We decided to have an “early” walk before breakfast this morning. We got away from the hotel at about 7:45am. The streets were empty, no cars anywhere and very few people out. The streets had barricades around them, we got the idea something was going on. But we loved our quiet London, just for us.
We walked south along the Thames towards Westminster. There was little wind and the light was pretty soft, so we got some reasonable photos. We walked past the London Eye (across the river from us)
and passed New Scotland Yard (the original buildings that were Scotland Yard are very close to our hotel)
and onto Big Ben
, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Cathedral.
It was so good that it was all very quiet with no cars and very few people. We discovered the reason for our peaceful morning, the London ASICS 10km run was on.
We walked around a bit and got some pics from different angles. We saw a quote on a stone at the back of Westminster Cathedral “The wind goeth towards the south and turneth about unto the north, it whirleth about continually and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.” Now you don’t hear a speech like that often any more. 😀
We got some nice photos around the area and then moved on.
We walked up past 10 Downing Street, well passed the fenced off and guarded end of Downing Street where you can get a tangential glimpse of the front door of 10 Downing Street. 
Democracy at work.
We then continued along Whitehall to Trafalgar Square, past our local pub,
The Clarence. It was unusual again to have an uncrowded Trafalgar Square,
no one climbing over the lions
or swimming in the fountain ponds! We enjoyed our time there.
Then we walked back down to the Thames and walked up to get a glimpse of Tower Bridge from just passed Blackfriars Bridge. And it was just a glimpse, 
but it did the trick. London has a lot of unusual looking buildings, they have the Gherkin, The Shard, The Cheese Grater and more. We found this one this morning
and have no idea what it is called? Any suggestions?
We then walked back towards our hotel through a few backstreets. We discovered the Temple area,
a huge area of London bordering on the Thames that houses one of the four “Inns of Court” (to which all practicing lawyers and barristers must be a member of). At the centre of Temple is the Temple Church,
with links back to the Knights Templar up until their dissolution in 1312. The area has been a legal precinct since the 1300’s. We weren’t allowed into the Temple Church, but sat outside for a time listening to the singing within. We kept walking south through the Temple area and eventually found that there was no exit, so we backtracked to where we came in.
We walked back along the Embankment and saw a part of the Thames Beach (the tidal height difference on the Thames is very significant) 
and then through the Embankment Gardens to the Whitehall Gardens in front of our hotel and sat for a while enjoying the area.
We had a late lunch at The Clarence, Sunday Roast for us both. Deb had beef and I had pork,
another English checklist item done for me. The servings were reasonably generous and we both got a good sized Yorkshire pudding. It was fun sitting having lunch and reflecting on our holiday.
We went back to the hotel, had a drink down in the Whitehall Garden Bar and relaxed a bit. We have decided how we will be getting to the airport tomorrow and that sort of helped with our planning from here on in. We are going to get a train to the airport, well actually two trains. Embankment to South Kensington then onto Heathrow Terminal 4, arriving a bit before our four hour check in window opens. Our flight is due to leave at 9:55pm Monday.
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