Thursday's only plan was to make it to St. Paul's Cathedral. This is actually the fifth church on this site. It was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and received approval from King Charles II in 1675 after the Great Fire of London destroyed the previous cathedral. One amazing fact: it's the first English cathedral to be completed within the lifetime of its architect and it took only 35 years.
Some of the important events that took place here include the State funerals of Lord Nelson, Sir Winston Churchill and the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana. We sat and studied the splendid dome with paintings depicting scenes of St. Paul, mosaics of the Old Testament prophets and the four evangelists. No photos inside, sorry, but check out www.stpauls.co.uk
We walked the 163 steps (that's reported in the brochure; we didn't count them!) up to the inside Dome. Supposedly there's a Whispering Gallery, which means you can stand on oneside of the dome and whisper something that your companion can hear all the way across the Gallery, 32 metres. But it was pretty noisy up there and we didn't test the claim. It's another 119 steps up to the Stone Gallery and the final 152 steps to the Golden Gallery that provides a panoramic view of London. We didn't venture above the Dome, instead taking the stairs down to the Crypt to see tombs and memorials of historic figures, like Lord Nelson, Florence Nightingale and poet William Blake.
Our evening adventure was to the Covent Garden area to find a Greek restaurant called The Real Greek Souvlaki & Bar. Tiny place, maybe 10 tables in all so we waited for an open spot. It was definitely worth the wait with amazing hummus, soutzouki, souvlaki and ouzo.
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