London Thursday 4th June

Today we discovered the free Wi Fi in McDonalds about 200 metres down the road near Paddington station so back on line again just for the price of a bad cup of coffee.
Gorgeous hot sunny day and we became real tourists today mixing with the thousands of others from all corners of the world. Big Ben was very impressive with magnificent gold decoration looming over us as we emerged from the Tube at Embankment -took a “flight” on the London Eye which was pretty impressive cos you can see for miles –in our pod was a young Orthodox Jewish couple –him complete with ringlets, Americans, Italians, Eastern Europeans, Dutch people.
Then it was off to the Tower of London-we hitched to one of the tours by one of the Beefeaters called Dave-a very loud voiced former Army Sergeant Major who was a witty and knowledgeable historian. Displays here are very well done, lots of audio visual together with the displays of armour and torture devices. Saw the ravens but what took our breath away was the Crown Jewels and the gold coronation altar items and table settings –again the presentation is superb-and the thickness of the vault doors impressive. There must be very state of the art security system all over this site but it was not evident other than a bag search at the entrance ( also bag search before boarding London Eye)
After a walk across Tower Bridge we then headed further into the East End in search of places that our great-grandmother Sarah Boyce (Beaumont) had lived in 1861 and 1871. Found Christian St near Aldgate where she had lived in a Public House in 1871 but not the building as the whole area had been rebuilt. Then it was off to Clerkenwell and we found Aylesbury Street and possibly the building where the whole Beaumont family are recorded on census night in 1861. There is a pub nearby called the Crown Tavern where about 200 people were out on the street cos it was a sunny evening and we spoke to a couple of Aussie guys there -2 pieces of trivia about the pub –Dickens set part of Oliver Twist in front of it and Karl Marx and Joseph Stalin met in the pub. The Marx centre is in the next street.
Back to Paddington exhausted again so headed to the Fish and Chip shop opposite hotel that looked clean and seemed very popular –another example of how looks can be deceiving! Consensus among us was that it was the most expensive and the worst F&C ( and in Annes case a hamburger) we had ever eaten-not cooked to order but all pre cooked. Wont be back there again. Fell into bed again for 9 hours sleep.