Day 46 - Lights, Camera, Action

At the home of cricket

Saturday in London! What a great city and our Marriott hotel in Maida Vale (well actually closer to Kilburn, but Maida Vale is a tonier address) turned out to be quite a gem. Ange had gotten us an upgrade with her Marriott status and so we were on the Executive floor with full breakfast, afternoon tea and evening drinks and canapes. Leaving Becca to catch up on some sleep, we went for breakfast and then a walk around the area of the hotel.,  As I mentioned, the hotel lies on the boundary between Maida Vale (characterized by larger Edwardian homes, wider tree-lined streets and the home of cricket  -- the sport, not the insect -- also known as Lord's Cricket Ground) and Kilburn, (a less prosperous neighbourhood with a diverse cultural demographic and denser housing. Maida Vale lies in the City of Westminister with an average house price of £1,620,726 while Kilburn is in the Borough of Brent (house price average £552,000).

Children of Men Location

The site of the famous scene in
the BBC Sherlock series where
Benedict Cumberbatch jumped off
the building...

After allowing Becca a couple of extra hours of sleep, we went on a self-guided walking tour of film locations within the City of London (it is that part of London that houses the financial district and lies on the north side of the Thames). The walk took about 3 hours and was about 12 kilometres long.

Numerous film locations make up the sites of interest, including the Millennium Bridge that is destroyed at the beginning of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the Old Bailey Court where Jack Sparrow is chased at the beginning of Pirates of the Caribbean, On Stranger Tides, a section of Fleet Street where the explosion scene in Children of Men was filmed, Temple Church in the Da Vinci Code with Tom Hanks, and of course St. Paul's Cathedral, site of film scenes from Lawrence of Arabia, The Madness of King George, and Thor:The Dark World to name a few. In addition to those mentioned, there were another 20 plus film sites on the walk. And these were only within the City; the other 60 plus Boroughs hold so many more locations.

...including tributes to Sherlock at the base of that building

Leadenhall Market - Site of Harry
Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Diagon Alley and Leaky Cauldron Pub

Later in the afternoon, we tubed it back to the hotel for afternoon tea and a wide variety of biscuits and sweets on the Executive floor. A little rest was in store before heading out for an evening of theatre.  We were able to get tickets to see Martin Freeman in "Labour of Love," a comedy-drama that follows the political career of a Labour Party backbencher who in the most recent election was defeated even though he had spent the previous 27 years as the elected member in a riding that had never been anything but a Labour seat.  We had tickets in the Stalls (we refer to them as Orchestra seats in Canada) right in the middle, 10 rows from the stage.

Unfortunately, 9 rows from the stage, five people sat in front of us who were visiting from the Land of the Giants.  Seriously, the men were all enormous with heads to match and the women were only marginally shorter with huge craniums as well.  It was like the Great Gazoo had his way with some Amazons! Fortunately, Becca had the shortest of them in front of her so she could see most of what was going on. Ange and I were also able to see for the most part by sitting up straight and peaking around and between the heads in front - and the irony of the situation was that in row 8 were two empty seats immediately in front of the two tallest individuals in front of Becca and me. Despite this, the performance was excellent and we left the theatre with smiles on our faces, and, for Ange and me, some stiff necks.

The walk during the day had tired us out and so it was back to the hotel for a good night's sleep.

 Ale of the Day: Broken Dial Amber, Harviestoun Brewery, Alva, Clackmannanshire, Scotland