European Traveler ~ London ~ 2 & 3 September 2011 ~ Donna

“The Trip of a Lifetime”

Friday, September 2, 2011

7:30am I am writing this following our overnight flight from Chicago-- we are almost to London. I slept some on the flight which was not as bad as I had feared. Having never been on so long a flight I was pretty resolute that no matter what it was worth it to get to take this trip. Visiting the great cities of Europe has been my dream for decades, finally all the stars have aligned and we are taking the tour of a lifetime!

It is a bit long to go through customs. There is a section for UK & EU folks and then for everyone else—that’s where we are. But the line moves along, the clerk seems to move us through once we say we are on a Trafalgar tour. I guess that’s not the choice of undesirables or terrorists. smiley We finally retrieve our baggage and then we go and try to find the Trafalgar representative. We wander around a bit & spot it in the main hall. The rep takes us to a spot and says the transport service will call our names when it is our shuttle. We wait for a while and strike up a conversation with a lady beside us. She is also on a TT, but not the same as us. They are staying at a different hotel. She doesn’t really know much about her tour, not for sure where they are all going—I think she said England & Ireland—anyway I thought wow, I did sooo much research and planning, and she just kinda goes along with whatever. I don’t think I could ever be that laid back. :-0

On the ride to our hotel it was fun to see all the cool architectural styles of London—soo vintage. At one point I caught myself dozing off—no, I must not sleep!! The bus driver tries to engage everyone. He tells stories about some of the buildings and places—but he is very hard to understand—this is English—right?

11am We get to our hotel, Holiday Inn Kensington Forum, early, planning on stowing the bags and going out to explore—but the room is ready so we stretch out a bit before going for a walk. Nice hotel room. a complimentary KitKat Chunky candy bar was waiting for us. Yum After resting a bit—no sleeping—we set out. Hubby couldn’t get our hikers GPS to work, so I led the way toward Harrods….or so I hoped. It should be about a mile or a mile & a ¼. This is significant because I always get turned around—but this time I got it right. 

We walk along busy Cromwell Road, several times taking a side street to check out restaurants. I was looking for WIFI so I could let our daughter know we arrived safely. No luck at Starbucks or anywhere else. (Turns out it was operator error, as I was reading my settings wrong) we checked out some of the restaurant menus and then decided on a local pub “A Bunch of Grapes” While they promoted their wine, they served lots of different beers. We split an order of Fish & Chips. It was great! Hot & Juicy, crispy batter—yum! The meal came with a side of mushy peas—I think with just a little mint. Very tasty. We shared a pint of London’s Best, a medium, dark ale. The place had great woodwork & leaded glass, locals were drinking at lunch. The place had a very cool vibe. Total bill was around 15 pounds. 

We walked past the National History Museum (huge) and the Victoria & Albert Museum (huge). Both are beautiful old buildings. We made it to Harrods—only to discover we couldn’t afford to purchase anything there. laugh I had planned on purchasing a sweater or scarf there—but the simplest wool scarf sold for 90 pounds (that’s about $130 US) and that is just too much. They certainly carried all the top designers and brands—Channel, D & B, Louis Vitton—etc….great clothing & accessories, but just too rich for my blood. The place was packed. We did buy our daughter a pretty tin of coffee for 10 pounds. It has a picture of the store on it—looks cool. I wanted to buy some chocolates for gifts but Hubby warned that the fancy truffles may not hold up when we get to the heat of Italy when the candy would be in our bags under the bus. I think I’ll wait until Switzerland to buy chocolate.

On our walk back we stopped by a couple of souvenir shops. Bought a London phone booth bank, picture frame, magnet and a hat for a co-worker. We also stopped at a small grocery and we purchased a cold bottle of wine. Then we stopped at a local bakery. Paul’s was packed with incredible goodies. I bought two chocolate pastries. It will be a yummy snack for later.

When we got back to out room we were sooo tired—but we didn’t want to sleep until 7pm. I went to the lobby and bought an hour of WIFI so I could let our daughter know that we were in London. I sent friends a photo of us drinking our first pint. I took a long hot bath and Hubby watched TV as we tried to stay awake. We went out to eat around 5. We walked west along Cromwell looking for a place called The Tavern. Walked back east still trying to find it—sounds like a cool local place—right? We found it and it was actually a restaurant in our hotel—not what we were looking for. So we kept walking and about a half block later we come upon a place called Garfunkel’s. The menu posted outside show plenty of “British specialties”. Hubby got a pint of “Pride of London” ale & I got a diet Coke. (2.95 pounds for a 16 ounce glass) I got Bangers & Mash and he got Beef & Ale Pie. My pork & leek sausages were good and Hubby said his meal was too. The total bill was around 30 pounds.

