London - Getting Settled in Chelsea

We were driven from St Ives to the train station in Bodman for our move to London. The train ride produced one interesting picture, the Westbury White Horse, 180 ft (55 m) tall and 170 ft (52 m) wide, dating from the 1770's. 

Our apartment was at the intersection of Cheltenham Terrace and King Street. It was a great location a few steps from Duke of York Square and Partridges (small super market targeted toward apartment dweller with a fine deli counter, interesting wine selection, fresh fruits and veggies, and a bakery.)  The Saturday Market in Duke of York Square had a great selection, veggies and fruit, fresh made pastas, cheeses, pastries, and prepared dishes representing the world of cuisines. 

It was less than 10 minutes to Pavilion Road (another foodie stop with a fine wine shop, great bakery, green grocer, butcher, and cheese shop).

After a couple of walking trips we had our morning and evening bites and sources of supplies for the rest of our London stay. We also had two lunches in Duke of York Square:

• Vardo - Veal Schnitzel & Smoked Chicken Caesar
• Polpo - Octopus & Sea Bream (red snapper)

A little further afield we went to Harrods (20 min walk). The Italian lunch was quite satisfying at 

• Pasta Evangelist - saffron risotto and carbonara. 

We found most of the rest of the store too biased to the priciest of their genre, including the wines. The Egyptian decor around the escalators was eye-catching.

Our apartment overlooked Kings Road with a continuous line of shops (clothing, wine, food, …) and restaurants. While we were there there was a Public Art Trail, a temporary exhibit of animal sculptures along Kings Road.

It was less than a 10 min walk to the tube station in Sloan Square. And the walk light at the only cross street always seemed to be in our favor.

The Circle or District lines that passes through Sloane Square also stops near many of the sights we were interested in seeing. A few sights required one line change (Covent Garden, Marble Arch, Oxford Circus for example). Paying for the tube was a simple tap in and out (credit card, phone, or like Pat & I, our watches). Buns from Home near the tube entrance provided us with some breakfast treats.

Our days fell into a relaxing rhythm. Our month long stay in London was a favorite "activity" on the trip, despite the amount of cold, rainy, windy weather. A typical day consisted of:

• Spending the early morning catching up on email /messages from the US, making blog notes, making plans for the day or for future days in London (book tix for the couple tours we wanted or shows, laying out the transportation and touring plan for different areas, reviewing dining options).
• Assessing just how cold, windy, rainy we should expect and work out what this meant regarding activities and how to prepare for the weather. Deciding how to dress, and what to carry (hint: carry an umbrella, fortunately we had picked up a very compact one which worked well). We had maybe 5 or 6 truly sunny, comfortable days. We saved outdoor activities (visiting Greenwich, Kew Gardens) for these.  
• Heading out for our activity of the day (museum, shopping, exploring, ...)
• Finding our targeted late lunch experience or choosing an appealing option as we wandered.
• Exploring a bit in whatever neighborhood we found ourselves in.
• Returning home, shopping for a light meal as we go
• Some leisurely computer time uploading photos, making blog notes, paying bills (yep they accrue as we travel but we just pay them on line), and Pat checking in / catching up on i3 activities
• Partaking of our evening meal while enjoying a streamed movie

We expected to get bored and need day trips....but we loved the relaxing pace and Greenwich and Richmond / Kew Gardens became our longest treks.

A couple days were planned around availability at the Apple Genius bar at Covent Gardens, a convenient neighborhood for restaurants, shopping and museums. Pat's MacBook Air had an intermittent problem which didn't go away even with a completely new install of the OS or replacing the logic board. Looks like Apple will replace the computer, but that requires being somewhere long enough to ship the old one back and receive a new one (10 days). We've decided to wait til we go to the US sometime in the next few months. Bill needed to get his computer checked out because of a liquid spill on the keyboard. It seemed OK but he may need a new keyboard (fortunately all this is on Apple Care).