Westworld Alberta
Issue link: http://westworldmagazine.ama.ab.ca/i/245179
Save 10% on a London Pass, for discounts at more than 50 sights. AMARewards.ca Plus, AMA Travel offers dozens of fab London tours. AMATravel.ca/ activities Hitting the Pavement Though it's not everyone's cup of tea – especially in a country known for real tea parties, complete with crustless sandwiches and bone china – Kathleen and I like to break a sweat from time to time. Plus, we know we need to do something to counteract all of the fish and chips and bangers and mash we've been eating – or risk returning home mushier than English peas. Enter City Jogging Tours, the active tourist's answer to London sightseeing. Our guide, the extremely fit and Lady Guinevere-esque Denise Sofia picks us up, so to speak, and we proceed to trot a solid eight kilometres back and forth over six of London's bridges on the Riverside jogging tour. We hit all the highlights: Downing Street, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye. As we jog across Blackfriars Bridge, Sofia regales us with the tale of Italian banker Roberto Calvi, who was found hung from the bridge's arches in 1982, with $14,000 in various currencies stuffed in his trousers. Grisly, but the pause gives us time to catch our breath. At our final destination, Tower Hill, just northwest of the Tower of London, Kathleen says she's happy that my "energetic youngster self" pushed her into seeing the city in a new and active way, but now she's more than ready for a refreshing pint of Guinness. Me too. To Market, to Market The differences between the way a 20something and a 50-something shop don't always lie in style – Kathleen and I own a few of the same pieces of clothing, in fact – but rather in the socio-economic factors that dictate where I, the 20-something freelancer, can afford to make purchases. Sure, it's fun to pop into designer boutiques and ogle the craftsmanship of clothes that I can't afford – like the striking Balmain skirt suit we spot through a window while wandering down posh Bond Street. But after a while, I start itching to spend my limited funds. This is when we discover the splendour that is London's market scene. p26_31_London.indd 29 S p r i n g 2 0 14 | w e s t w o r l d A l b e r t a 29 14-01-10 3:42 PM