A small shop off of Covent Garden would hardly be on everyone's must visit list while staying in England, but before we left the US my son realized that Tintin was much more popular in the UK than back at home. We searched and found that there was a dedicated Tintin store in London.

From just about the moment we landed at Heathrow, my eight year old asked me when we could visit the Tintin shop. I kept putting him off and forgetting to figure out where it was (foolishly as it turned out since we went to Covent Garden twice without even knowing it was right around the corner).

As our trip neared its completion, it became absolutely imperative that we get to the shop before my son drove me stark, raving mad with questions about it. So off we went to Covent Garden for a third time and finally we found it. A little tiny shop devoted exclusively to all things Herge-ical. Everything was also incredibly expensive -- even a little stuffed Snowy was over 7 pounds -- but we had as a family spent a long time talking about the place, getting to it and we do all love Tintin. I finally let them each get a little plastic figure (Tintin, Captain Haddock and Castafiore) and they've spent days playing different scenes out. The girls keep marrying Castafiore and Captain Haddock, much to my eight year old son's disgust, but such is the way of the little girl.

And we got another to do item crossed off the London sites to see list.