Platform nine and three quarters and up, up, up

Helen started the day with a run down North St towards the Angel, Isligton. On the way she stumbled on the site of the cattle market which replaced Spittalfields in the Victorian era. It's now a park, but the huge clock tower is still there.  

We're starting to do some thinking about how we'll sort out getting home. Accordingly, we stopped off at Kings Cross station to work out our options for left luggage on the last day. While we were there we obviously had to check out the gap between platforms 9 and 10 where Harry Potter entered platform nine and three quarters. In reality, there is no wall between the two platforms: 

 ... although we were pleased to see that there is a platform 9b. However, Kings Cross Station apparently had so many Harry Potter fans turning up that they bowed to the inevitable. Turn 90 degrees fro the real platofrms and you see a huge crowd standing in front of a small sign saying platform nine and three quarters and a surprisingly large merchandise shop.  

The crowd was a queue of people waiting to take hold of a trolly disappearing into a wall and have their photo taken for a ruiniously large sum.

The station itself is a lovely canopy over an echoing space.

 Next door is St Pancras station, which was used for the exterior shots in the movie because it looks a whole lot cooler.

Back on the tube, we headed to Bank to take a look at the monument to the great fire of London, then walked on through quiet Saturday streets in the City to St Pauls Cathedral.
 

St Paul's was a really interesting mix of puritan grace as far as the nave and baroque exuberance from there to the high altar. We climbed the stairs to the whispering gallery and can confirm that it works. We then headed on upwards to the first balcony for excellent views of a slightly smoggy London afternoon.

The height started to get to Thomas...

but he soldiered on up to the top level.

We ate our sandwiches sitting at the top, to the amusement of some of the other tourists. The top level gave the best views of the river and key buldings such as the Old Bailey.

We came back down, pausing only for a quick reprise in the whispering gallery and occasionally to admire antique graffitti carved into the stones in beautiful copperplate. Helen and Robert had read a story by Connie Willis about the fire watch who protected St Paul's during the blitz. They worked their jobs all day, then slept in the crypt, waking to stand on the roof to extinguish fire during air raids. We asked a volunteer whether there was any memorial to their efforts, and were rewarded with a really interesting lecture about the fate of the cathedral during the war. He told us that one bomb dropped through the roof and destroyed the altar. We prepared suitably solemn faces on hearing this, thinking that the symbolism must have been fairly devastating, but our our guide cheerfully told us that most people we very pleased, since the altar had been a dull Victorian table and the new altar was more in keeping with Wren's original vision. He then showed us the plaque commemorating the efforts of the watch. It's in the centre of the floor, directly in front of the central doors and was surprisingly moving.

From St Paul's we got back on the tube to Oxford Circus and walked down Regents St to Hamleys, the 7 storey toy shop which makes Harrod's toy floor look a bit wussy. It was PACKED.

 

Thomas eventually decided to buy a set of magic card tricks and we headed home for tomato soup with red lentils and more Lego Indianna Jones on the PS3.