London, UK: Stroll Around Covent Garden; Visiting the Transport Museum; Lunch at ‘Bill’s’; Visit to National Portrait Gallery; Visiting the ‘Renoir and Love’ Exhibition at the National Gallery; Dinner in Chelsea with Close Friends

Friday, October 9, 2026

London, UK

Stroll Around Covent Garden; Visiting the Transport Museum; Lunch at ‘Bill’s’; Visit to National Portrait Gallery; Visiting the ‘Renoir and Love’ Exhibition at the National Gallery; Dinner in Chelsea with Close Friends

We had another fabulous day in London. Waking in our friend’s home in Paddington, we washed, showered, got dressed for the day, had lovely toasted Marks and Spencer croissants with cappuccinos at breakfast with our friend. Then, at a much earlier hour than yesterday, we set out to go and make the most of another day in London. The weather was mild and pleasant but, unlike yesterday, there was the threat of light rain and we hoped for the best.

Off to Covent Garden:

We realized pretty quickly that while the Tube can be fastest, if you are not in a hurry and really want to see as much of London as possible, the buses are your best bet. Once you know which buses serve your area, you can use them and then make connections as you go along. Thankfully, I have still preserved copies of Bus Maps for London that I have had since I lived in the city myself (2008-2009 and then for many long 3-6 month stints over the years), so I can use them quite effectively to find out which connections I can make. Of course, I do admit that bus routes change, never ones are added, regular ones are removed…but, for the most part, they still help enourously.

So, yes, the buses we boarded today took us to Oxford Street and (after a connection) to Regent Street and then on to Shaftesbury Street and from Trafalgar Square to Covent Garden along the Strand. Once there, we strolled around the different streets. It was heaving as tourists are still enjoying the city in the autumn. After we’d enjoyed the atmosphere of John Nash’s wonderful architectural gems in the area, we popped into the Royal Oper House to see what was on and if there was a still a chance we could get cut-price tickets on the day of the opera itself (as I used to get when I lived in London). But a guard there told me that those days had passed and, after Covid, that practice has stopped. Now it is only possible to get day tickets if other patrons have returned their tickets to the box office.

Off to Visit the Transport Museum:

I was under the impression that I had never visited the London Transport Museum before (Certainly Llew had never seen it); but when I looked up my blog, I found that I had visited it in 2010. Gosh! I have only the vaguest memory of it and the reason it has been almost erased from my mind is because it seems not to have made any kind of impression on me. So, believing that I was going there for the first time, Llew and I entered the Museum which is tucked into a corner of Covent Garden’s Square precincts.

This time, it certainly made a better impression on me. I loved the entrance which had huge maps of underground networks from other parts of the world (including Paris and New Delhi). Once inside, we took the elevator to the top and slowly made our way down. The museum is quite interesting and certainly would keep children enthralled. There were loads of kids with their parents when we arrived there. So here are some of the items in a really vast museum that caught my fancy:

1. We saw the oldest form of transportation—long before motors. This was a sort of palanquin that was hand lifted by two carriers to transport people across London. Seemed very cruel to me!

2. You could actually mount an old omnibus (such as plied in Edwardian times—early 20th century—and take pictures inside). Most of the old vehicles were out of bounds to visitors.

3. We saw omnibuses that were pulled by horses. It brought back to me the Victorian use of horses for everything including transport.

4. Tube trains of the 1960s—you could see what they looked like inside (not much different from now).

5. Wonderful black and white pictures of London through the ages with buses plying through them. Again, not much has changed in the basic layout of the city (which I love).

6. A vast hall with many old red buses through the years—different models of double-deckers from the old Routemasters to the present.

7. Commuter Trains that plied outside of London into the suburbs with maps everywhere to show you which routes they took. As someone who loves geography, I found these fascinating.

8. A whole gallery devoted to Posters, through the years, advertising various train/bus routes outside of London. These were reflective of the various art movements through the 20th century such as Art Deco and Art Nouveau. I found this part of the museum the best. It’s amazing how many fabulous series of advertising posters were designed and created and put into public use, through the decades.

9. The Shop. It’s quite wonderful what you can buy here. Very unique gift items. For example, you can buy cushions for your home made with the fabric that covers the seats of the Tube trains—through the years including the current pattern! You can buy copies of the posters used to advertise the transport service. I bought one that I have always loved and always thought of as very clever: It says “The Tate Gallery By Tube”. And it depicts the London Tube map created through various colors of tubes of paint—each tube line in the appropriate color of paint! With this treasure rolled up under my arm, we left the museum and went out in search of lunch.

Off to ‘Bill’s’ For Lunch:

‘Bill’s’ is one of my favorite chain of British eateries. Once upon a time, there used to be many more of them (there was one on Kingsway, for instance, but it closed down recently). The one at Covent Garden (tucked away in a picturesque corner but really hard to find) is still open. ‘Bill’s’ chain was introduced to me by my English friend, Rosa (whom we would be meeting again soon) in Essex. I had opted then for the Fish Pie and had loved it so much that every time I am in the UK, I have at least one meal in Bill’s and I always go for the Fish Pie.

