I went for a late evening swing through London last night. I caught bus number 168, at Haverstock Hill near Steele's Road, about 15 minutes' walk from my home on Belsize Park in Belsize Park (The street name and the neighborhood name are the same. Makes cab rides fun).

The modern, double-decker bus, carrying a fair number of folks making their way home from a pub, headed downhill for lively Camden Town, the street name changing to Chalk Farm Road. We passed the Chalk Farm tube station on the Northern Line, and the Stables Market -- a fun place to go on a weekend day where you can buy used books, used clothes, furniture and crafts -- before crossing Regent's Canal via Hawley Road and Camden Street.

A right turn onto Camden Road takes you past a futuristic supermarket along the canal. Then a quick left onto Bayham Street and you're heading south again, toward the Thames.

After another right onto Crowndale Road, then a left onto Eversholt Street take you past the Northern Line's Mornington Crescent stop and Somers Town. Then, you pass Euston Station, one of London's many rail stations and a gateway to Scotland. It's one of London's uglier stations, thanks to a 1960s rebuild.

Crossing Euston Road, our double-decker headed into the heart of the city as Eversholt morphed into Upper Woburn Place, Tavistock Square and Woburn Place. Another green square -- Bloomsbury's elegant Russell Square, sitting short walking distances between the British Museum to the south and Coram's Fields children's park to the northeast.

After Russell Square, the street becomes Southampton Row, then, after crossing High Holborn and passing the Holborn tube stop (Picadilly and Central lines), broad Kingsway (as in king's way). Kingsway dead-ends at semicircular Aldwych -- the street name is old Saxon for "old town". Down Aldwych, then a right onto the Strand and then across Waterloo Bridge, my favorite London bridge because you can see both St. Paul's Cathedral (to the left) and the Houses of Parliament (to the right).

At the southern end of Waterloo Bridge, I got off the bus and walked down the steps from the bridge to the South Bank of the Thames.

I walked along the river, which by then was nearly deserted. The Thames was at low tide, and two young men walked along the resulting "beach" along the river. A young tourist asked me how to get down to where the young men were. I told him to walk along the river until he found some stairs down to the shore (they pop up regularly).

I passed the National Film Theatre and its cafe, Royal Festival Hall, the London Eye ferris wheel -- glowing blue in the night -- London County Hall, with the Saatchi Museum, the London Aquarium and the Dali Museum, coming finally to Westminster Bridge. I crossed the bridge, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben in front of me to the left. I never get tired of them.

I went down into the Westminster tube station, boarded a Jubilee Line train -- and went home.

The South Bank of the Thames is home to one of my favourite markets: a used book market under Waterloo Bridge and just outside the National Film Theatre, or NFT, and its nice cafe.

But a sign pointing to the market has been altered. It now directs passersby to the "Poo Market."

Well, it is near the Thames!

Today, Jay, Diane and I visited Sutton House, which was built during the Tudor era and is located in the eastern London borough of Hackney.

The house, a National Trust property, has a Tudor room -- the Linenfold Room -- whose walls are covered with intricately carved dark oak paneling made to look like folded linen, a Victorian study and a Georgian parlor.

Built by a diplomat who served Tudor monarchs from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I, the house's inhabitants have included a silk merchant who went bankrupt and had to sell the house when American cotton drove the price of silk down, Huguenots -- Protestants who fled persecution in their native France -- a church institute (one room has a plaque bearing the names of institute members who fell in World War I) and 1980s squatters. It's the kind of place where London's layers of history rise up and smack you in the face -- literally.

On the second floor, we walked into the Great Chamber, only to find ourselves in the middle of a lesson presided over by a VERY strict teacher in period costume who kept admonishing the kids sitting on benches in the room to sit up straight.

The "teacher" scared ME. Diane said it reminded her of her Catholic school education -- except that Diane's school did not have fingercuffs, which are like handcuffs for fingers.

As with nearly every National Trust property we've visited, Sutton House has a nice cafe. Diane and I enjoyed soup and a really nice chunk of bread, and Jay had chocolate cake (much more fun!).

A bonus of our visit was a chat with a work colleague, Paul Bolding, who is a volunteer at Sutton House. And yet another co-worker, Alex Smith, was paying a visit.

We took buses to and from Sutton House, giving us a look at trendy Islington, bohemian Hackney and gritty Bethnal Green. Fun!

Yesterday, I visited The Wallace Collection, a wonderful, small museum off quiet Manchester Square and not far from the busy Oxford Street shopping district.

The museum is in a mansion that was home to the marquesses of Hertfordshire, aristocrats and collectors who had a sharp eye for good things.

As the museum's site says, the house contains "one of the best collections of French 18th-century pictures, porcelain and furniture in the world, a remarkable array of 17th-century paintings and a superb armoury."

Artists represented include Titian, Velasquez, Rembrandt, Fragonard, Van Dyck, Rubens and Canaletto. The walls of one room alone are covered with Canaletto's light views of Venice.

For me, a highlight of the visit was the three rooms of European armor and one room of Middle Eastern and Asian armor and swords. Fantastic.

One of the best things about The Wallace Collection is the price: free. I recommend the audio guide, which is well worth the £3 they ask.

I also enjoyed a coffee at the museum's elegant yet informal Cafe Bagatelle, which sits in the museum's glass-ceilinged courtyard. The cafe offers three levels of afternoon tea, up to what I think of as First Class: scones, finger sandwiches AND cake. Yum.