London free love Day 3: Abbey Road

(Matt writing) Recently my friend Alistair, from SA, was in London for the day on a 24 hour stopover between flights and came to stay the night. The weather was nice enough so we stepped out the door on a stroll, to see what we could see ("It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no telling where you might be swept off to", Bilbo Baggins).


We started off heading down to Primrose Hill, to see the view, and Regent's Park, past the zoo and the ducks. Our plan was to find somewhere to stop for lunch. We picked The Volunteer on Baker Street, a couple of doors down from Sherlock's place, as we happened to be on that side of the park (the food isn't great, but they pour an 'ok' beer).

After lunch we decided to head to Abbey Road. 


Abbey Road, the famous album by The Beatles, also immortalised a certain pedestrian crossing in north London where the famous four posed during the 1969 photo shoot for the cover of their album. I'd seen this link, (http://www.abbeyroad.com/visit/*) a couple of days before, where you can watch tourists posing on the crossing. I'd been past it a few times whilst on a bus, but had never got off for a look around.

The crossing is adjacent to the Abbey Road Studios, the gates of which can be seen in the album photo.  Here is the album (via Wikipedia. I think it's ok to reproduce here. Does anyone else struggle when reading through image licensing laws?)

Not only is the zebra crossing still around, but it's free to visit so fulfils our challenge. 

London free love challenge Day 3: Abbey Road

From the webcam

After lunch we took a stroll home via Lord's Cricket Ground, which happened to be on the way.

It had been quite a long day with all the walking so we stopped for a much needed refreshment break at the Pembroke Castle in Primrose Hill. It's one of the four 'Camden Castles' dating back to the 19th century when construction gangs from the four corners of the United Kingdom, working on the 'new' railway through Camden, needed to be kept apart to stop the drunken brawling. The other castles are the Dublin Castle, the Edinboro Castle and the Windsor Castle - one for each nationality. 


All in all, a fun day out was made complete with a refreshing lager.


* The webcam is great because it's a live feed, so you could let people know that you're there and they can watch you. The footage from the webcam is also archived on the site for 24 hours so you can go back and save images from it, or tell your friends and family when you were there and they can check you out later on.