We decided to try breakfast at the Indian place, Dishoom, since it seemed to be so popular. It was great. The restaurant is huge, three floors with at least two bars. It was designed to look like an old Bombay Iranian diner, lots of wood and chrome and old signage. The food was really good too. I had a naan roll with sausage and eggs, and the sausage had Indian spices. There was incense burning and the whole place smelled great. I did get a little sneezy there!
We asked Matthew the boat owner if we could take our time clearing out and he said 1:30 was fine, so we finished packing but left our bags on the boat and then headed toward Hyde Park. We got off at Hyde Park Corner and walked toward the Serpentine. It was another beautiful day in London. We cut through several gardens until we got to the Albert Memorial and the Royal Albert Hall. We continued walking to Kensington Palace and Kensington Gardens, then headed back. We walked by the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain, obviously new since last time I was here.
Ed was enticed by all of the ice cream trucks in the park, so stopped in a little park cafe and got a cup of clotted cream ice cream.
We took the same train back to King’s Cross. After packing up our bags, we decided to take the Metropolitan line out to Hillingdon and get the X90 bus to Oxford there. Unfortunately our Oyster cards had run down so we had to top off with £5. Apparently prices had gone up since our Rick Steve’s London guide was published, so £20 no longer covered three full days. Ed had a bunch of trouble reloading them with his credit cards. We think it was user error.
At Hillingdon it was not obvious where to get the bus to Oxford. Buses from London stopped right by the tube stop, but we didn’t see any the other way. I asked the London-bound driver and it turns out the stop was a ways away. Alan did draw me a map but I forgot since I didn’t think we would go that way. We tried it to beat London traffic, not sure if it really helped. We got off at Headington shops and walked down Cuckoo Lane to Jenkins’.
For dinner we walked to the Butcher’s Arms, a Headington pub, with Dad, Barb and Alan. I had a steak and ale pie with mashed potatoes and peas, and a cider. Dad had nachos! We walked back past the Headington Shark, which is a giant sculpture of a shark embedded in a a house.
