Days 15-16: England: Two Long Days in London

Day 1

I've been to London before, but it didn't really make a very large impression on me the first time. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I was about 12-13 years old at the time. Or maybe just that we were only there for one day before moving on to the next place. The point is, this trip was something that made more of an impact on me.

Now, 2 days in London is hardly long enough to do much, but as this trip seems to be a "skim the surface" type of thing, it was good enough to see a lot of the famous stuff. Especially the Underground, which we spend a large amount of time in.

We left early from Luxembourg, a morning flight directly to London City airport. We bought our metro ticket there, knowing we'd be spending lots of quality time using the system. First, we took the DLR line to the Hammersmith and City line, which led us to our hotel. A very nice hotel, and much, much bigger than the one we stayed at in Rome. We couldn't check in right away, but we were able to leave our bags with the concierge service so we didn't have to haul them all over London with us.

Our first stop was St. Paul's Cathedral. It's a famous cathedral, something well-known in London. It's pretty impressive on the outside, but I can't really tell you how impressive it is on the inside, since there was an entrance fee of 17£ to get in to the thing. Now, I understand that a church that doesn't get funding from the government needs funds for maintenance,  but I think that price is just a little too high. Perhaps because I got into all of the big churches everywhere else for free. I snapped a few pictures from the entrance before being shooed out with a scolding of "No photos please."


We then attempted to get to the Millennium Bridge to cross the river, but we got a bit turned around and ended up walking through some of the back streets until we finally found where we wanted to go. For part of it, we were followed around by a couple of tourists who apparently thought we knew where we were going. Turns out we didn't. The guy said "Guess we need to find a different guide!".

We finally crossed the bridge and decided to have an early lunch. We ate at a place called Founder's Arms, which had a nice overlook on the river. We all ordered the same thing: a bacon and egg toast sandwich. The bacon was more like ham, but it was still pretty tasty. Dick was provided with ketchup and I think it made his entire trip.

After lunch we walked along the Queen's Walk, a pedestrian area running along the Thames. When we started, there were only a few tourists and a bit more local people doing their pedestrian/biking thing, but as we got closer to the "touristy" areas, the crowd started to thicken. That's how you know when you're getting near something that you'd find on a postcard. In this case, we were approaching Westminster Palace and Big Ben. We also walked by the London Eye, a huge Ferris-wheel type structure with large, enclosed cars to view London. The line was long and it was hot, so we opted out and just took pictures instead.


We crossed Westminster bridge and walked by the previously mentioned photo traps, and then continued up the street. We turned and walked by the main government offices. We also walked by the horse guards. Said horses were fidgety and nervous, and probably a little cranky. I would be too if stuck standing in the hot sun surrounded by tourists wanting to get your picture. Their riders took it all in stride, however, and we soon moved on.




We then turned and walked towards Buckingham Palace via the Mall, a straight, wide road flanked by parks, statues and what I assume are very important buildings. Buckingham Palace itself was pretty impressive looking, with lots of gold and statues and such. The famous guards were there, standing as still as they famously do, but there were other, normal guards who were the ones watching the crowds.

After the Palace, we walked through a small park filled with shade and people. Usually the people were in the shade. There were also a large number of empty cloth chairs, and people sitting on the ground. I was puzzled until I saw a sign showing rates on renting time for the chairs. You had to pay to sit in the chairs! Well, at least the ground was still free.

We boarded a metro on the other side of the park and went to Piccadilly Circus, which isn't really a circus at all. There, I got my American tourist comment for the day in. Anyway, we spent about 30 seconds there before walking down the street to reach the destination that Mom wanted to go to: The M&M's store.

There are only 4 of these stores in the world, 3 of them in large US cities and one in London. I hadn't been to one before, but this was the third out of 4 for my mom. This thing had 4 levels of merchandising goodness. I had told myself that I was going to look around and maybe get something if I liked it. Which of course set us up for buying way more than we intended. Now we have magnets, coasters, clothes, and a blanket (and more), but hey, we all like M&M's, so why not. We had to carry it around for a bit, but at this point it was after the time we could check in to the hotel, so that's what we did.

