London, 6/11
They have a great breakfast spread at the Thistle Hotel, Charing Cross that is included in the package. We enjoyed and set out early for the Tower of London via the tube, as they call their subway system. The tube is very easy to get around, clearly marked, clean, safe, and runs frequently.
As it turned out the opening time we were given was incorrect so we arrived very early and had plenty of time to wander around outside prior to opening time. It is in a lovely location on the river next to the Tower Bridge, of course. We had time to go out on the bridge and then went in through the main entrance. The public tours were not to start for half an hour so we proceeded in and happened upon a private tour that we were able to tag onto without objection. The tour guide was very entertaining provided fascinating stories, and looked a bit like a young image of Santa Claus without the white hair and beard and of course had a different costume. We ended up spending the entire morning there taking in the whole site.
We found a nice little pizza shop about a block away and enjoyed sitting out on the balcony for pizza and beer. The beer in England is so much better than the draught we get in the States. I drank much more there than I do anywhere else I’ve been. Not hard to do as I rarely drink it in the States, much preferring wine there.
After lunch we took the tube over to the Tate Britain Museum, spent an hour or so viewing the art from prior to 1900. We then took the Tate ferry for a nice cruise up the river to the Tate Modern, looking at modern art for the rest of the afternoon. The Tate Modern building itself it quite interesting and as you might expect very modern in it’s architecture.
In the evening we found our way over near Piccadilly Circus to what is purported to be the best vegetarian restaurant in London, Mildred’s. It is a small establishment not far from a Whole Foods grocery. We weren’t there long util I noticed that nearly all of the patrons were women. At one point I asked those seated next to us, during a conversation, if that was the norm and she said it was, that she thought most vegetarians in London were women. Even Dee remarked about the quality of the noise in this small room with poor acoustics from all these women talking at once. The food was good but only remarkable in the taste of the minted ‘mushy peas’. Interesting.
We finished off the evening talking to a lovely couple from Finland in the hotel bar over glasses of scotch.
6/12
The feature of the morning was a quick tube ride to Westminster tube station, a quick walk past Big Ben and Parliament and into Westminster Abbey. We spent the rest of the morning with the incredibly affable and informative Verger Benjamin on a 2 hour guided tour of the Abbey. What an incredible site with so many amazing stories associated with it!
We took a rushed tube trip over towards St. Paul’s cathedral to make it to the two o’clok tour but stopped at a great pub for lunch near Blackfrair’s station and got to the church a too late for the tour was sold out. We left there to go to St. Martin-in-the-Fields to do a bronze rubbing only to find it was closed for the season. By the way, for those who don’t know, there are no fields anywhere near it, it is in the middle of the city, only a few blocks from the spot used as the city location for measuring distance from the city on road maps. As we seemed to keep striking out with plans we decided to walk along St. James park to Buckingham Palace and then on through Hyde Park corner to Knightsbridge Street so Dee could do some shopping. We had a very relaxing stop for tea and scones. Dee found nothing to buy and we headed back to the hotel for a rest. That evening we had a great thai dinner at a restaurant just off of Trafalgar Square.
6/13
We got packed up in the morning, left our bags with the concierge and checked out of our room prior to heading out for the day. The Globe theatre, a reconstruction of the theatre used and partly owned by William Shakespeare was first on our list for the day. We greatly enjoyed the tour of the Globe theatre and would like to go back for a play when we have time and can get seats. Although I’m sure it is interesting to be one of those viewing the play from the area in front of the stage, a ‘groundling’, I’m am not interested at this time in my life in standing for several hours in the sun for a play – no matter how ‘authentic’ the experience.
We next had an interesting tour of St. Paul’s, not nearly as entertaining as Westminster Abbey but worthwhile. We returned to the same pub as the day before for lunch and again enjoyed the food and ambiance. The rest of the afternoon was unremarkable and partly consisted in cleaning up a bit, resting and preparing for the trip to the airport and on to India.
