Man, time keeps slipping away, doesn’t it?? I’ve been back from this trip for a few weeks now, but I’ve still got a couple of posts to write! This is why I always try to keep up with my blogging while I’m still on the trip as it’s easier for me to write about this stuff while I’m still in the moment. But I’m committed to documenting my travels, so here we go!

After a great weekend in Rye and Brighton and a fun Sunday evening back in London, Monday proved to be another fun day in terms of activities and glorious in terms of weather. Felicity planned everything we did this day, starting with a walking tour of the City of London. Surely that just means a walk all over London, right? Wrong! 😀 The City of London refers to the central business district and historic city center, so it’s actually a very specific part of London. Who knew?? In all my trips to London, I’ve never paid much attention to the City of London specifically (since it’s mostly business- and finance-focused and I’ve certainly never gone to London for business purposes) and I’ve also NEVER taken any kind of official walking tour of the city. I’ve certainly walked around MANY parts of London (it would be fun to tally up the actual number of steps I’ve taken there – it must be in the millions!), but no one has ever led me around officially, so I went into this really looking forward to it. Felicity found it via London Walks and, having now been on the tour, I can say I recommend them, so book with confidence if you’re looking to do a walking tour!

Would you believe that I started this walking tour with…a walk?? Yes, that’s right! Assuming we might not actually end up doing THAT much walking on this particular tour (the City of London is only one square mile, after all), I decided to walk the ~2.5 miles from our hotel to the tour meeting point at Monument Station. Thanks to the aforementioned lovely weather, it was an easy walk! My only hiccup was in finding the correct exit from the station (there are several), but even that was pretty easy. As usual, I also snapped a few photos along the way, which you can enjoy below.

A couple of shots of St. Paul’s. It’s amazing how different it looks depending on which angle you’re looking at it from, isn’t it?

Destination reached! If you didn’t already know, Monument Station is named for The Monument, which is just around the corner. Officially, it’s actually called Monument to the Great Fire of London, but that’s kind of a mouthful. 🙂

Felicity, who had taken the tube, was already at the appointed meeting spot and had talked to our guide, Ann. Note that, when you’re meeting up with a group for a walking tour like this, be sure you book ahead of time and also be sure to find the right guide! We didn’t have any issue with either of those things, but I did see at least a few other guides gathering their groups in the same spot we were, so it would be easy to meet up with the wrong one. There was also one couple on our tour that just showed up, either hoping to buy tickets right then and there or not realizing they were supposed to have booked ahead of time. While it worked out for them and they were able to join our tour, that might not always be the case (it wasn’t for a couple of folks who tried to join the walking tour I did in York, for example), so always remember to book early! There’s really no reason not to. 🙂

So how was the tour itself? At around two hours long, it was full of good information, both about the specific sites we visited and the City of London in general. Right off the bat, we learned that, although 650k people WORK in the City of London (lots of businesses in all those tall buildings, after all), only about 9k people LIVE in it. That’s a pretty big difference, eh? Similarly, before the Great Fire in 1666, there were 87 churches in the City of London, while today, there are 46 (both numbers are pretty high, considering how physically small the area is). We did go to a couple of churches and learned that, because such a small number of people live in the area, most of these churches don’t actually have congregations, so if you show up on a random Sunday to attend a service, you’ll likely just find a locked church. Instead, your best bet to getting to see inside some of these historical churches and to talk to someone who’s passionate about their history and architecture is to visit when a volunteer from The Friends of the City Churches is there. This group is a charity “dedicated to preserving the beautiful and unique churches found within the square mile of the City of London” and a couple of their volunteers happened to be at the first church we stopped at, St. Mary Abchurch. Keep an eye out for them when you’re wandering around the City!

A cool lectern and a very intricate altarpiece. It was created by famed Dutch artist Grinling Gibbons. And historians are sure of that because the church still has the receipt from the 1600s!

Going backwards a bit, we actually officially started our tour just outside Monument station to learn about, well, The Monument. As mentioned (and shown) above, the Monument is a tall obelisk dedicated to the Great Fire. Why in that spot? Well, that ties into something else I mentioned above as it was built on the site of the first church, St. Margaret’s, that burned in the fire. Although I’ve been by it before, I’ve never been inside it. What’s that? You didn’t know you could go inside it? Yes, that’s right! If you’re feeling plucky, you can walk up 311 steps to a viewing platform at the top. To be fair, this would have been a great day to do it as the weather was so nice, but it would have been hard to do with a large tour group. I wouldn’t mind doing it on a future trip though!

Our next stop(s) included some education about the Great Twelve Livery Companies. What the hell is a livery, you may ask? Or maybe you don’t as you’ve already tuned out. 🙂 For those of you who are still here though, a livery is just a type of guild or professional association and are important to the City of London because of both the networking opportunities they offer and because of their charitable giving. So really, it’s a club. For me, it’s a good example of something I really knew nothing about and probably never would have, but which I found really interesting when learning about it from someone knowledgeable. And if you think livery companies are a thing of the past, think again! Even today, in 2025, there are over 100 of them in London! Maybe there’s one you could join?

