We started our day by crossing the Thames and taking the Northern Line to Charing Cross. This is considered the “centre of London” and it is from there that distances from London are measured. It was clearly a busy place and we easily moved off to Trafalgar Square, the home of a statue to Lord Nelson celebrating a win at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

The National Gallery, our primary goal for today, also sits on the square. This year marks the 200th anniversary of the gallery. They celebrated by pulling together a large collection of Van Gogh’s paintings. Some were from the Gallery’s collection, but they also included paintings from other museums and private collections.

We enjoyed the special exhibit and appreciated that they controlled the number of people in the gallery at a time. We didn’t feel rushed and could take the time to sit and look at different paintings. After a brief coffee in the Gallery cafe, we continued to the rest of the gallery. There was much to see.

We left the gallery to head toward Covent Gardens. Covent Gardens was originally a garden for West Minster Abby, but after the dissolution of the monasteries, the land was given to Henry VIII’s advisor, the Earl of Bedford. He hired an architect to develop the land into homes and markets. By 1654 a small fruit and vegetable market was developed. As time went on, the market became seedy with lots of brothels. The clean-up began and by 1830, many of the buildings that we now see were built. Now it is a trendy group of small shops and restaurants. We stopped at the Punch & Judy Pub for lunch and continued to explore the market.

The ever so wise Facebook logarithm strongly recommended we check out the Royal Opera building, so we did. The building is relatively modern having been constructed in 1858. We looked around the common areas but couldn’t see the stage as they were getting set up for a performance tonight. We did find the 5th floor viewing area/bar and stopped for a beverage while overlooking Covent Gardens. A wonderful musician serenaded us from below singing jazz standards and playing them on his saxophone.

We headed back to our side of town to relax before dinner. We met up with our good friend Jane and her travel buddies who had just finished a week of hiking in the Yorkshire Dales. It was good to finally meet the women (Vicky, Susan & Susan) Jane adventures with when she’s not adventuring with us.