Our original plan was to travel to London by train, but due to engineering works taking place every weekend during August this proved to be impractical. Instead we traveled by car, stopping at the motorway services for lunch along the way. The journey was painless. There was only one short delay due to a traffic accident blocking one of the lanes. When we arrived at the hotel Mr C tried to fathom out how the car pick up and parking service worked, which wasn’t obvious. It turned out that the phone calls he had received and not been able to answer whilst we were driving were from the company trying to find out when we were going to arrive at the hotel, so that they could be there when we arrived!
When the car park parking situation had been sorted and our bags unpacked we headed off the the Science Museum which was further away than advertised to me 
I was flagging and in need of a cool refreshing drink when we got there…
After the welcome refreshment we picked out a few sections of the museum that we were interested in and set out to explore them. There are many interesting things in the museum but I think that it is not laid out in the best possible way to showcase what they have on offer. There is an excellent space section where part of the display is a full sized replica of the Apollo 11 lunar module. The museum also houses the Apollo 10 landing capsule but this is displayed in a different part of the museum. The dim lighting didn’t help to show the exhibits to their best advantage.
One of the things that I wanted to see was Foucault’s Pendulum. We struggled to find it and when we did we found it tucked away in a corner which is why is why we had missed it. We had walked past it a couple of times without noticing it.
After our brief visit we walked back to the hotel and by the time we got there my feet were complaining and I put my feet up before venturing out for dinner. Luckily one of the restaurants I had spotted in the Dorling Kinderlsey guide book was just around the corner. The food (mostly fish) was excellent and we had a good banter and laugh with the owner who who served the guests at their tables. After the meal we called in at a pleasant pub for a nightcap before returning to the hotel.
oh i love london – one of my favourite places to visit. look forward to more pictures of your travels.
Thanks Kamana, I hope you like them
a nice account, Cherie. i felt most museums fall in one of two categories: either they have a sign prohibiting photography or they simply maintain very low lights.
You could be right, it may be a deliberate ploy…
Don’t think they’ve got any Books about Town benches in Kensington thou. He he…
Definitely not in the Science Museum.
No we didn’t spot any of those benches on our travels. We did see the poppies though, I got rather carried away taking photos of those
You and your husband are so well suited! What wonderful times you two must have.
We certainly get out and about a lot
Re Foucault’s Pendulum: Did you read Eco’s?
No I haven’t got round to reading that yet, although I am currently reading a factual book about the Templars
I stayed in a Mercure in Paris. It was quite pleasant really, did the job.
The Mercure is always a good bet. The breakfast service in this one was not of their usual standard, it was typical London standard. We need to up our act
Yes London does that to my feet as well, maybe not as bad as Edinburgh though with Lisbon taking the ultimate prize.
I try to avoid city centre hotels with the car but had no option when I had a hire car in Cape Town two years ago. Most bizarre … I wasn’t allowed to drive it out of the adjacent multi story car park on my own, I had to have a hotel porter with me in the passenger seat. My companion for the trip had to be ready at the door as there were only a few spaces at the door taken up with Taxis.
Your car experience in Cape Town doesn’t sound like a fun one to me. We much prefer other methods of transport around a city. We only took the car because there were engineering works on the line between us and London making the journey an impossible length of time.