Visit to the West End and Soho in London, April 2006
Early in the year we took a trip up to London's buzzing
West End and Soho to visit the ever popular Covent Garden plus
Leicester Square, the Trocadero, Carnaby Street and Hyde Park.
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The first stop of our London visit was Covent Garden where we found
plenty of street entertainers keeping the crowds entertained. The
guy here with the orange Mohican was handing out knighthoods!
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Covent Garden was buzzing with plenty of people milling about in the
early spring sunshine, unsurprising given all the bars, restaurants,
theatres, street performers, the Royal Opera House and...
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...shops. And didn't Belinda just love all the specialist shops
here inside Covent Garden's covered area! Check our tourist resources for more on the
places...
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...we visited in London. Here's another street performer at
Covent Garden, this one balancing on a unicycle and juggling,
multi-tasking indeed!
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A short walk via Chinatown and we were at Leicester Square - the
centre of London's vibrant West End entertainment industry and home to
many well-known theatres and their associated shows and musicals.
Many areas in and around the West End and Soho were within easy walking
distance so our...
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...next stop was the London Trocadero, a shopping and entertainment
complex full of whizzing escalators going in all directions.
Moving on...
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...via Regent Street we explored Soho's Carnaby Street, famous for the
fashions of swinging London in the 60s - and still buzzing today.
Groovy!
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The sprawling London Underground, often called 'The Tube', has 275
stations across 12 subway lines and a complex information system.
We bought a one-day travel card that included main line travel and the
tube. Our resources page has handy travel websites, both within
London and elsewhere in the UK.
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After the hustle and bustle London's West End and Soho we headed to
the more tranquil Hyde Park; this city park green space hosts many
events throughout the year within its 350 acres.
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We walked to the southern end of Hyde Park and then along the length of
the Serpentine. Despite the by now indifferent weather there were
plenty of people hiring boats on the huge lake.
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No, Mike isn't constipated, just as we took this picture at the
Princess Diana Memorial in Hyde Park, the heavens opened and gave us a
drenching!
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Walking along the other side of the Serpentine we observed this
beautiful rainbow over Hyde Park, unfortunately our photo doesn't
really do it justice.
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