2025 London Day 3: The Postal Museum and the London Transport Museum
Tuesday, August 26, 2005
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We started the day around 730A, following a really good night’s sleep. We went down to breakfast about 8A, held on the 1st floor in an older style parlour. The buffet was excellent, and similar to that of the Grand Hotel Stockholm. There was a selection of hot food for creating your own Full English, with the main entrée changing daily. I only recall the 2nd day’s main, which was the Clermont Breakfast Yorkshire Pudding (which was awaiting restock when I dished up, so never had it). Additionally, there was a bagel/smoked salmon/cheese station, a pastry station, a cereal station, and a fresh-baked bread station. The morning buffet was setup in the bar beside the dining area.
First visit of the day was to The Postal Museum via a 25 minute bus ride. We started with a ride on the Mail Train underneath the post office, which was very well done. As the train moved through portions of the tunnels you’d stop occasionally and projections would play on the curved walls to illustrate some aspect of the history of the railway system.
The train cars themselves were a bit cramped. E and I shared the two seats of a car, with me wedged into the rear-facing seat diagonally. While my left leg could be on the ground, my right leg rested over E’s legs onto her forward-facing seat.
The train ride was followed by a meander through their so-so museum, after which we took a bus back to the area of the London Transport Museum where we had a 130P timed entry. As it was just prior to noon and light rain was falling, we decided to have lunch at a nearby Pret and lazed at our table until it was time to walk over to the museum and make a quick reconnoiter of Covent Garden, filled with smells from the fried food booths (I think).
The Transport Museum was really interesting. Despite our growing fatigue as the day progressed, we still spent about 2.5 hours there before walking back to the hotel. We intended to head to our room for a nap, but housekeeping would consistently not get to our room until late afternoon, as we discovered on this first day as they knocked on the door just as we were about to settle in. Instead, we went down to the hotel’s bar and enjoyed a drink before returning in time for a quick nap before our dinner at Palm Court Brassiere, which was back in Covent Garden. We shared some pre-entrée sourdough bread – with better for E and black olive tapenade for E. For dinner I had the Whole Tiger Prawns (nice but not spectacular) while E had the Half Chicken, which she enjoyed.
We skipped Palm Court’s dessert choices and instead went to the gelato place we’d seen by the hotel on Villiers street – and it was EXCELLENT. I had their dark chocolate (which I believe was the “Amorino Chocolate”, although this may be the standard chocolate I got the 2nd time we went) while E sampled their Cherry. We were both impressed! From there, it was back to the hotel so we could watch some TV, read, and then get to sleep.
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