England and Iberia Day 3

Coffee, Carnaby Street, and the Tube

Posted by Brian Hart on July 31, 2026 · 11 mins read
  • Start of day: London, England
  • End of day: London, England

We were up and operating by mid-morning. The jet lag is real.

I’d narrowed our brunch choices to The Table Southwark, or Black Sheep Coffee at about a fifth of the cost. We went with Black Sheep. Four pastries and an Americano came to £14, which I was happy with. The service, atmosphere, and quality were solid enough I left a review.

A white cup of black Americano coffee on a matching saucer, both stamped with the Black Sheep Coffee logo of a sheep's head in a circle, sitting on a dark reclaimed-wood counter beside a branded coaster and a pastry plate. Through the open window above the counter, a sunlit street with green trees, a traffic light, and glass office buildings is visible

From there we had a mission to find a Sephora, which took us to the Carnaby Street shopping area by Underground. Transit today was simpler than yesterday’s Thameslink confusion. We did observe that the Tube doesn’t have air conditioning – maybe it’s not an issue most of the year? It’s also the most tube-like subway system we’ve been on, or at least the lines we rode today were: low ceilings, narrower cars, not a lot of room on the platform.

The pedestrianized Carnaby Street in London on a bright sunny day, with a white metal arch overhead reading 'Welcome to Carnaby Street' and a tall colorful banner installation of stacked painted panels and faces further down the street. Shoppers walk between brick and painted buildings lined with hanging plants, a Pret A Manger awning on the right, and a pub sign for Shakespeare's Head, under a blue sky with scattered clouds

The Sephora storefront on Carnaby Street, a curved white facade with a large arched glass window and black lettering spelling SEPHORA, with a living green wall on the floor above. A queue of shoppers waits on the pavement outside the open entrance, and cosmetics displays and browsing customers are visible through the glass

Looking down a narrow Carnaby Street side lane strung with rows of brightly colored papel picado bunting in red, green, orange, and blue against a blue sky with white clouds. Shoppers carrying bags walk along the brick-paved street past storefronts including a green-fronted Farm Rio shop with a fringed banner and a Tala sign

Shopping successful, we tubed over toward St. Paul’s.

In the area we found a quick sushi lunch spot at Wasabi for two of us.

Then onward to St. Paul’s. It’s a little tricky there, as it’s free if you’re coming to worship and something like £60 for a family of four if you’re just sightseeing.

St Paul's Cathedral in London photographed from the gardens to the south, showing the full stone dome with its lantern and gold cross, the columned drum beneath, and the pedimented south transept entrance with statues along the roofline. A red double-decker bus is parked at the foot of the steps, visitors sit on benches in the shade, and a large tree frames the left side against a deep blue sky

We passed on it, knowing we’d have multiple cathedral opportunities on this trip, and crossed back over the Thames to Southwark. Our group separated for around half an hour so daughter and I could tour The Golden Hinde, which was neat!

Below decks aboard the Golden Hinde replica galleon, showing a long scrubbed oak table running the length of a low timber-beamed cabin with benches and purple cushioned seating along the walls. A girl in a white top sits at the far end of the table beneath leaded diamond-pane windows, with a lantern hanging from the ceiling and small arched windows letting in daylight

View through an arched wooden doorway aboard the Golden Hinde, looking out from a dark timber cabin onto the sunlit main deck. Beyond the doorway are a wooden grating hatch cover, coiled rigging around the mast, a ship's capstan, and stairs leading up, all sheltered under a white canvas awning strung with festoon lights

We then continued our walk along the water towards the Tower Bridge, looping back toward the hotel after getting the obligatory photos at the bridge.

A large painted mural of William Shakespeare on a brick railway arch wall in Bankside, showing him holding a quill in one hand and a skull in the other against a starburst of orange, pink, blue, and purple rays. Pedestrians walk through the dim brick underpass to the right past a wagamama sign and illuminated shopfronts

Inside Hay's Galleria at London Bridge City, a glass-roofed Victorian arcade with an arched lattice of black ironwork overhead and tall yellow brick buildings on both sides. A blue padel court enclosed in glass and netting has been installed on the ground floor, with two players mid-rally, and a black sign reading 'London Bridge City' hangs above

A selfie taken on the south bank of the River Thames with Tower Bridge filling the background on a clear sunny afternoon. The bridge's two Gothic stone towers with pointed turrets rise on either side of the pale blue high-level walkway, and the road deck and suspension chains span the green-brown water below, where a small white boat passes on the left. A man with short hair, wearing dark wraparound sunglasses and a navy polo shirt, stands at the right of the frame beside a metal railing, with a blue sky and scattered white clouds overhead

Back in our hotel neighborhood, we thought we might go to this place just down from the hotel. However, the mood was off inside, with the bartender clearly not happy we were there even though there were empty tables, we didn’t break any etiquette rules I’m aware of, and we were prepared to spend £50 on food. It was noticed by daughter that nobody was eating, so overall I’m thinking we dodged a bullet.

We showed ourselves out and wandered back toward the river, deciding on an early dinner at Pizza Express. I only had a caprese salad, since this restaurant choice was mostly about what everyone else wanted. Service was a little uneven; food was fine.

Our hotel is just steps away from the Tate Modern and it’s FREE, so that was next.

The Tate Modern seen from street level, with the angular brown brick Blavatnik Building rising in stepped, twisting tiers against a clear blue sky and the original power station's tall chimney visible behind it to the right. In the foreground a curved concrete retaining wall carries the gallery name 'TATE MODERN' in large white letters

A large quilted textile artwork suspended by wires in a white gallery room at Tate Modern, hanging just above a pale wooden floor. The padded fabric panel depicts a stylized face in vivid stitched color, with two huge circular eyes made of radiating triangular segments in orange, yellow, blue, and purple, framed by a border of small multicolored squares and a band of zigzag triangles along the bottom

View from a gallery window at Tate Modern looking north across the River Thames in late afternoon light, with the Millennium Bridge crossing the water and pedestrians strung out along its span. The dome of St Paul's Cathedral rises above the City of London skyline, with construction cranes and office towers on the horizon. In the foreground, dark twisted sculptural forms are laid out across a white plinth

A large Roy Lichtenstein painting of a bedroom interior hanging on a white gallery wall at Tate Modern, rendered in his comic-book style with heavy black outlines and Ben-Day dots, showing a made bed with a striped valance, a chest of drawers, framed pictures, and table lamps in pastel pinks, greens, and blues. A teenage boy in a black t-shirt and grey sweatpants stands with his back to the camera looking at it, behind a low stanchion barrier

We got a late start at the Tate and weren’t able to see as much as I would’ve liked. We made our way back to the hotel.

Large freestanding letters spelling BANKSIDE, each studded with round bulbs, set up on a paved plaza outside a modern brick and glass building whose entrance canopy is hung with strings of warm fairy lights. Three people pose among the letters and a passerby walks by on the right beside an orange bollard covered in stickers

Later, around 9:45, I set out to find something to eat, but most restaurants were closed or about to close their kitchens. Does London close early, or was it just our neighborhood? My dinner ended up being a chicken salad sandwich and a bag of Doritos from a convenience store. End of night.

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