Detailed Photo Review of Paris and London Trip in June 2019

[deladane]

19 hours ago, singinalot said:

more more we need more 🙂

 

haha I can picture you banging your hands up and down like a child asking for more dessert 😝 more coming soon!!

 

17 hours ago, ejnsb said:

I hope I am not the only one going through withdrawal symptoms.  I hate it when fun gets in the way.

 

Oh no!  I don't want you to go through withdrawal!  More coming soon!!

 

5 hours ago, cairns local said:

No you’re not the only one. I am really enjoying this review and learning lots of useful info for my visit to both London and Paris in October. But I will be patient. 

 

Thanks for being patient!  I've had a busy week... Tuesday was my mom's birthday so had to call her in the morning when I usually do my postings, then I got a screw in my tire so had to deal with that (luckily the dealership fixed it for free but it took 3 hours so I didn't have time to work on the review).  Yesterday, DH and I went up to Oakland for the Yankees vs. A's game.  I'm back now though and I'll post a bit more today!

[deladane]

 

Friday, June 28, 2019 ~ London in a Day Walking Tour of the City of London to Westminster, then exploring Covent Garden/Leicester Square/Piccadilly Circus

 

On my first day visiting a new city, I usually like to take some kind of tour to get an overview of where the main attractions are located and learn about of history about that city.  Since we arrived in London mid-day yesterday, I hadn’t planned any tours in case of unexpected delays.  As it turned out, we actually covered quite a lot of ground in the two-thirds of a day that we spent in London yesterday, but the original plan was to treat today as our first full day and therefore I wanted to book an overview tour.  I did a few searches online and as soon as I found the Strawberry Tours website, I knew my search was complete.  Strawberry Tours offers a free 6-hour walking tour covering pretty much all the main sites on the north side of the river.  I have seen free walking tours that last one, two, and even three hours, but SIX hours?!?  In my experience, that is completely unheard of!!  The website warned that we would cover around 10km (over 6 miles) in about 7 hours with a 1 hour lunch break in the middle.  That sounded a bit daunting, but when you broke it down it only came out to one mile per hour, so it wasn’t really all that much.  Here is the tour description from the Strawberry Tours website:

 

“If your stay in London is shorter than you’d like it to be, but you want to leave with the feeling that you have seen the most important sites of this magnificent old town, then our Free London in a Day Tour is definitely the tour for you.

 

We’ll get going at 9.30 in the morning from Tower Hill, and we’ll spend all morning exploring the City of London, the root of it all, Londinium, the place where the Romans settled two thousand years ago. It is here where trade, economic power, and the middle classes have thrived since the times of William the Conqueror nearly a thousand years ago. Walk through the oldest streets of London as you gaze up to some of its most modern buildings. Be amazed by St. Paul’s Cathedral, and hear about the man who built it and rebuilt all of London after the Great Fire of 1666. Learn about some of the most powerful corporations in history, such as The East India Company, in the place were capitalism was born.

 

At around 13.00 will stop for an optional traditional Pub Lunch, where you can chat further to the guide, and enjoy a fish and chips with a pint of good old ale.

 

After lunch will venture into the City of Westminster, the place where political power has been held for the last 700 years, and certainly the most eccentric and picturesque area in town. See Buckingham Palace, where the Queen resides, and St. James’ Palace, built by Henry the VIII for his second wife Anne Bolene. Hear all the Royal gossip and learn about the history of the most popular Royal Family in the world. Walk to the houses of Parliament and see where the real power is held as you take your picture in front of the Big Ben.”

 

They also offer just tours of just the City of London separately from Westminster, so we could pick one or the other and not commit a full day to this tour, but this just seemed like too good a deal to be true and we couldn’t resist the chance to see all of these things in one tour.  It was a bit of a gamble because if we had a bad tour guide, that would totally ruin the day, but we took our chances and signed up on their website.

