Sunday at London South Bank.

Its been a hot week and, rather unusually,  it feels like a proper summer has arrived in London.  With the warm weather and longer nights, we have been spending more of our evenings outside. Today we went to the London Aquarium on London's South Bank in the afternoon,  and ended up spending the evening exploring the rest of South Bank's offerings.

For a start there was a real food market behind the Royal Festival Hall which we visited before the aquarium. We had already had lunch but the smell of the food made us hungry again. Hog roasts, vegan curries, crepes, specialty chocolates- you name it, they have it. It was the best of informal eating and the first time Baby has been to anything like this. He must have wondered why people were randomly giving him food to taste but obliged with the tastings anyway. The food market will be on every weekend during the summer and we will surely visit again.

There was, as always, a variety of performers by the river and they attracted crowds of people. The big carousel was a magnet for kids. We spent about an hour at the aquarium and then headed back to our car via Royal Festival Hall where they were celebrating the Festival of Love. There were various installations inside and outside the building- the slides were popular with both kids and adults, and it was fun pinning heart-shaped messages on one of the indoor installations.  Baby loved it- he had not been to an art exhibition before and this was a fun way to introduce him to modern art. I had forgotten what a great space the Royal Festival Hall is.

We had dinner at a nearby dim sum place called Ping Pong.  The food was good and the service was excellent.  All in all we found everything at the South Bank to be very family friendly. We're glad to know the space will be full of liveliness over the summer and are planning to return soon.