A trip to London....

I have just returned from a week in London visiting with my mum who turned 80 years old on the 10th November.  She had organised a party to celebrate with her friends and family and she worked like a Trojan on the catering and all the things that need to be sorted out for it....I hope I have her energy when I reach her age!

My friend Magdalena came with me on my trip and my hubby Brian stayed home with the dogs....he won't leave them with anyone, although to be honest, he wouldn't want to go back to the UK even if we didn't have the dogs....he's only been back twice in 12 and a half years and both times under sufferance LOL.  So off I went with my friend who'd never been to the UK before, in fact this was actually her first time flying!  Thankfully she loved the journey and wasn't in the least bit nervous about taking to the air for the first time.

Because Magdalena was with me, I thought we would do the 'touristy thing' and go into London for the day, so we go on the tube last Sunday and headed for the centre of town.  We were joined by my son Brendan and his wife, Virginia, and spent the day walking from sight to sight taking in as much as we could in the one day. 

Here are a few of the photos from that day, I hope you enjoy them!  (Please forgive the fact that they are all out of order!!!)

Tower Bridge

The Gherkin

Some very nice sailors!

(that hat was waaay too small for me, looks like a pimple on a mountain!!!!) 

A police launch on the Thames

The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben

The London skyline

The Houses of Parliament again...looks like they've got the builders in!

Thames cruises

Magdalena, Brendan and Virginia in front of the London Eye

The Cenotaph  

We visited on Remembrance Sunday, hence all the beautiful poppies

 

 

The monument below is situated just along from the Cenotaph above, and commemorates the women of World War 2.  

(We were a little saddened that it had so few poppy reefs in comparison :( )

 

 Downing Street

A guard from the Household Cavalry

Brendan, Magdalena and Virgina in front of the Tower of London

And in front of Tower Bridge

And Magdalena gets to meet a Beefeater or Yeoman of the Guard as they are called.

 The Mayor of London's office on the South Bank

Magdalena at Tower Bridge

The London Eye 

(you can see we were lucky with the weather that day!)

Some more Big Ben photos

(most people will know that really Big Ben refers to the clock's bell inside the tower)

 

Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square

I hope you've enjoyed seeing a little bit of London, thanks for visiting.  I hope everyone has a great week ahead!

Playing the tourist in Malaga.....Part Two

I'm sorry that this 'part two' of my Malaga 'tour' has been a long time in coming, but the good news is, I have more photos, having gone there again just over a week ago, to collect my dress and my fascinator for my son's wedding!

I think I mentioned previously that the centre of Malaga is known as 'Historic Malaga' and it really is street after street of historic buildings.  There is also a very large 'indoor' food market right in the centre, which sells all sorts of foodstuffs from fish to shellfish, to fruit smoothies.  I had a delicious mango and banana one!  Well it would be rude not to, wouldn't it ;)

The whole place is beautifully clean and bright, and the food for sale looked of very high quality.  Here are some of the goods on display:

These cherries, my favourite fruit, were as big as conkers!  At the time the cherries were still selling in the supermarket at about 4,99 euros per kilo, so these were a great price.  I suspect they're cheaper this week as the cherry season is sadly coming to an end now :(

These are Dragon Fruits, I've never tasted them before and still haven't!!  I didn't like the look of the insides to be honest!  

Coconuts 1 euro each and pomegranates 4,50 euros per kilo.  These were very large ones too :)

This stall is selling all sorts of olive oil, dried fruit and nuts, including dried figs, strawberries, kiwi and mango.

One end of the building has a massive stained glass window, I meant to get a closer look but got sidetracked by all the nice food on offer!

All sorts of lovely fresh fish!

Lots of different shellfish including oysters from Galicia in the north west of Spain, at 6 euros a kilo. Yum!

Sword fish steaks at 24,00 euros per kilo!  I love swordfish.

All sorts of cheeses, including cream cheeses, hard cheeses, blue cheeses....

Russian salad, potato salad in garlic mayonnaise, pate, snails in sauce.....

The following photos were taken last week on my mobile phone so the quality of them isn't as good....but hope you'll enjoy them all the same....

We discovered another church who's facade had been intricately decorated and then covered by whitewash!  

I took the photo below purely because of the perspective....seeing a small sliver of beautiful blue sky between the two apartment blocks...

I didn't get the name of this square with it's pretty buildings and fountain.  The square itself is lined with small shops and bars/cafes.

We discovered this shop selling Panama hats, it was on one of the side streets off the square.  My hubby was really taken with the pink one, whilst I preferred the mauve.  I talked him out of getting the pink, I didn't think it would go with any of his clothes so he ended up with a nice 'natural' cream coloured one.  He's happy!

Yet another shop selling pretty flamenco dresses.....

The church we saw last time, was open, so we decided to have a look around inside.  It was lovely and cool, such a contrast to the heat in the streets.   I think lots of Spanish churches are too 'elaborately' decorated for my taste, but it is what it is, so I thought I'd share some photos all the same.

Below is the main alter which is incredibly fancy and covered in precious metals.  

 I prefer the more simple look of this side chapel.....

You may also recall that in Part One, I showed you just a glimpse of a pharmacy in one of the side streets, well I managed to take a few more photos to share.  Unfortunately it's quite dark inside but I hope you get the gist....

Finally we stopped for lunch at a restaurant called Block House, which is actually part of a German chain of restaurants.  I had lamb on a bed of spinach, with grilled mashed potatoes, herb butter and cucumber.  Absolutely delicious!!

So there you have it!  I don't think we'll be going into the centre of Malaga again until maybe September, when hopefully, if it's not too hot, I will take in more of the sights and share them on here with you.

I hope you've enjoyed the second part of my little tour of 'historic Malaga', thanks so much for 'visiting'!