 

On Friday morning, we woke up and got ready for the day, then went downstairs to the basement of the hotel for breakfast.  When we checked in yesterday, they asked us to pick what time we wanted to eat breakfast.  They had a few little cards with half-hour time slots from 7am until 9am, so we picked 8am for Friday morning.  Each day, we could pick up a different time card for tomorrow’s breakfast or we could just reuse the one from the day before if we wanted to go at the same time.  The breakfast room was very small with only 5 or 6 tables, so it made sense that they needed to regulate the flow of traffic so there would be enough seats for everyone and so the kitchen staff could keep up with the food orders.  We arrived at 7:52am, which turned out to be very lucky because the kitchen had already finished cooking breakfast for the people who arrived at 7:30am and we were the first to arrive and place our order for the next round.  They actually did run out of tables because some of the 7:30 people hadn’t left yet when all of the 8am people arrived, so it was good that we were a few minutes early and we learned to use that strategy every day! 

 

I knew that breakfast was included with the nightly price of our hotel, but all of the reviews indicated that we would get a typical English breakfast with bacon, eggs, beans, and a grilled tomato.  I did not anticipate having any options, so I was shocked when we arrived and had a full menu to choose from!

 

 

 

Sure, it wasn’t IHOP, but it was way more than I was expecting and we were thrilled!  I ordered the special sandwich with a side of scrambled eggs, and DH ordered fried eggs over medium.  While our food was cooking, we helped ourselves to the buffet of cold options.  I took a few slices of cheese to put on top of my eggs, and a single-serve container of nutella for my toast.  The food came out very quickly and everything was good.  It was a simple breakfast, but it was very filling and it was hard to complain when it was free and made to order!

 

 

[deladane]

After breakfast, we walked across the street to Kings Cross to take the Tube to the Tower Hill station. 

 

 

Our instructions said to meet near the Tower Hill Tram coffee stand right outside of the station at 9:30am.  I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to find this stand, but it was literally right there in front of us when we exited the station!  A few minutes after we got there, our guide showed up carrying a bright red umbrella with white dots on it, designed to look like a strawberry!   Our guide’s name was Carlton and he was energetic, theatrical, and entertaining all day long so we really lucked out with him as our guide.  There were only 14 of us taking the tour today, which was the perfect size for our group because it was big enough to have people asking questions and we could chat with them as we walked between the sites, but not so big that it was hard to keep track of everyone all day long.  Crazy enough, there was a family who lives in a town near us in California! 

 

We started the tour next to a section of the original stone wall that the Romans built around 200 AD to surround and protect London.  Pieces of this wall can be seen in various spots around the City of London, including right outside the exit to the Tower Hill Underground station! 

 

 

As we turned around to leave this area, we got a sneak peak at our next destination:  The Tower of London!

 

 

Carlton led us around the back of the Underground station and to a spot overlooking the Tower of London.  Since we did not have time to go inside of this very popular historical site, this was as close as we got to it with a view of the outer wall.

 

 

It was so neat to see this historic landmark right across the river from the ultra-modern round building, London’s City Hall.  Notice all of those people lined up on the right side of the photo?  It was now a little after 10am so it looked like it was shaping up to be a busy day here!

 

 

Carlton told us to take a seat on the steps while he gave us a thorough history lesson.  Given how long today’s tour was, it was great that he always looked out for places where we could sit down, although not always in the shade.

 

[deladane]

Out next stop was at a hidden gem that most people don’t know exists… Saint Dunstan in the East Church.  Behind this church is a garden that is walled off, keeping the noise of the city out and leaving a lush, green garden with benches to sit and relax.

 

 

The church itself is a beautiful old Gothic church, with white stone walls towering over the garden.

 

 

Carlton intended for us to stay here in the shade while he told us another bit of London’s history, but unfortunately the gardeners were making a lot of noise so we had to leave haha

 

As we continued west through the City of London, Carlton pointed out the Walkie Talkie building…

 

 

…and this neat view of the Shard peaking out at the end of the street (although it is actually located far away on the south bank)

 

 

Carlton led us around the corner to take a closer look at the outside of the Walkie Talkie building.  He told us an interesting story… When this building first opened, a man parked his Jaguar on a nearby side street.  When he returned 2 hours later, he found that parts of his car had melted causing major damage to his car.  It turns out that the sun had reflected off the concave window panels of the Walkie Talkie building in just the right ankle that it was directed straight down to the Jaguar and caused the car to melt!  The building had to be fitted with special shades on the outside of all the windows to change the angle that the sun reflected so this problem would not happen again.  Talk about an engineering fail!!  Standing in the plaza outside of the building, we could look up to see those sunshades clearly.

