St. James’s Piccadilly, Royal Academy, Piccadilly Street Bookstores (Part !)

I slept about 11 hours last night! Fell asleep at 7:10 pm, woke up a bit at midnight when R was roaming around the room but put my eye mask on and promptly went back to sleep until 7 am. It was actually too warm in the room but can’t complain—better than being too cold? And the bathroom was so toasty warm that taking a shower was a pleasure.

We went back and forth about what to do but the pouring rain outside made our choices easier—it was going to be one of the art galleries. R had his heart set on going to the Royal Academy of Arts on Piccadilly so, after a sandwich at Pret A Manger for breakfast, we took the Tube and walked down Piccadilly to the Academy. As we walked along Piccadilly, we noticed the beautiful small Wren church, St. James’s, so we stopped there for a quick prayer.

We just looked at the regular Collection, which is smallish but that was fine, the building is so beautiful and the bookshops inside the Academy are fun. We sat in the Cafe there for awhile, it’s quite lovely too.

After leaving the Academy, we stopped at Fortnum and Mason’s to admire their Christmas decorations and goggle at the throngs of people lined up inside. We spoke to the concierge, he said that it had actually been busier the day before and they’d had to limit people coming in. Considering it was only 11:30 and things got busier as the day went on, I think they probably did so again.

Richard was in heaven in Hatchards Bookshop, which is only a couple of doors down from Fortnum’s. He spent a good half hour swooning over all of the Architecture and Art books. We didn’t buy any books in the end; still several days to go and we have enough to read. However, we may well return before the end of our stay in London. The photos below are only of the fourth floor! After Hatchard’s we went to yet another bookstore, Waterstone’s and had a nice lunch on the 5th floor there. By this time the rain had stopped, blue skies were out and we headed off to St. Paul’s, hoping to catch the Carol concert there. Continued in Part 2.

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