Walk 2: Cathedrals and Gardens and Landmarks, Oh My!

Our second Bill-led walk was on January 24th (hey, I'm only about a week behind on London recaps!), and wasn't as long as the first. Maybe because we've been here longer, but it wasn't quite as new, exciting, or fun. We still got to see tons of great sites. We started out by St. Paul's (the Fifth version of it, constructed by Christopher Wren, and the first Cathedral specifically build for the Protestant faith).We then saw a Christopher Wren designed gate for the City. Really, virtually everything we saw was Wren. By the end I was a little Wren out.

St. Paul's was followed seeing a bunch of cute little green areas. My favorite was Postman's Park. There was an adorable fountain, and memorial tiles for people who sacrificed their lives trying to save others. It was sad and beautiful. I remembered the area from the film Closer.

I can't really remember the order of the things we saw. St. Bartholomew-the-Greater stands out for me, it was a beautiful, very old church. Before going in, we saw Smithfield Street - where William Wallace was eviscerated and Queen Mary watched Protestants die - and the memorial to Wallace outside St. Bartholomew's Hospital. The whole situation of the area was incredibly ironic - "Over here is the site of one of the oldest hospitals in the world. And over here is the site of thousands and thousands of executions over hundreds of years."

But the church was very pretty. Much of the church dates from the 15oo's, and has been used in films for the period look. It was in Shakespeare in Love, which I love (I'm just realizing a lot of this is relating places back to films. I can't help it though, and in my defense, these places advertise the facts of their fame). I also lit a candle next to a nativity.
And this is the Golden Boy of Pye Corner. Since the Great Fire of London started in Pudding Lane (at a bakery, natch) and ended at Pye Corner, the people blamed it on the sin of Gluttony (that is, when they weren't blaming it on the Catholics). Thus, the reminder about the sin via this "fat" little boy. We had lunch in the Museum of London, right next to the Barbican - the old Roman wall around London - here's a part of it. The Museum of London looked nice, though we couldn't see much of it. I ordered a baguette and salmon pate, which came in a cute jar. I would never have been able to eat all the pate, and I wasn't about to leave it, so I took it back. Jar and all!

Almost at the end, we got to see the Guildhall, and the outline of the Roman stadium. The Guildhall was very pretty, with all sorts of neat statues. I LOVED the crazy wood carvings of Gog and Magog. Here's the pretty lights and windows, and Bill the Encyclopedia explaining things to us ignorant students.
There was a lion, which reminded me of Aslan. But for some reason, he thought my hand was very tasty. Oh no!We rounded out the walk back at St. Paul's, with a much better view. Jackie, Clara, Katie, and I had wanted to take the bus back, but it took us a while to figure out the buses weren't going as far as Edgware Road because of protests. It was really nice to see the absolute center of London, though.