 

 

[deladane]

We walked through a few side streets to get to the Leadenhall Market.  Since it was still so early in the day, there weren’t many people around and we were able to take some photos of the beautiful building.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[deladane]

As we exited the Leadenhall Market, we had a direct view of the Cheese Grater building.  It’s so interesting to see these super modern highrise buildings contrasting with the old architecture of the market.

 

 

Carlton pointed out the St. Michael Cornhill Church which means it probably had some kind of historical significance, but I honestly can’t remember what he said haha

 

 

I kept seeing these posts around the City and I noticed that they had different dates at the bottom.  I asked Carlton what it meant and he said he wasn’t positive but he thought it was the date that post was repaired after it got knocked over or damaged.

 

 

The Bank of England, with a red double-decker bus driving by.  I really meant to ride on one of the buses (just to say I did it lol), but we never got a chance.

 

 

I just thought this was a pretty spot with the lamp post and the old building behind it…

 

 

[deladane]

Carlton explained the history of this pub, but as we walked around the corner, there was a plaque explaining the same story so I’ll just post a photo of it instead of re-explaining it hehe

 

 

 

Next, we stopped outside of St. Paul’s Cathedral where Carlton pointed out the irony that it is free to visit museums in London, but the famous churches (here and Westminster Abbey, for example) charge a surprisingly high admission fee!  Unfortunately, the sun was in a bad spot so it was hard to get a good photo while he was talking.  At least I got some cool photos when we passed here yesterday!

 

 

We walked past this store selling tons of Union Jack souvenirs.  Of course I didn’t have time to go inside during our tour, so this photo will have to serve as my keepsake instead.  In a way, it’s annoying that the building from across the street reflected in the window, but in a way, I kind of like the effect!

 

 

Our next stop was St. Bride’s Church.  Carlton explained that many brides in London take photos here before the wedding because the church spire looks like a wedding cake!  Our view of it was from an alley looking through the trees, but you get the idea…

 

 

While we were standing in the alley out of the way from the foot traffic on the sidewalk, Carlton took the opportunity to take our orders for lunch.  He called the restaurant where we were going and told them what we all wanted to eat from a set list of 5 items: fish and chips, burger and chips, sausage and mash, pesto penne pasta, or cottage pie (like shepherd’s pie but with no crust).  DH ordered the cottage pie and I ordered the fish and chips.  We still had about 30 minutes of walking before we would arrive at the lunch restaurant so now our food would be ready when we arrived.

 

[ROWSE]

Just loving your review and now I have found what we will do with our one full day in London next May!  It looks like booking isn't open yet for next May so I will wait and watch.  

One question so far; was there bathroom stops along the tour?  Always an important aspect to me.😀

[deladane]

14 hours ago, ROWSE said:

Just loving your review and now I have found what we will do with our one full day in London next May!  It looks like booking isn't open yet for next May so I will wait and watch.  

One question so far; was there bathroom stops along the tour?  Always an important aspect to me.😀

 

So funny you asked that question because I am about to address it in my next post... the short answer is no, there are no bathroom breaks except for at lunch.  I guess that's not to different than any other walking tour though.

[deladane]

We didn’t really make any more official stops before getting to lunch, but we did walk past the Royal Courts of Justice building so I snapped a quick photo of it.

 

 

I thought it was funny that they painted “Look Right --->” on the pavement to help people safely cross the street.  It seriously took me until our last day in London to get the hang of looking right first… you’d be surprised how hard it is to break a habit you’ve been practicing for nearly your entire life!

 

 

Carlton led us on the scenic route to get to the lunch restaurant.  Instead of walking on the Strand, which was a very busy street with lots of people crowding the sidewalks, we cut down to the river and walked along the north bank on a pedestrian path.  We didn’t know exactly where we were going for lunch nor how long it would take to walk there, so it was kind of surprising when it ended up being a 30 minute walk.  It would have been nice if Carlton either warned us that the walk would be 30 minutes straight, or if he found somewhere to stop at the midway point.  Since he didn’t do that, it felt like we were walking f-o-r-e-v-e-r!!  That wouldn’t have been a problem normally (you’ve seen the amount of walking we did every day on this trip, so 30 minutes is no big deal in the grand scheme of things), but nearly everyone in our group desperately needed to use a restroom by this point in the day and we all would have appreciated a potty break before doing all that walking!  We got to the restaurant at 12:30pm, so 3 hours after the tour started, and closer to 4 hours after we left our hotel this morning, so yea… you get the idea!