The restaurant opened onto a small mall with a “Whole Foods” type store. We went looking for & Hubby found FLAPJACKS!! I have been making them from a recipe I found in a story about London and wanted to try the authentic variety--Yum. I also bought toffee waffles—delish!! Hubby noted there should be more fat Londoners with all this good food. laugh We got back to the room, killed the bottle of wine and stayed awake until 9 pm. We have to be out for the local tour bus tomorrow morning at 8:25.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

We began the day with a full “English” Breakfast buffet which included eggs, sausages, English bacon, beans, grilled tomatoes, mushrooms and blood sausage. The croissants and mixed berry compote were delicious. They also had a sausage and cheese selection. I wanted to try “English” oatmeal—but the porridge had to be cooked to order and I had already eaten too much. Tomorrow is a boxed breakfast before the bus leaves morning so we wanted to make sure we got to try a full English breakfast while we had the chance—hopefully we’ll walk some of it off on our tour this morning. 

We did a half day tour of London this morning. Our guide was a real “Character”—right out of an English comedy—her giggle was hilarious. (Alas I didn’t write down her name & cannot remember it now) We drove by all the main attractions and got out a few times for photos. We saw the Royal Albert Hall, Big Ben, West Minster Abbey, The Parliament Building, & St. James Palace. We walked to Buckingham Palace—the place was packed with tourists—there were buses everywhere. It was very beautiful. I especially loved the ornate gates that were gifts from different counties. They were doing some repairs to the main statue (fountain?) in front of the palace & the scaffolding ruined any really great pictures —disappointing. After leaving there we were dropped off downtown. We decided we were toured out and did not sign up for the afternoon continuation of the tour. We decided to walk for a while just to get the feel for the area. There were some clothing stores nearby and I bought a heavy sweater made of alpaca wool. (65 pounds) We thought about walking back to our hotel but we weren’t quite sure how far away it was and the map was kinda confusing. So we stopped for lunch at Sir Albert’s Pub. Cool old place. I wanted a Pimms—but they were out. We ordered the City Sampler (appetizer platter) and Hubby got an Old London Ale & I got an iced tea. The bill was about 15 pounds. Afterwards we took a taxi back to our hotel. This took two things off my tour bucket list--we got to ride in a traditional London Cab & We got to go around a round about. For some reason I found them interesting, instead of stopping at an intersection and turning—they go around to make a turn. It seems odd, but it may have something to do with them driving on the opposite side of the road. The cab ride came to 15 pounds....that included the tip.

We took a little break and I reorganized the luggage and added all of our purchases. I hope it is under weight for the tour. We went out exploring. I am sooo glad that my husband has a good sense of direction because I sure don’t!! We went walking in a new direction and came upon a little shop area. We checked out a little book store and looked at real estate listings. Wow, not much in South Kensington under a million pounds. We walked and came upon a Christie’s Auction House. It is a famous auction house and was open to inspect the items going up for sale. Very expensive items for sale—or at least their estimates were high. They didn’t have much under 800 to 1,000 pounds—some higher. We looked at some of the antique furniture & art and thought it was cool that we just stumbled upon it. Very classy place!

We continued to walk and Hubby took a picture of a very cool, stainless roadster—we thought our Son-in-Law would get a kick out of that car. A Shell gas station had gas at 1.339 pounds a liter. We discussed how much that would be in dollars per gallon—but I’m not sure we ever figured it out. We came to a pub called the Hereford Arms I had a Pimms—yummy. Hubby had a Red Fox Ale—a little darker brew then he had been drinking. I thought Pimms was a non-alcoholic drink—wrong. cheeky

We walked back to our hotel. I did a little more packing. On our way out we went to the 27th floor and looked out the windows on all 4 sides—what a view of London. Hubby took pictures of the view—we saw an exposition hall and thought we might walk to it. We also got to look into the backyard, courtyards of the row houses. That is where they have their garden and/or patio areas—unseen from the street. We went downstairs and I asked the concierge what is at the exposition hall we saw—he said it a convention type center and would not offer us anything to do as a destination. 

We went walking and picked up a few more souvenirs. It was a little house converted into a shop. I tripped over a stair on a slanted floor and just about fell. We then went to the Gloucester Arms for dinner. We shared a fish & chips dinner (The Codfather) and got a pitcher of Taylor Walker Mule—it has a kick. Hubby was tickled as they killed a bottle of Lime Vodka for our pitcher. Wow…it was good….but drinking an entire pitcher got us a little drunk. They forget to bring us our Mushy Peas! Oh well. We wanted to finish the flapjacks when we got back to our room so we didn’t need the peas anyway. I joked that we should go back to the souvenir shop as I might walk right now that everything seems a bit askew. wink

I want to get up at 4:30 tomorrow so it is early to bed tonight. Hard to believe our time in London is almost over—it has been fun!! Got to be downstairs by 5:30 in the morning.

ON TO FRANCE!!