June 6, 2014 London, England

Thom invited us to meet him this morning at the Burrough’s market near London Bridge, a short subway ride from our hotel. This enormous market is open only three days a week and features anything and everything you may want to eat. You’ll find gorgeous meats, fish shops, vegetables, fruits, cheeses, flowers and more. You can find things to take home and prepare yourself or you can stop for a huge variety of ready to eat stands selling meat pies, sausages, hot dogs, sandwiches and salads. This market has been on this site for over one thousand years and still going strong.

We explored the neighborhood a bit including a walk along the River Thames where we saw London Bridge and Tower Bridge. We enjoyed George’s Inn, which dates back to 1542 and was frequented by Shakespeare and Dickens. The city of London is filled with grand old architecture mixed with new high-rise towers and everything in between. There are public parks throughout the city filled with art, sculpture and monuments of historical people and events. With more than eight million residents the city is a bustling, noisy place but at the same time you are able to find out of the way quiet spots to enjoy as well.

In the late afternoon we met our Friends Paul and David who live near Blenheim Palace in Woodstock for afternoon tea. They had driven into the city just to see us, staying over night before returning home the next day. We had a delightful afternoon and evening catching up with them. We had not seen them since 2010 when we had the opportunity to visit them in their home but we picked up where we had left off just like it was yesterday.