 

Lunch was at a pub called Walkers of Whitehall.

 

 

The restaurant was not very crowded, but the hostess was expecting us since we pre-ordered our food, and she led us downstairs to a private room with a booth large enough to fit our entire group at one table.  We had a family of 4 vegetarians on the tour with us, and they did not want to eat pasta for lunch (they said they eat A LOT of pasta as the default veggie dish haha), so Carlton told them where they could find some other options for good Indian food and they were going to meet us back at Walkers in an hour.  Another lady who was on the tour by herself decided she was going to leave right when we got to the pub.  It was actually kind of awkward because she told one of the other ladies while we were all in the restroom, and then she just left, so it became that lady’s obligation to tell Carlton.  We all thought it was very rude that she didn’t tell him she was leaving herself, likely to avoid having to give him a tip.

 

Anyway, that left us with 10 people at lunch including Carlton.  We sat down at our booth and they gave us this menu.  We had already ordered our food, so the waitress took our drink orders.  Strawberry Tours organized a deal for us where we get our choice of food and a half pint of beer/cider/soda/juice for £10. 

 

 

The food came out about 5 minutes later.  DH really enjoyed his cottage pie… it had a base of chopped beef with mashed potatoes on top, then a ton of gravy poured all over it, and of course a side of peas.  Those Brits are all about their peas!

 

 

My fish and chips was also very good, especially when I added some malt vinegar on top!

 

 

[deladane]

Carlton did not rush us at all to finish lunch, and even after we all finished eating, we enjoyed our time relaxing on the comfy booth and soaking up the air conditioning.  It was also a great opportunity to chat with the other people on our tour.  This was when DH learned that two of the other parties on our tour were specifically visiting London to attend the MLB London Series baseball game with the Yankees vs. Red Sox playing on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.  He had noticed lots of people wearing Yankees and Red Sox shirts as we were walking around London yesterday and today, but he just assumed that it was other tourists visiting from the east coast (you can get to London in nearly the same time as you can get to California when coming from New York and Boston!)  Immediately, DH said he wanted to go to the game, but the others said the game sold out within minutes of tickets being released a few months ago.  DH was super bummed!

 

After lunch, we took a quick walk around the corner to see Trafalgar Square.  I thought it was a little weird that Carlton didn’t spend much time explaining the significance of this square considering it is so well known, but I think he wanted to avoid the area due to all the noise from the cars and other pedestrians.  He actually took out a portable microphone headset when we got here, and after using it for literally one minute, the batteries died!  He really was a great tour guide and we had a wonderful day with him, but I thought this was very unprofessional.  He knew he was leading this tour today and he knew that he liked using his headset when we walk through the more crowded parts of Westminster, so he should have known to charge his device last night.  Sorry… rant over!

 

Here is the glimpse we got of Nelson’s Column and Trafalgar Square as we walked around the corner towards The Mall.

 

 

How cute is this crosswalk sign!?  Carlton said this neighborhood is very LGBTQ friendly, and this was one tribute to that.  There was another sign that had the male and female symbols light up in green instead of the little walking man, but I couldn’t get a good photo of it.

 

 

We walked down along the Mall, which is the road that connects Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace.  Our next stop was to see this monument to the Duke of York.  There is a little chant that British children learn in school and Carlton was nice enough to sing it to us.  It’s actually a catchy little song… I am kind of obsessed with the animations in this video that I borrowed from Youtube hahaha

 

 

 

The funny thing about this song is that it was very popular with tour guides throughout our time in London.  We actually heard the story of the Duke of York and listened to the song on 3 of our tours!  They say repetition is the key to learning new information, so maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing to hear this story and the song 3 times because I actually remember it now that the trip is over! Haha!

 

This monument was built in 1834 to honor the Duke of York.