As we continued on our tour, we saw a couple more churches, including a stop outside St. Paul’s Cathedral (we didn’t go inside, but I’ve been in there on previous trips) and one of the several green spaces inside the City. It was really a good tour! Check out some additional photos below to see more of what Ann showed us and know that you can safely book a tour with Ann the next time you’re in London! I’ve honestly never thought much about this part of the city before, probably because it’s so professional-focused rather than tourist-focused, but there’s plenty to see and learn about here, so don’t pass it up.

Cleary Gardens was once the site of a Roman bathhouse.

Another peek at St. Paul’s, plus another history lesson from Ann, this time about the National Firefighters Memorial.

This was the site of the King’s Wardrobe, where all manner of royal clothes, accessories, etc. were stored. Today, it seems to just be apartments.

And that was the end of our tour! It was well done and informative, so I’m really glad we did it. And again, what great weather for a walking tour! We were going to stop in at The Black Friar for a drink and/or meal, since we’d ended the tour there anyway, but there was a bit of a wait, so we decided to soldier on. And by “soldier on” I mean that we caught the tube to a location that both Felicity and I kept seeing pop up on social media leading up to the trip – St. Dunstan in the East. This is a combination of one of those London green spaces and some cool ruins. You know, the kind of thing you just don’t see in the US! Originally built in the early 1100s and notably damaged in the Great Fire, it was ultimately (mostly) destroyed during the blitzes in World War 2. Although it could have been rebuilt again after that, the Anglican Church decided not to, so now it serves as a public garden/green space. And over the years, neither Felicity nor I had ever visited! There isn’t actually a lot to it, but it’s a cool space for sure, both for the ruins and for the greenery that grows within them, so it’s worth visiting.

I love the way nature has just grown its way into the ruins. And isn’t it cool that you can see modern architecture through the ruins of that window on the right?

More windows in the ruins.

By the time we wrapped up our walk through the ruins, I was starting to get hangry, so I strongly suggested we get something to eat. 🙂 And as these things ALWAYS work, nothing sounded good and we weren’t walking by anything that called to us. As we walked around for a bit, I realized we were right by the Tower of London and then recognized a pub I’d visited a couple of times, several years ago, so we thought we’d stop in there to eat. As the kids would say though, the vibe was off, so we instead went next door to get some Indian food at Sripur. Sure, we’d already had Indian when we were in Brighton, but I was DEFINITELY ready to eat at this point, so we made the call to eat there. And I’m glad we did because it was pretty tasty! It was even better because we’d been on our feet for a good few hours by the time we sat down to eat, so I know I appreciated getting a chance to rest them.

Can you guess what I did when we left though? Of course, I put more steps on my feet to get to our next stop, another pub! Though it wasn’t just ANY pub, but rather the Old Bank of England. It may come as no surprise to learn that this pub was once <gasp!> a bank! Definitely a cool vibe and somewhere I’d be happy to return to one day (even if it is yet another chain pub). Also of note is the fact that, while I just walked there from Sripur, Felicity caught the cool T15 bus. It was total happenstance though as she didn’t know she’d be riding on an old-fashioned bus! If both of us had known that, we both would have planned to take it. Since I missed it though, I’ll add it to my next London itinerary!

We started our meal with some really tasty onion baji and veggie samosas. Yum!

The view inside from our comfy chairs near the bar was great! And my drink was tasty, too. I can’t have a Rekorderlig without thinking of the first time I had one, during a looooong lunch with good friends in Brighton. 🙂

Goodness, this post just keeps going, doesn’t it?? You’ll be happy to know that we took a break at this point, with a bit of time back at the hotel to refresh ourselves before our evening plans. We had met up with a friend of ours at the Old Bank, so it was fun to catch up with him and even more fun to get a min-tour from him as we walked back to our hotel (he knows the city really well, so was not only able to easily get us back to our hotel, but also pointed out some neat buildings along the way).

As I said before, everything we did today was planned by Felicity (well, not the Indian meal – my stomach made that call!) and that continued into the evening, when we went to go see Austentatious. While I don’t know much about Jane Austen, when Felicity presented this as a totally improv-based show done in the style of a Jane Austen novel, I was in! And even more fun is the fact that each show is pulled from suggested titles shouted out by audience members, so it’s different every time (makes sense, since it’s an improv show, right?). While I’m sure the cast has go-to beats and gags that run through many of their shows, you’d never know it from the performance we saw because it all felt fresh and fun. It’s a really neat show! And because the cast rotates regularly, even if you’ve seen it before, you’re going to have a different experience every time you’re there. It happens on Mondays, when most West End shows don’t, so it gives you a more unique show option. Check it out, either in London or on tour!

After a day of good sights, good food, and good company, a fun show was a great way to end the evening. We did make one stop afterwards, to get a drink at The Cross Keys, a pub near Covent Garden that Felicity had been to with our friend Nick on a previous trip and which Nick had pointed out when we walked by it earlier in the day. It was REALLY quiet when we got our one drink, but it had that proper pub feeling, so I’d definitely go back.

Okay, THAT was the official end of our day. I was starting to feel that end-of-trip glumness when we got back to the hotel, but I knew we still had a full day left before I had to worry about getting back to reality. Come back soon(ish) to see what we did!