An Outing to Southwark south of the Thames

Friday, December 20, 2019:  I have my London Oyster Transport Card in hand and a new camera and I am ready to explore this town; however, it won't stop raining.  It rained all day yesterday, today and it is expected to rain throughout the weekend.  Today, however, Eddie and I ventured out, sans camera, and took the tube south of the Thames to visit Borough Market, one of London's oldest food markets.  The outdoors-but-covered market is situated in a place where one might not expect to find such a food market, alongside busy roads, underneath a railway line, and close to London Bridge.  Here one finds a plenitude of food stalls, many offering specialty foods, all crammed together. It seems that only a city of nearly 9 million people could result in such an "obscene abundance" of food everywhere we go. For lunch, Eddie bought a serving of wild mushrooms over Spelt.  The Spelt grain was grown in Somerset. I bought a serving of Pumpkin Curry over Basmati Rice.  Both dishes were prepared in large vats which attracted a lot of attention and a queue of hungry customers. We finished with a Baltic layered honey cake, bought at another stall, served with vegan Chai Tea.  Everything was delicious.  We then visited Southwark Cathedral, the oldest Gothic Catherdal in London, which is situated adjacent to Borough Market. It just so happened there was a boys' choir performing a free concert and it was lovely to sit in such a beautiful, old building and hear their angelic voices.  This cathedral is associated with many famous people, William Shakespeare being one of them.  When we left the church we walked along the Thames for a short while and, needing cover from the lashing rain, we came upon Shakespeare's Globe Theater. This particular theater opened in 1997, and is the "best guess" at what the original Globe Theater looked like. The original Globe Theater opened in 1599 but in 1613 burned down.  A second globe theater was demolished in 1644.  The tour we took was great. I felt like I was transported back four hundred years ago.