 

 

This was the view I had all day, following Carlton and his red umbrella through the streets of London!  I told him how much I appreciated him carrying that umbrella all day long as it made it very easy to keep track of him when we got to more crowded areas.  There are moments in nearly every walking tour when I lose sight of my guide, so this eliminated that problem and we could always see the umbrella even on a busy sidewalk.

 

 

Notice how the road on The Mall is red… this is to create the effect of a very long red carpet leading up to Buckingham Palace.

 

 

[deladane]

The Prince Philip House is one of the more modern buildings on The Mall.

 

 

Next to that was a pair of statues of Queen Elizabeth and King George VI.  While we were standing in the shade, Carlton took a moment to explain how they play into the history of the British royalty and that they are the parents of the current queen, Queen Elizabeth II.  He also explained how Kings and Queens get their names, which I thought was really interesting because I never realized how it all works.

 

 

We took a detour onto a side street to see St. James’s Palace.  Look at all those fancy London taxicabs coming down the road!

 

 

St. James’s Palace was built in the 1530’s by King Henry VIII.  Carlton took this opportunity to explain what made King Henry VIII famous… all of his wives!  He explained the story behind each wife, and we learned the phrase people use to keep them straight: divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.  (This was the other story that we heard on every single tour we took in London!)  I really learned a lot of British history on this tour, and Carlton had a great way of telling the story so that I would retain the information.

 

 

Heading out to The Mall, we walked all the way down to see Buckingham Palace.  We didn’t actually walk up to the gates because that would have involved crossing several lanes of traffic, but we had a good view of the palace and the gardens from where we stood.  Carlton was nice enough to give us a few minutes to take photos here.

 

 

 

[deladane]

Next, we crossed The Mall to enter St. James’s Park.  This is one of the 8 Royal Parks across London, and covers 58 acres including a lake with ducks, geese, and pelicans!  This park was so lush and green, and is a beautiful escape from the bustling city that surrounds it.

 

 

 

The London Eye peaked out above the trees in the distance…

 

 

 

If you look closely, you can see the pelicans hanging out on the rocks in the lake…

 

 

 

[deladane]

We exited St. James’s Park and walked past the House of Lords Appointments Commission.

 

 

Our next stop was to see Westminster Abbey.  This church has hosted 16 royal weddings, including when Prince William married Kate Middleton in 2011, and is the burial site of over 3,000 prominent British citizens.

 

 

The last stop on our epic full day walking tour was Parliament Square Garden.  I imagine this must be a great place to take photos of Big Ben, but we were out of luck with all that scaffolding in the way.

 

 

Overall, this tour was a fantastic way to get a huge overview of London.  We covered a ton of ground and Carlton was chock full of anecdotes and information about all of the sights we saw.  As wonderful as our tour was, I just looked back on their website and noticed that we did not visit all of the places they said we would see.  The places we missed were the Churchill War Rooms, Leicester Square, 10 Downing Street, and Tower Bridge.  We did get to see a bunch of places not mentioned on the website, but I’m not sure why we had to skip these other very notable locations.  We thanked Calrton for his time and tipped him generously before walking over to the Westminster Underground Station.  We wanted to go back to the hotel to get changed for tonight and grab some jackets because it was already cooling off and we didn’t want a repeat of yesterday!

 

[deladane]

After we finished at the hotel, we took a quick detour to check out the lobby of the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel.  We saw the grand facade every time we went to the train station, so we wanted to take a peak inside the hotel.  This hotel was originally built in the 1870’s by the railway company who was also building St. Pancras Station.  It was used as a hotel until 1935 when it was converted to offices for the railway, but then it was shut down in the 1980s after failing fire safety regulations.  In 2004, plans began to redevelop the historic building as a hotel, and the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel opened in 2011 as the building we can see today. 

 

 

 

Fun fact:  In 1996, the Spice Girls filmed their Wannabe music video in this building while it was still abandoned. 

 

 

 

I was on a mission to find the grand staircase featured in that music video, but wow does it ever look more majestic today after the restoration project!

 

 

 

 

 

Not the best photo because the light was shining in through the windows, but at least we can prove we were there hehe

 

 

[deladane]

We left the hotel through the front entrance and walked down the street to enter the St. Pancras train station. 

 

 

This bronze sculpture called “The Meeting Place” is featured inside the train station.

