Tuesday 1st April: Return to London, Abbey Road and Sherlock Holmes

After another home-style breakfast, I took some pictures out front of Carol's cottage just before she gave us a lift to the train station in Banbury.

Carol and Evie

There we boarded a direct line to Marleybone Sation in London, close to another main station, Paddington, where we had booked a hotel online, The Norfolk Towers located right on a square named, yes, Norfolk Square.  We took a short taxi ride to the front door and checked in but were too early to get right in. We checked our bags and walked a block to a nice restaurant and had lunch. 

The first room they gave us was on the ground floor right under scaffolding at the window and very dark, so we asked to change.  They sent us upstairs to another room which faced into a small courtyard but was very tiny with barely room in the bathroom to turn around so they sent us to a THIRD room; this was back downstairs on the first floor and was a huge upgrade!  Large bed, spacious bathroom, nice little desk, and a small fridge! That's nice for a little milk and a cold drink, so we're very happy with this one to the side of the scaffolding so you can see some sky and get some light in!  The hotel was, like so many others in London, being renovated

Norfolk Towers Hotel

The hotel lobby

web image of hotel entrance

Map of area of Norfolk Tower

I had a little lie down while Evie made some calls and put everything in its place.  She was not feeling so well and seems to be developing a cold and bad cough.

This hotel is only a couple of blocks from Paddington and not far at all from our first hotel in Bayswater; maybe a ten minute walk.  You may not be able to make out details in the map here but the big green area at the bottom is Hyde Park, and the yellow road on the northern edge is Bayswater Road. The green rectangle at the far right corner of the park is Marble Arch, where the famous "speaker's corner" is; traditionally on Sunday mornings, people come out and are free to speak their piece, however, it was closed for renovation while we were there. Our first hotel on Inverness Terrace would be just a couple blocks west of the left side of this map.

Norfolk Square park. All buildings on both sides seem to have nothing but hotels and hostels

We went out and bought the next week on our Oyster card, giving us free reign on the buses trains and underground.  We then made use of it by jumping on a bus to Abbey Road Studios, not too far away. Even though it was after 6pm by the time we got there, lots of people were still trying to get the mandatory picture walking the crosswalk. It's a very busy intersection and everything stops for the crazy tourists trying to get in stride for the Beatles walk.  I took a couple pictures of the front of the most famous recording studio in the world, Abbey Road. passed on the over $100 for the tour of the facility and had Evie take a picture of me walking across. It was was too much trouble to try and perfect it, especially since I didn't have 3 other guys to do it properly!

Abbey Road studio one entrance

The famous crosswalk on Abbey Road

We jumped on another bus, and in a few minutes found ourselves on Baker Street, site of the fabled office of Sherlock Holmes.  We weren't sure exactly where it was but by walking a block, discovered the museum, with the famously fictitious address, 221B Baker Street.

The Sherlock Holmes musuem

Knocking for Sherlock. He wasn't in.

The museum was closed, since we were so late, and although we both knocked on Sherlock's door, he wasn't in, so we set off down the road in search of somewhere to eat.

Didn't really find anything there that we were interested in, so we jumped on the Bakerloo tube line back to Paddington, just a couple of quick stops, where there are hundreds of options.  We chose another pub, for its soup this time and I had a sandwich and a pint of a local brew on tap that turned out to be not a beer but cider.  I didn't like it much but drank it anyway.

Street view at night across from Norfolk Square park

Walked past Norfolk Square, which is lined on both sides with long, continuous buildings divided up into dozens of small hotels, some looking fairly nice, some looking like crash pads for young travelers with minimal needs.

We threw ourselves onto the glorious bed, two doubles together, and got a good night's sleep with plenty of room to turn over!