It was the annual ‘Destination’ travel show up at Olympia today. We have been coming for a number of years although to be honest after the two year break during Covid, the quality and number of companies exhibiting has gone downhill. Still, as I get free tickets, I still like to go along.
There was a massive queue the moment we got off the train but somehow I managed to circumvent most of it and get to thew front quickly. The main event I wanted to see was Simon Reeve speaking. Last year we had queued to see Simon Calder and missed out on getting a seat. This year we stood for the second half of a lecture we were not interested in, ready to get a seat. I was fuming to find that as there was no security there this time, not a single person moved. Everyone who had been waiting was really cross. As I had already been standing for quite some time and we were nowhere near the large screens, we walked off in disgust.
One redeeming point after that disappointment was that I bumped into the daughter f a friend who is a very good wildlife photographer and was there representing the company she works for. We didn’t spend too long at the show as we had decided to continue up into town to Covent Garden to visit Stanford’s map shop for maps of Germany. This is the tangle of cables and wires at Earls Court starting as we waiting for the Piccadilly Line to Leicester Square.
Sadly Stanfords has moved from the lovely old place in Long Acre but the new place is very interesting with a lot of street are in the surrounding pedestrian lanes. We got ourselves some very good large scale maps for the trip in May. This redeemed the day.