 

 

We hopped on the Tube to get to Covent Garden.  Our plan for tonight was to explore around this area and Leicester Square.  We asked Carlton for a recommendation of a good bar in this area and he suggested the Punch and Judy Pub because it over looks the courtyard outside Covent Garden where there are usually good street performers. 

 

 

We went inside and up the stairs to the bar area, but it was soooo crowded!  We could barely enter the room, let alone get to the bar or find a spot to stand on the balcony!  That was an unfortunate fail, so we went back downstairs to walk around Covent Garden.  At 6pm on a Friday evening, it’s no surprise that this place was packed with tourists and locals alike. 

 

 

 

 

We hadn’t eaten since lunch at the pub at 12:30pm, so I was getting hangry and didn’t have the patience for a place this hectic.  I ate half a Clif Bar to hold me over because we didn’t want to get dinner quite yet (I always keep one in my purse for hunger emergencies like this!), and we continued walking around and exploring the neighborhood.

 

[deladane]

We came across this colorful archway with rainbow lights, which I think was installed for Pride month.

 

 

 

We were close by one of the pubs I had bookmarked on my Google Map for places I wanted to see, so we took a detour to get a drink at The Cross Keys.  I just loved the décor outside of this pub!

 

 

There must have been over a hundred people hanging out in front of this pub, so we went inside to get a drink.  Funny enough, there was no one inside!  I guess the locals like to take advantage of the perfect summer weather when it’s not cold and rainy like the rest of the year!

 

 

I was happy to see that they had cider on tap, and DH really liked their beer selection.

 

 

[deladane]

After we finished our drinks, we walked around the corner and found this Pride Pop-Up Shop.  It turned out that this was the headquarters to coordinate the Pride parade which was scheduled for the following weekend.  We spent a few minutes chatting with the team of coordinators, but unfortunately, we were leaving London on Tuesday so we wouldn’t be there for the parade.

 

 

 

We walked around another corner and found Neals Yard, an amazingly colorful pedestrian alley that opened up into a small courtyard.  It was hard to take a good photo to capture everything because the space was so cramped, but this shows one of the corners.

 

 

By now, it was 7:30pm and we were ready to find somewhere to eat dinner.  We walked along one of the main streets that had lots of pubs and restaurants, looking for somewhere that looked lively and fun but that didn’t have a wait to get a table.

 

[deladane]

We decided to go to a pub called The Long Acre.  The décor was more modern than most of the other pubs we had been to, and it had a sports bar vibe.  They had a few big screen TVs and were airing the USA vs. France Women’s World Cup game, so it was pretty busy.  We couldn’t find any open tables on the main level, but there was a balcony upstairs that had an open table.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t really see the game from up there, but that was okay with us as long as we could sit and eat dinner.

 

Notice how everyone is looking towards us?  The TV mounted on the front of the balcony wall was showing the Women’s World Cup game.  The TV at the far side of the bar that we could see from our table was airing a random men’s soccer match that no one seemed to care about.

 

 

By now, I had ordered fish and chips at two restaurants but I had yet to try a steak and ale pie so that’s what I ordered.  I think DH ordered that too.

 

 

The food came out pretty quickly, and everything tasted good, but the portion was kind of small.  Luckily, we had a pint of cider and beer to help fill us up!

 

 

After dinner, we walked around Leicester Square and the surrounding area.  I couldn’t resist taking a photo of this Abbey Road display in the M&M World store!

 

 

We wandered over to Piccadilly Circus just as the buildings were lighting up at night.

 

 

Lots of people were hanging out around the statue of Eros.

 

 

It was getting late and we had had a long day, but we stepped into one last pub for a drink as we watched Team USA beat France to advance to the semi-final round of the Women’s World Cup.  We were kind of happy to be in England and not France tonight! haha

 

 

After the game ended, we got on the Tube to head back to our hotel after a wonderful day exploring London.

 

Fitbit Daily Summary… Steps: 25,031,  Miles: 11.52,  Flights of Stairs: 27

 

[Bimmer09]

12 hours ago, deladane said:

 

We were close by one of the pubs I had bookmarked on my Google Map for places I wanted to see, so we took a detour to get a drink at The Cross Keys.  I just loved the décor outside of this pub!

