interesting things on a random walk two days earlier, I decided to do the same thing after leaving the Houses of Parliament.

Heading westward, I passed Westminster Abbey and found myself in the sprawling St. James Park.  The crowds were immense, as the park was right between Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace.  There was a lot of almost-domesticated wildlife:  these ducks, swans and squirrels had long ago figured out that they could live well by getting relatively close to humans.

I arrived at Buckingham Palace (see photo at top of this post) just after 12:00 noon.  It is certainly a large building but I found the setting to be more impressive than the palace itself. This did not seem to deter many tourists:  the roads were kept clear by police but it was otherwise extremely crowded in front of the palace.

Craving some space, I decided to continue west and soon found myself  in Belgravia.  Along the way, I came across the “Bag o’ Nails” pub.  I knew it was famous for something but couldn’t remember what.  It turns out that this was a famous music venue in the 1960s and was also the pub where Paul McCartney first met his wife Linda in 1967.   [As much of “A Hard Day’s Night” was filmed at the Scala Theatre on Tottenham Court Road in Fitzrovia, I probably also saw the place where George Harrison met his first wife in 1964!].

Belgravia is posh, with immaculate and imposing white buildings everywhere.  I wasn’t surprised to see many embassies here.  While it was nice to look at and there were certainly no crowds, I was beginning to get hungry and Belgravia didn’t seem to have any restaurants.  I began walking northeast and, after passing the edge of Hyde Park, found myself in Mayfair.

Mayfair is another one of those names that I had heard before but didn’t have any real meaning to me.  Now it does: Mayfair is the shopping district for those who are unconcerned about price.  It’s beautiful, with ornate buildings and an unhurried air suggesting that everything is lovingly scrubbed down and polished on a daily basis.

I was getting quite hungry but I was wearing blue jeans and a scruffy sweater.  Even if the Mayfair restaurants had appealed to me, I doubt that I would have been welcome in them.  I reluctantly looked at the map and decided to head towards Oxford Street…it would be crowded, but it would be much easier to find an appropriate place for lunch.

Oxford Street was impossibly busy but I found an unassuming café on a street running parallel to and north of Oxford.  I paused to look at the menu and I was reassured by a patron that the food was good.  For just under 5 pounds, I had a surprisingly good lasagna and a fruit juice at the Mustard Café.

As I had walked about 5 miles since leaving Parliament, I didn’t push myself too hard for the rest of the afternoon. I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t completely exhausted by the time I made it to the Royal Albert Hall!