After visiting the Globe, I walk across a bridge over the Thames to Embankment Station, where I take the Tube to Charing Cross. It is here that I succumb to the one thing I vowed not ot do. I pay 10 quid to take a tour of London on a double-decker bus. It's pretty hokey, especially when they start playing "London Bridge is Falling Down" over the speakers. But it's a crisp autumn day, and the late-afternoon sun is shining. Why couldn't we have had weather like this during the Wales part of my trip?

Rush hour swirls around us, and I marvel at the chaos that is London. Exhaust fumes. Bicycle couriers. Rushing pedestrians. Blaring horns. London. What a rush ...