 

 

There must have been over a hundred people hanging out in front of this pub, so we went inside to get a drink.  Funny enough, there was no one inside!  I guess the locals like to take advantage of the perfect summer weather when it’s not cold and rainy like the rest of the year!

 

 

I was happy to see that they had cider on tap, and DH really liked their beer selection.

 

 

 

 

Dana, you have me very keen to step into a London pub again with all your pub visits. I haven't been in one in 25 years but remember the crowds outside with their pints on warm summer evenings. Some interesting and inviting exteriors and names above the doors and a cosy feel inside. Service was always an issue though and after living in Nuremberg for a few months when I was 20 the British beer was a poor excuse for a beverage and I could only rely on Guinness, which I still love.

Your fish and chips always look good although the mushy peas are stingy portions. We are dining at a fish and chip shop on our first night called The Rock and Sole Plaice (Rock being a cod variety).

We have tickets to the Churchill War Rooms on our only full day in London (August 31) so you'll hopefully see pics of that in my X review. That afternoon we are seeing a new David Mamet play in the West End. I will have a "Full English" breakfast which you passed on so there will be a photo of that. We are doing a Big Bus tour soon after we get there and as you know I will be up early each day wandering with the camera but we don't have a tight schedule (at my request).

 

Great trip report. I am sure your head is still full of Paris and London!

Norris

 

[deladane]

10 hours ago, Bimmer09 said:

 

Dana, you have me very keen to step into a London pub again with all your pub visits. I haven't been in one in 25 years but remember the crowds outside with their pints on warm summer evenings. Some interesting and inviting exteriors and names above the doors and a cosy feel inside. Service was always an issue though and after living in Nuremberg for a few months when I was 20 the British beer was a poor excuse for a beverage and I could only rely on Guinness, which I still love.

Your fish and chips always look good although the mushy peas are stingy portions. We are dining at a fish and chip shop on our first night called The Rock and Sole Plaice (Rock being a cod variety).

We have tickets to the Churchill War Rooms on our only full day in London (August 31) so you'll hopefully see pics of that in my X review. That afternoon we are seeing a new David Mamet play in the West End. I will have a "Full English" breakfast which you passed on so there will be a photo of that. We are doing a Big Bus tour soon after we get there and as you know I will be up early each day wandering with the camera but we don't have a tight schedule (at my request).

 

Great trip report. I am sure your head is still full of Paris and London!

Norris

 

 

Oh wow, you are leaving so soon!  I look forward to seeing your photos and reading your review since you will be doing some of the things we did not do during our trip.  I really couldn't get enough of the pubs in London... bars in San Jose just don't look that nice so it was a fun change of pace to visit such beautiful pubs.  Service was always fine, even considering how crowded it was, but we only stayed for one drink at each pub so perhaps we would have thought differently if we stayed longer?  Either way, I hope you find your perfect pint when you are there next week, and I wish you safe travels and a wonderful vacation! 

 

[deladane]

 

Saturday, June 29, 2019 ~ Houses of Parliament, British Museum, Les Mis on the West End

 

One of the things we wanted to do the most during our time in London was to see a musical on the West End.  We are big fans of Broadway musicals and have had a season subscription to see the traveling Broadway shows at home for 5 years, so there was no question that we wanted to see a show while visiting London.  After we booked our flights in October, one of the first things we did was to look up which shows would be running in London on the dates we were there.  Ironically, a lot of the shows were ones that had come to San Jose last season or were due to come this season, so we didn’t have a lot of options.  We decided to buy tickets to Les Mis because we both love that show and hadn’t seen it in many years, plus we thought it would be a great show to feature the talented singers performing on a West End stage.  We bought tickets directly though the box office website for seats in the front row of the Upper Circle (the third floor balcony).  The reviews of these seats said there was a limited view and you had to lean forward to see the stage, but these were among the lowest priced seats in the theater so we decided to take our chances.  It is better to be in the front row and lean forward than be in the back row of the theater and have a tall person in front of you blocking the stage, or being so far back you need binoculars to see anything, right?  As luck would have it, in March we learned the list of shows coming to Broadway San Jose for the 2019-2020 season and sure enough… Les Mis is on the list!  So now we will be seeing it twice but at least it’s a show we both enjoy!

