71. London: A Bike Tour is a great way to see the highlights quickly

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The Shark Deck. I'm Johnny McK
and travel is back this week another look

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at London. When I was there, I did a bike tour. I'm

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a big fan of bike tours when
you visit cities. I think it's a

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great way to see a city from
the ground level and get around quickly.

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I took the Gold Classic Tour out
of London bicycle. I would highly recommend

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them. Tell you what you're gonna
see, then I'll say how it works

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and we'll dive in a little bit. So the itinerary you've heard of us.

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Some of these things, Big Ben
you've heard of that, Yes,

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the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Saint James Park, bucking A Palace,

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Lincoln's Inn, Fields, the Smithfield
Market, Saint Paul's Cathedral, Cleopatra's

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Needle, the London Eye and the
banks Eat Tunnel. All right, So

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you gotta get to their base that
is near Waterloo in central London. I

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was easily able to walk there from
the West End where I was staying.

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Now, I grew up in New
York City, so I'm used to walking

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distances in cities, so you might
have a different experience. But I just

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walked there. So you meet there, they'll wrench you bike, show you

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the guide and you ride around in
a pack in the street in traffic.

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You know, they try and take
it easy, but you're in traffic.

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So if you're not all that good
on a bike, this might night be

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the thing for you. See,
you'll come across Lambeth Bridge. You've seen

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this in movies. When you're there, you'll be like, oh yeah,

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that usually like somebody like James Bond
is chasing somebody across it. Just if

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you picture it, it's a flat
road bridge again movies. Take there and

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you'll see Big Ben on your left
as you're crossing the tams. As you

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paddle across Lambeth Bridge, look on
your left you'll see the Palace of Westminster

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with its iconic clock tower and the
famous Big Ben. Big Ben, officially

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known as the Elizabeth Tower, stands
tall and proud overlooking the River Thames.

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It's distinctive clock face and resounding chimes
or what you think of. But big

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Ben is not actually the tower,
but it's the nickname for the bell housed

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inside of the tower, designed by
architect Charles Barry, completed in eighteen fifty

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nine. When I was there,
they were renovating it. That renovation is

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complete, so I've got some pictures
of it with scaffolding around it. All

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right, So you'll ride past Big
Ben and the Houses of Parliament and make

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your way to Westminster Abbey, quick
stop there and through Saint James's Park and

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then my bike tour stopped off at
bucking and Palace for the changing of the

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guard to kind of cover that in
last week's episode if you want to go

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back and listen to that one,
but I'll do it from memory here.

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So we pulled up our bikes and
the tour guide and they obviously had planned

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this really well. I realize years
later it wasn't a coincidence what time we

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got there. So we parked our
bikes and just joined the crowd and I

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was up against the gate and watched
the changing of the guards, which is

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fantastic. Again, highly recommended to
do this if you're a tourist visiting London.

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I get that a local might be
like why are you doing that?

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The same way I from New York
would be like why are you going to

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the Empire State Building again? But
hey, you're there, go do it.

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They put on a great show,
looks great. Sounds great. So

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you'll do that for like half an
hour and then the bikes will go on

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and you'll go down the mall.
Trouble saying this, My New York accent

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always wants to call it the mall. Anyway, this is the wide Boulevard,

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I'll call it Wide Street. That'll
take us from Buckingham Palace towards Trafalgar

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Square. You've also seen this,
especially if you watch the Coronation recently.

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That was the big wide street with
the red bricks and the British flags and

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the people marching on it. So
as you head out, you'll have the

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Victoria Memorial right in front of the
Palace. Then you'll head down the red

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brick streets. By the way,
also the location of the finish for the

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London Marathon. Boy, I'd love
to run that, but what a great

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place to finish up that marathon.
Great call by them. So while it's

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at Trafalgar Square, we did lunch
there. Trafalgar Squares a public square featuring

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some of London's top attractions, from
galleries and historic buildings to statues and monuments.

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Some of the things you will see
there Nelson's column, the centerpiece erected

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in eighteen oh five. It honors
Admiral Nelson's victory at the Battle of Trafalgar.

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You can snap some selfies with one
of the Trafalgar Square Lions, four

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bronze lion statues, erected in eighteen
sixty seven. Some of the things you

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can do there. The National Gallery
how much to get in free Yeah.

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For summer of twenty twenty three.
Some of the exhibitions include After Impressionism Inventing

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Modern Art nearly a hundred works by
artists such as Picasso. This autumn,

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the Credit Swiss exhibition Franz Halls,
the first major retrospective of Halls in more

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than thirty years. Another exhibition Saint
Francis of ASSISI you come face to face

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with one of history's most inspirational and
revered figures. Again, you can't do

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this on the bike. The point
of the bike ride is so that you

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know the lay of the land.
And that's why I always recommend people to

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do the bike toward day one,
because then you kind of know, like,

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all right, I know where that
is, I know where that is,

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and you can kind of visualize it
rather than going how do we get

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there? So that's a National Gallery, not to be confused with the National

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Portrait Gallery, different building that has
more than two hundred and fifteen thousand works,

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including portraits, sculptures, miniatures,
photographs, drawings, charcteratures and prints

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also free. Now, some exhibits
they might charge you, like most museums,

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but you can get in for free. That's pretty awesome. I want

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to grab some food while we're there. Yeah, I think I just ran

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into like a quick stop and guy, maybe a candy bar Annesota. But

