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Monday, Dec 19, 2022
Today was the pub tour. I had signed up online and was excited to learn more about the pubs of London – and have a few drinks while doing so. The group met up in the afternoon near Saint Paul’s and the guide asked us where we came from to establish who had traveled the farthest. It was me since I was from Seattle, though there was no prize. Since we were near Saint Paul's Cathedral, he gave us a lot of history of that (a lot of it I actually didn't know). And then we started walking around. The first place was the largest Wardrobe, which was really a court, but quite cool with all the history behind it.
The first pub was called the Cockpit, and we got a lot of history behind that. Inside, I got a small Guinness since I didn't want to fill up with drinks. And then we headed off to our next place.
We also got to see a bit of an old Roman wall – just a weathered mound of wall lined out on the side of the road. It was fascinating. Odd that it's in such an unremarkable place, yet it's something that's roughly two-thousand years old. We also got over to the Black Friar Pub, and that place with a great deal of history. Inside there are mosaics, and one theory is that, George Lucas might have even been there many years ago, and got inspiration for Yoda as one of the mosaics definitely does look like him – though he is meant to be an old friar and not a Jedi knight.
Once we finished there, we went over to the Punch Tavern, where their specialty was gin more than beer. The main bartender was a very tall and charismatic person, with a larger than life personality that you often find in Charles Dickens novel or what not. I ordered a flavor of gin which came with tonic, and it was pretty good, but way overpriced. Do not order a double there you you will end up paying for what an entire bottle would cost.
We walked down the street some, and then got some history behind a tall church that looks like a tiered wedding cake. I did later look up some of the facts that were given, and learned that a lot of it (the legendary history) is more myth than fact, but it doesn't diminish the fun of the tours. It's just good to go check things afterwards in case you're interested in the factual history, and not just the legends. But either one is good.
Our final location would be the Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese Pub and that was over 700 years old. It's a really cool place with some fascinating history – especially about the parrot. You go down a few levels and there's a bar down there where you can get some interesting beers. It's a very dank place and has quite a smell to it, but a great experience and worth checking out.
The tour was over then and it was about 5:30 PM, so I walked around and got some cool evening photos of St. Paul's Cathedral. I then headed across Tower Bridge and got photos of it, and then along the Thames to experience all of the really festive Christmas activities going on. While it's considerably cold that time of year, there really is a lot of Christmas spirit and excitement. I had figured I may never wanna go back around Christmastime due to the cold, after thinking about the fun elements of the trip (and recalling them when writing them up), I am more tempted to revisit now.