16 December - Our last night in town

We had heard that there was a Christmas market at Trafalgar Square, so we though we’d take the train there to check it out.  Mostly the usual suspects with the addition of some great fabric ornaments and a hut selling wreaths, baubles and pommanders made of dried fruit and spices, which smelled heavenly.

Trafalgar Square with the Nelson Column towering over the Christmas tree:

Trafalgar Christmas Market:

The condiment containers reminded me of udders. I don't know why, but I found that hilarious.

Embroidered ornaments:

Dried fruit wreaths:

We wandered around for awhile then headed toward the river.  Bruce started his crawl at the Sherlock Holmes pub, I walked to the Thames and moseyed around a bit. 

As I was walking back to the tube station I took a left and found Embankment Park, an oasis of peace in an otherwise manic area; beautiful old trees, lots of benches and some lovely statues. I’ll remember this for future visits.

Australian WW1 memorial:

It being a Saturday and nine days before Christmas, I decided to head back to South Kensington to escape the crush of central London. At Sloane Square, I went into Peter Jones & Friends department store.  I was looking for an ugly Christmas sweater for Bruce but Peter Jones is apparently too classy for that. I heard what sounded like a brass ensemble and, sure enough, on the third floor there was the London Street Band playing Christmas music.  How cool! It wasn’t the only store featuring live music, either.  Aesop fragrances had a violinist, another store featured a sax player & bassist playing jazz, another had a guitarist.  How civilized!

I went to the Duke of York Square to photograph the 12 days of Christmas displays and came upon the biggest Saturday food market I’ve ever seen. 

Countless booths: Champagne & oysters, confit duck, arancini, Brazilian, Lebanese, Greek Korean cuisines, cheese, handmade chocolates, sushi, and lots of stands selling mulled wine. It was almost too much. How do you decide? I was texting to Bruce to see if he wanted to eat there and my phone ran out of juice, so I made my way back to the flat.

We wanted to see the lights on Oxford and Bond Streets, so decided to have dinner at our favorite spot, Mowgli. We chose the Ruby Wrap, Bhel Puri and Sticky Chicken, but since I’ve shown you countless pics of them in previous posts, I’ll spare you this time.

Than it was off to Oxford Street.  Foot traffic is always pretty heavy there, but leading up to Christmas and with all the light-peepers, it was absolutely mad. The lights were pretty, but I’m not sure they were worth all the jostling. 

Bond Street had some very elaborate displays, as they should, since the shops there are almost too expensive to walk past.

Some of the side streets we past had lovely lights as well.

From there we made our way to Belgravia. This is one of the most exclusive areas of London and the lights reflect that.  Giant chandeliers illuminate the main street. 

Shopkeepers also go to great lengths to impress.

From there, we walked back to the flat passing some more amusing sights along the way.

The 20,000+ steps on my pedometer explained why I was exhausted by the time we arrived.