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there's Cafe on the Square, the
National Cafe, and fancy places like Bronte,

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the National Dining Rooms on the Portrait
Restaurant. Again, you're on a

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bike. You're not gonna be able
to do any of that. So let's

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see our lunch. We'll take the
break and then we'll come back and hop

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back on our bike. Next they'll
take you over to Covent Garden. As

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an American, it's so hard for
me to not say Convent Garden, which

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is a local place to where I
live. Set in London's West End,

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Covid Garden is a vibrant, musty
destination for anyone who enjoys shopping, theater,

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restaurants, bars, history and culture. Some of the things for you

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to do over there, and again, you're on a bike this week,

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right, so jot some of these
down for later. London's Transport Museum,

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the Royal Opera House, the London
Film Museum, the Infinity Chamber, made

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up of hundreds of led lights.
But I enjoyed the Covent Garden Market.

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Once home to fruit and vegetable sellers, it's now full of shops, restaurants

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and daily markets, kind of like
an outdoor flea market with food. A

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lot of towns have those. I'm
trying to see if I described it correctly.

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Let's see from Tuesday to Sunday,
the Apple Market is filled with handmade

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jewelry, prints, watercolors and beautiful
crafts, and every Monday you'll find one

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off. Antiques and collectibles open every
day of the week. The East Colonnade

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Market as a variety of stalls selling
products such as handmade soap, jewelry,

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handbags, a magician's stall, suites, artwork and homewear. There you go,

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very cool place. Back on the
bike to Lincoln's Inn Fields, the

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largest public square in London, the
site of several important executions in the sixteenth

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and seventeenth centuries. Despite that fun
fact, very pretty pleased to see Smithfield

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aka Smithfield Market or the official name
London Central Markets, the largest wholesale meat

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market in the UK. They're going
to switch it around though. By twenty

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twenty five it's going to close and
then reopen as the home of the Museum

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of London. The Central Market will
relaunch as a combined food hall slash conference

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center. See to check out Smithfield
and Wow why you can next up on

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the bike. One of the greatest
hits Saint Paul's Cathedral, destroyed by the

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Great Fire of London in sixteen sixty
six. The current building completed in seventeen

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ten. Its iconic dome is three
hundred and sixty four feet high, one

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of the largest cathedral domes in the
world. So for this tour we're on

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the bike. We're going to ride
by. But if you want to see

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Saint Paul's could the usually better books
some tickets to open eight thirty to four

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thirty Monday, Tuesday, Thursday,
Friday and Saturday. On Wednesday, it's

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open from ten to four thirty.
Then we're off to Cleopatra's Needle. You

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know, there are two of them. The other one is in New York

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City. You'll find that one in
Central Park just west of the Metropolitan Museum

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of Art. The London One originally
erected in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis in

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fourteen fifty BC. In eighteen nineteen, it was given a Britain as a

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gift. You'll find this on the
TAM's embankment. I saw this when I

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was there, So you ride past
that. I'm not even sure I appreciated

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how old it is when I saw, so take a second to take that

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in as you ride by. Then
we're gonna head on over to the London

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Eye. That's the big giant ferris
wheel looking thing, the London Eye,

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four hundred and forty three feet tall. It was once the tallst ferris wheel

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in the world. There are thirty
two glass capsules so you can go up

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and around get some panoramic views of
the city. There is a video game

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called Watchdogs that takes place in London, and sometimes I just go on the

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Virtual London Eye and look at Virtual
London. Kind of cool. But from

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there you'll easily see Big Ben in
Parliament and all that. Like if you

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can't see it, I don't know
where you're looking at. There'll be a

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big river in front of you,
and Big Ben's right across the river.

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If you do go for a ride, it'll take you thirty minutes. Good

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place to get some photos. And
there's a little food court kind of over

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there, and that's where I ate
one day, like an outdoor food festival

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kind of food court. Trying to
remember what I got. I don't recall,

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but I call it being very good, all right. And then they'll

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take it to the Bank Seat Tunnel. It's the only spot in London where

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graffiti artists are tolerated paint without a
permit. It's a basic road tunnel,

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but the walls are quite painted and
people take turns painting over the different sections

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and it's a graffiti line tunnel and
yet it's really really cool. And that's

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your bike tour of London. I'll
cover some more London next week with some

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things I did when I was there
and some other ideas I have for you.

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If you missed the previous episode that
was more about Buckingham Palace and a

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royal tour of London. That episode
did really well. I think King Charles

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Coronation probably helped that on the Google
search. Thank you, your majesty.

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Travel is back. Hello. I
am Mark Francis, host of a daily

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podcast about the British royal family called
Palace Intrigue. Did you see what Megan

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Machael did in the latest documentary or
what Prince Harry said in his new book,

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Well, the Kings and queens and
princes and princesses are ready to explode.

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Andrew was ready to implode. Royal
sources are jumping at the bit,

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The inlaws just can't stop. The
UK tabloids are about to burst. Americans

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can't get enough, the kids can't
get any cute to the press can't get

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any uglier. And Wills and Kate, well they're just wonderful. Get your

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daily dose of gossip and news from
the world's most royal family. Follow a

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Palace Intrigue on Apple Podcasts, YouTube
or wherever you get your shows. So

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or something, and there's five thousand dollars

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at One guy. Hi. I'm Johnny

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mag host of five Good News Stories. He gave the money back. Don't

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