Art, Art Nouveau and Archeology.

We got up early today..... because Andrea's now ON HOLIDAY!!!  HURRAH!!!

We scooted up to the bus stop because we're going somewhere.

We're getting a train somewhere!!!

We were just in time to get an early train too..... but it was still packed though!  We think there might've been a football match on somewhere that people were travelling up to.

We left a CD on the hand rail!

Oooo I can see the Shard there!!!

See?!?!

We're at London Bridge now..... but we didn't get off here.

We got off at Blackfriars and took the South Bank exit!  Good view of St Paul's Cathedral from here!

It's really nice here, we love it!!!

We did a bit of decorating on our way wandering along the river.

There's a bug hotel there looking a bit like a bird house!  Can you make it out?!?!

We like decorating!!

(Ed's note: this one's been claimed!)

We stopped to listen to the bells of St Paul's Cathedral ringing.

Then we did a bit more decorating...

And we spotted an ice cream van made out of neon lights!!! Hahaha!!

That one looks pretty there!

And that one sparkles in the sunshine!!

We saw some new grafitti on the back of the Millenium bridge!

And then we climbed up some stairs to get to Southwark Bridge!

Where are we going now?

Off to find a bus stop!  This one is where the Toot buses leave from but we're not getting one of those.

We're getting a bus from THIS bus stop!

BUS BINGO ALERT!!!  We got the number 344!!!

Ooo that looks like an interesting building!!

It's got art all over it!!!

We left them a floppy disc on the hand rail!

And we got off here at the Imperial War Museum!!

And we started decorating here as well!!!

We picked a good day to come galavanting around town!!

It's glorious weather!!!

We left a bookcrossing book here too.....

We saw those big guns last time too!  They're e-NOR-mous!!!

And then we headed back the way we came leaving more stuff out.

It's good fun doing this!

We got back to the gate just in time as we saw our next bus arrive at the bus stop!  We didn't have enough time to take a picture of the actual bus stop like we usually do!!!

BUS BINGO ALERT!!!  It's the 453 bus!!!

This bus was REALLY busy!!!

We went over Westminster Bridge!!

A lot of people got of the bus at the next stop, so we were able to leave a CD on the hand rail!

Then we went along Horseguards Parade....

..... and when we got to the top of Regents Street, we got off the bus.  There were loads of Union Jacks hanging up because the Queen's having a big party in a couple of weeks!!!

That's Piccadilly Circus.  No idea who those two people are.  Hope they're having as good a day as we are though!

Then we walked along Piccadilly.  There's that Dilly place over the road!

Even the bookshop here has a Queen's party themed window display!!!

This is our next bus stop..... what bus next?

BUS BINGO ALERT!!!  It's the number 19!!!

They got a CD tied to the handrail too!!

We got off at Sloane Street/Knightsbridge Station and then got a bit lost.  

But we walked up this road past a funny statue

And then spotted a building that we think we recognise!!!

We walked past some really pretty flowers.

We're at Horrids!!!  They're not open yet though, so we can't go in.

We crossed over the road and went a bit further on and found a Rhino standing on a roof!!!

And here's our next bus stop!!!

BUS BINGO ALERT!!!  It's the number 52!!!

We got off at the Royal Albert Hall!!

We had to walk along to the next bus stop and did some more decorating on the way.

At the next bus stop, we picked up the number 70 bus!!!

They got a CD as well!

We got off here at Notting Hill Gate Station and had to do a bit of walking about to find the next bus stop.

First we went to this one, but the bus we wanted was going the wrong way.  So we double backed on ourselves and tried the other direction.

We saw some lovely tile work on the way!

And these ones as well by a front door!!

Then we came to this bus stop which was the right one!!

BUS BINGO ALERT!!!  It's the number 328 all the way to the Worlds End!!!  We're not going that far though, we got other stuff to see first.

We got off a few stops later at High Street Kensington!  We've been here before!!!

We remember that shop over the road!!!!

We crossed over the road by Holland Park and found the Design Museum on the other side of it!

We'll have to investigate this place one day.

Then we found the Samadal Iraqi Restaurant.  We're going to try this place for lunch.

We got there just before 12:30pm and the chap said that they don't serve lunch until 12:30 but we said that's OK we don't mind a wait.  We had a good proper look at the menu and changed our mind about what we wanted about six times!!!!!  We ended up ordering a lamb something but we can't remember what it was!!!