By this time, when we arrived here, we found that they had a special weekly Friday deal—all day. They had unlimited pancakes for just 5 pounds per person, if you also ordered a drink (it did not have to be an alcoholic drink). Well…this was too good of a deal to pass up (we would simply return to ‘Bill’s’ again, if we had the chance, I thought) and so we chose the pancakes.

There was quite an extensive collection of pancake options and we decided to get one savory type and one sweet—a meal and a dessert—that we would then share between the two of us. So, I chose the Pancakes with Streaky Bacon and Maple Syrup (a very American convention—mixing sweet and savory flavors on the same plate) and Llew chose the Pancakes with the Mixed Berries Compote. Both were really good. We got three thick pancakes each and there was butter and enough bacon and compote on both. Honestly, if you thought you could eat more than they put on your plate, you’d be mistaken. They are so filling that you cannot eat any more than served. I had pear cider and Llew had red wine to go with our meal and I have to say that it was a delicious, most satisfying and super economical meal. Where in London could you get a meal like this for 5 pounds??? So, no, I did not get my Fish Pie after all, but I hoped there’d still be time to get it. The funny part was that we had a guy who looked just like Stanley Tucci sitting right besides us. We took his picture and sent it to so many friends who were all completely fooled!

Off to Trafalgar Square:

Having strolled a little bit more (it had started drizzling), we hurried to find a bus stop and a bus that would take us to Trafalgar Square—we found several that sailed down The Strand. Once at Trafalgar Square, we found that we had time before we could enter the National Gallery to make use of the tickets, we had purchased for a special exhibition on Renoir (our tickets were for 5.oo pm).

With about an hour to kill, we went into the next-door National Portrait Gallery. I return here every year to see the new portraits that have been added in the past year. And so among the ones that caught my attention this year were a family portrait of Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, with their two teenaged sons and two dogs; Amy Winehouse; Judi Dench; Darcy Bussel; a self-portrait of the late David Hockney and his friend (lover?); Princess Diana; the royal family in the 1950s and then in the 2000s, etc. So, on the whole, it was a good idea to pop in there to kill some time.

There were huge crowds on the Square. We also got to see the controversial new Fourth Plint sculpture currently on by the American sculptor, Tschelabala Self entitled ‘Lady in Blue’. I have to say that the sculpture has met with very negative response Most people see it as ugly. I did not find it exceptionally appealing either. There was also a big crowd because the American football NFL matches were on and there were attempts to attract a British audience.

Viewing the “Renoir and Love’ Exhibition at the National Gallery:

And so, just before 5.00 pm, we entered the National Gallery and went through the main shop on the ground floor before we made our way upstairs to the Renoir Exhibition for which we had purchased tickets online from Bombay. Well, I knew we would love this one: what’s not to love about a huge bunch of paintings by Renoir, all exemplifying the highest achievements of the Impressionist Movement? There were so many that I have seen before, on several occasions, at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris or in the National Gallery itself. There was the famous ‘Luncheon of the Boating Party’ that came from Washington DC where we had seen it, a few years ago. It was just wonderful to see how enchantingly Renoir presented his 19th century world in the softest of blurred lines, the subtlest shades of primary colors, the hazy outlines of items far away in the distance, etc. There was a striking self-portrait of the artist, a bunch of portraits of his closest family members and then so many presentations of places that he had frequented in Paris and its outskirts. There were also loads of paintings of family members of his close friends who posed for him (eg, Madame Monet, Monet’s children, etc.). It was all truly lovely and we enjoyed every second in this space.

Dinner with Our Friends in Chelsea:

And finally, with the time being well past 6.00 pm, we left, took the Tube to Sloane Square and then walked through Chelsea along Sloane Street to get to the flat of our friends, Michael and Cynthia, at Cadogan Gardens. It is always a great pleasure to see them (I consider them my family in London for I look upon Cynthia as my sister). Of course, they did make us feel very welcome and settled us down with drinks (red wine for Llew and a gin and tonic for me). Later, we adjourned to their dining table where we enjoyed one of their simple but very delicious home-cooked meals: we had a tuna pie with a mashed potato topping, with a side of steamed carrots and broccoli and for dessert, Michael had made an Apricot Crumble which we ate with French Vanilla Ice-cream. Throughout the meal, we chatted about so many things: our latest news, their health, their son Edward and his family; my family members in Bombay and the US; our mutual friends; the quiet pace of their retired lives, etc. Truly, I wish I could have had much more time with them, but with so much to do and so many people to see, I am so glad that we had at least one uninterrupted evening with them over a really lovely meal.

Soon, it was time for us to leave—at about 9.00 pm and they told us exactly which buses we could take to get home. It was really very easy indeed and after making a change at Park Lane (outside Hyde Park and opposite the Dorchester Hotel), we arrived at Sussex Gardens and found our way, one block away to our building.

As I said, the day began with promise and we fulfilled all of our plans for it.

Until tomorrow, see ya’…