We rested at the hotel for about and hour, then took the metro back down to Leicester Square (that's pronounced like "lester", don't ask me why) to eat something before the rest of our planned evening. We ate at a steak house, the first one that I've seen since last August in the US. They had Guinness, too, so I was happy even before I ate any food. Both Dick and I ordered the same thing: Kentucky Wide BBQ Ribs. Wide was an understatement. These things were huge. I think they killed a cow instead of a pig by mistake. I managed to eat it all, without much difficulty. Walking several miles a day apparently gives me quite an appetite. They were really good, too.

We went to a play called the Mousetrap, an Agatha Christie play that has been running for 62 years straight. It is the longest running play in the world. My English friend told me to go see it, and I'm glad that we did. We were all the way up at the top of the theatre (we knew this advance), but we could still see and hear everything just fine. Well, except when a police car went by, which, being that the play was a murder mystery, seemed to fit right in anyway. I won't give a link to Wikipedia this time, because they spoil the ending and they specifically asked the audience not to tell anyone the ending. There's even a stipulation saying that, as long as the play is still running, no one is allowed to make a movie. Apparently that doesn't extend to books released in the US, however, as my mom, being a big Agatha Christie fan, had already read the story. I don't think it took anything away from the experience, however.

Day 2

We intended to get up at 7:30 to eat breakfast at 8:30, but time zones being what they are, I was awake by 7 am London time. We went down to breakfast, where we had to stand in a line and wait. The staff seemed overly apologetic about this, saying sorry for the wait at least twice and we were even approached by a staff member and talked to about it for a couple of minutes. I didn't see what the fuss was about, but maybe some people do. We got in within 10 minutes anyway, and helped ourselves to a large breakfast buffet. I went straight for the breakfast sausage and hash browns (both things I haven't had in awhile) and was not disappointed. The coffee they finally got around to giving us wasn't all that great, but then again, I'm pretty picky about coffee so it could have been okay for everyone else. So I bought a coke at the metro station instead. 

Our first stop was the Tower of London. This famous landmark is a castle, not a tower (ok I get two touristy statements), but still impressive. They had an exhibition for the 100th anniversary of World War I, a flood of red flowers, each one representing a death. There are over eight hundred thousand of them.

Next we saw the Tower Bridge, another post card feature. As it was morning, all of my pictures are back lit, but I did my best. We took our photos and walked over it, heading for the metro station that would take us to the metro and our next stop.

We went next to Kensington next and had some ice cream in a little place near some very big shops. After that we headed to the Kensington Palace and the Royal Gardens. We didn't go into this palace either, but walked through the beautifully decorated places next to it. We saw lots of people out relaxing and exercising, not tourists only but residents too. There were birds everywhere. Small water birds, pigeons, geese, swans, and ducks. They were very accustomed to people and not aggressive at all. Which is not at all like the geese in Iowa, who are really mean and will hiss at you if you even look at them wrong. I guess people are allowed to feed them (all except the pigeons). I was able to get really close to them and get some really great pictures. There's one of a swan that I am really proud of. They would follow you afterwards expecting food as payment for their nice little poses, but sadly for them, I had nothing.

We walked all along their waterfront for awhile, before heading back to the metro, then the hotel, to pick up our luggage, and then finally head back to the airport. We got there so early we couldn't even check in, but we were hungry anyway so we ate at the little restaurant in lobby area. It was called Pret a Manger. For those of you who speak French, the omission of accents was theirs. For those who don't, it means "ready to eat", and that was indeed the type of place it was. It was also one of those places that made absolutely sure you knew that their stuff was locally sourced, fresh, and made that day. Despite the aggressive ecologically-friendly vibe, the food was very good. In fact it was probably so good because of those reasons.

We were allowed to enter the gate area and boarded our plane with no issues. We flew into Luxembourg pretty late, and I slept not long after we got home.