 

Another thing we wanted to do was take a tour of the Houses of Parliament.  I did some research on their website (www.parliament.uk) and learned that it only costs an extra £7 to take a 90-minute guided tour (£26.50) as opposed to the audio guide (£19.50), so it was a no-brainer that we would try to get tickets to the guided tour.  We always get so much more out of the tour when we have a live guide to interact with as opposed to trying to focus on the audio guide.  Visitors can take tours of the Houses on Parliament on Saturdays throughout the year, and on select weekdays when Parliament is not in session but those dates didn’t align with our trip so I knew Saturday was our only choice.  The tickets are released on their website about 5 months in advance, but luckily these are not in as high a demand as tickets to the Eiffel Tower and there were still lots of time slots available when I looked in early February.  We bought nonrefundable tickets for the 9am tour.

 

After another good breakfast at the hotel, we took the Tube to the Westminster Station.  Our tickets said to go straight to the Cromwell Green Visitor Entrance and that we needed to arrive 20 minutes before our tour to allow time to go through security.  I wasn’t really sure exactly where that entrance was located, but there were lots of signs along the sidewalk pointing us in the right direction.  Soon enough, we saw about 30 people standing in line, holding paper tickets that looked like ours, so we got in line.

 

 

While we waited, we admired the view of the back of Westminster Abbey.

 

 

[deladane]

I’m really not sure why they force you to arrive 20 minutes early for the 9am tour because the building did not open until 9am, so we were standing outside at 8:40am for no reason.  We would have appreciated the extra 20 minutes to sleep!  When they finally started letting us in, we showed our tickets, then proceeded through security.  Not surprisingly, this security check was very strict, even asking us to remove our watches.  After clearing security, they gave us passes to wear around our necks indicating that we were approved visitors, then they divided us into groups for the tour.  When the guide had about 30 people in their group, they took everyone and started the tour, and then a new guide would start to gather people for their tour.  As luck would have it, we ended up with only 16 people in our group because there was a lull in people finishing the security check. 

 

Our guide’s name was Gemma, and she explained that no photos were allowed during the tour except in the first 2 rooms, Westminster Hall and St. Stephen’s Hall. 

 

It was really hard to get a good photo in Westminster Hall due to the dim lighting and the vast size of the room, but I took a photo of the stained glass windows…

 

 

These doors lead into St. Stephen’s Hall.  The art installation was designed in 2016 to mark 150 years since the campaign for women’s votes began.

 

 

I know this isn’t the best quality photo but Gemma did not stop walking to give us a chance to take a photo so I had to click while walking.  This is St. Stephen’s Hall…

 

 

We weren’t allowed to take any photos beyond that point.  Gemma took us through some very grand lobbies and meeting halls, into the House of Lords and the House of Commons, and we got to see a bunch of rooms that are not accessible to people using the audio guides.  She did a wonderful job of explaining the ins and outs of British government, and she was able to answer all of our questions along the way.  We both thought this tour was well worth the cost of admission, and we learned a lot of tidbits that we hadn’t know about before.  There were a lot of tours happening simultaneously so sometimes it was timed well that as we finished in one room, another group entered when we were leaving, but sometimes there were multiple groups in the same room making it kind of loud and hard to hear Gemma.  We did notice that all of the other groups were much larger than ours, so we definitely got lucky to have a small group.  We started our tour at 9:15am and ended back at Westminster Hall at 10:50am, so it was a 95 minute tour.

 

On our way out, we were able to get one last photo in Westminster Hall…

 

 

[deladane]

I took a few photos outside in the garden in front of Westminster Hall.  These photos would look much better without the scaffolding, but I guess that’s just another reason to plan a re-do trip to London in the future!

 

 

 

 

When we exited out into Parliament Square, there were thousands of people in the streets!  It was crazy!  We asked one of the men standing on the street what was happening and he explained what the rally was for, but unfortunately I really can’t remember what he said.  Despite the number of people at the rally, it was all very peaceful and we never felt unsafe or anything like that (although we did guard our wallets in case of pickpockets!).

 

 

The statue of Winston Churchill was overlooking the crowd…

 

 

 

[Walt fan]

Work and life got me sideways but I am back and eagerly following along!  Your days in London are stuffed full.  So enjoying all of the pics; you should write a travel book.