That's their website address and they're on Facebook and Instagram too.

What we ordered ended up taking absolutely AGES AND AGES to arrive and we started chewing on the table top, so they asked us if we've like a lentil soup to keep us going.  We said yes!!!  (that's a yoghurt drink we asked for...... which must be an acquired taste.  We haven't acquired the taste and I'm not sure we're going to.  But the lentil soup was brill!!!)  

Ed's note: when we got the bill, they hadn't charged us for the soup!!!  We think that was a "sorry you had to wait so long" thing!  Which was proper nice of them!

When we got our order, it was big enough to feed a family of six for a week!!!!!

AND we got rice as well!!!  But it tasted fabulous!!  We know what "melt in the mouth" means now too, because that's how they cooked the lamb!  It was SOOOO tasty!  We apologised for not eating it all and said it was really good - and they asked if we'd like to take the rest home in a box!!!! 

We think this place is best if there's a group of you going though - then you can order two or three things and share it all between you.  You'd probably still have food left over..... but not as much as we had!

After lunch we had a bit of a stroll and found an odd shaped postbox!

Here's the gates to Holland Park!

We did some decorating there too!

It's good fun this decorating lark!

They even got a CD too!

And then went off to the bus stop for the next bus.

BUS BINGO ALERT!!!  It's the number 28!!!

We got off a few stops later - what's the next bus?

BUS BINGO ALERT!!!  It's the number 27!!!

They got a floppy disc!!

We went past some really pretty buildings!!

OH WOW!!!  WE GOTTA TELL SANDY BEAR ABOUT THIS ONE!!!!

It's near the P-chester Terrace north bus stop on the London bus route 27..... gotta write that down....

We're going a long way on this bus.......

There's Paddington Station!!!

And then we got off here.... do you know where this is?????

This building's AMAZING!!!

It's an ancient Egyptian temple called "Carreras cigarette factory" built in the Egyptian revival style of Art Nouveau!

And it's got two Egyptian cat gods standing guard at the entrance!

Aren't they fab!

There's more cat heads up at the top over the windows.

This is just amazing!

We crossed the road to try and get pictures of the whole building.

This has to be the best ancient Egyptian temple I've ever seen!!!

You can make out the cats heads at the top a bit better here.

That's the main entrance again....

Stunning.....

.....just stunning!

And a very BIG temple!!

wowzers.

Can we do some more archaeology-ing?  It's fun!

We still had a few more CDs and things left so we did a bit more decorating.

We left some on a fence across the road, too.

And then walked back to the main Euston Road.  There's the Telecom Tower in the distance!

That used to be an orphanage for girls!!

We passed a Sari shop too!

When we got to the Euston Road, we left another CD here....

And had a look at the wild meadow flowers and the bug hotels!!

I'm glad there's hotels for bugs.

It's very pretty here for them.

And then we went to the bus stop for the last bus of the day.

BUS BINGO ALERT!  It's the 205!!! It was packed to bursting though so we didn't get any pictures.

And we got off here at the British Library.

There's the St Pancras Rennaissance Hotel.

And there's the clock tower.

It's home time - we're exhaustipated!!!

We did a spot of shopping here (we'll show you later)

They got Jubilee decorations up too!!

Then we stopped at the Laduree concession (we'll show you later!)

Then we used the facilities and left our last CD hanging on the door.  Then we washed our paws carefully for ages.

When we got to our platform, we only had an 8 minute wait for our train which was good.

We walked up to the top end of the platform - there tends to be more seat availability at the ends of the train because most people get on in the middle.  We got a window seat too!

When we got to Blackfriars Station, it was packed with people!!!

Ooo I think I spotted the Shard.....!

This bit of the train ride is always interesting!!

We had lots more people get on at London Bridge and at East Croydon but then most of them got off at Gatwick.

Love this bit too.....!

There's the South Downs in the distance!  We're almost home!

We made it!!  One final crawl and then we can collapse!!

We just missed our usual bus and had a 15 minute wait for the next one..... but this bus was due in 2 minutes so we got that instead.

And got off here.  

And we're home!!!  We got some coffee from Fortnums....

And a cayke box!

Wiv a CAYKE!!  It's Andrea's birthday this week so I got her a cayke.  But don't tell her yet, it's a surprise!!

What a fun day out!