Sunshine in Little Venice

Back together again

Little Venice

Little Venice

Little Venice, plus stand up paddle boards

Little Venice, with just one
 example of decorations

Happy tourists reenacting famous Beatles photo

My attempt

Jane, captures my over excitement
as I run back to other side of road!

Abbey Road studios

Squeeeel, now the real fun can begin Its beautiful and sunny, a cup of tea and toast, a quick bath, a debate on all the possible things we could do today, fete at Kew, ferry to Richmond, new Westminster Abbey museum, its is settled we are off to visit Little Venice.

No work for me to do here, Jane knows London like a black cabbie and the first thing she spots when we walk up the stairs is a green box. There are not many of them left around nowadays. They are very small and where built so cab masters (the ones with horses not cars) could get out of the rain and have a break. They are still used today and have many rules and regulations like you are not allowed to spit and must have your pants on at all time. Unusual?

Little Venice is all big houses and fancy cars set around a canal. The canal was oncean important link to transport goods to the centre of London from places as far away as Birmingham.  Today it is all people enjoying the sunshine from their canal boats, on hire boats and even standup paddleboards. The tow ways (paths along the edge) are full with people and dogs enjoying the sunshine.

What I like best is the colours and decorations over all the canal boats. The cost to moor a boat is determined by its length and can be about 10,000 pounds a year. On the plane on the way over I watched a movie I had never heard of, Finding your feet its full of great British actors with grey power tackling the complexity of life in a romantic comedy way that I really enjoyed (and cried buckets).  I can’t believe the coincidence that I am here where some great scenes from the movie were filmed.

We now hook up with a London Walks tour and are getting an insiders tour of where the famous people live, how the area was developed in the 1840’s, where the oldest part is and how the wider area was named Paddington after Padda a chief from Anglo-Saxon times. With ‘ton’ meaning chief. 

The guide is brilliant from memory he recites poems with passion, sings dirty ditty’s with a schoolboy laugh and shares details about scientific discoveries like the Enigma machine in plain English like he is a Nobel prize winner. A fascinating chap!

Time for a stopover in a gorgeous old pub the Prince Alfred and now we head on. Because google maps tells us that another London landmark is only 15 minutes away. So along we go walking in the sunshine. The streets are empty, which seems strange. I wonder how we will know the spot when we arrive. But its really easy, there are happy tourists annoying all the traffic trying to get just the perfect Beatles reenactment photo. It's like organised chaos and a lot of fun!

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4897516