Blog #9 London

13 August 2008
A drippy hello from London Towne,
.
We opted to take a tour from the ship to London via the Essex and Kent countryside and the marvelous little town of Canterbury ending with a quickie tour through London. The day for our travel was great with blue skies and little puffy white clouds framing the rolling hills of Essex. Our guide walked us through Canterbury pointing out buildings that were older than California dirt and fun to look at. Little canals running through the town were described as once serving the weavers who provided the town with its reason to be for several centuries.
The Canterbury Cathedral, of course, was the real reason we took the trip. Our guide filled us in on the tempestuous past for the church men who once governed religion in England but left us to our own devices to tour and explore the site. We spent a couple of hours soaking up the grandeur of the Cathedral and its many small chapels. If one were to really study the various modes of architecture incorporated in the various parts of the Cathedral it would take days rather than hours. We concentrated on enjoying the enormity of the buildings, enjoying the organist practicing, sitting in on a choir practice and strolling slowly through the many parts of the Cathedral.
By the time our bus slowed down to become a part of London traffic, a light rain began and followed us into town. We did the usual tour of London’s time honored monuments before we were dropped off to taxi on to our hotel. The Marriott was ready for us but had placed us in a room facing the back side of adjacent buildings; a scene that didn’t please us since we were going to make the Marriott our home for two weeks. The desk assured us that “on the morrow” a room with a decent exposure would be ours. In the meantime, we were treated to afternoon cocktails in the lounge. They put their best foot forward by treating us right from the git go.
Our first day’s outing was to St. Paul’s Cathedral; Christopher Wren’s masterpiece. When Cathedral was mentioned, Dottie was quick to ask “how many steps?” after our 220 step experience at St. Isaac’s in St. Petersburg. Assured that there wasn’t a tower to conquer, we were on our way. Our “underground” trip, and the purchase of our “Oyster Cards” introduced us to the mode of transportation we would be using for the most part in London. Three hours worth of St. Paul’s and we decided that we had been thrilled and amazed enough and we headed back to our hotel to unpack in the new room that was waiting for us. We easily concluded that the two Cathedrals we had seen in the last two days were gorgeous but not quite in the same league as our church at home.
We had asked several British couples on board ship what would be the one thing we shouldn’t miss in London. Nearly everyone put “The Tower of London” at the top of their lists. So off we went to see what “The Tower” is all about. After four hours poking around through the gazillion or so rooms in the tower we decided that the Tower was all about history. We imagined people loosing their heads, being imprisoned and talking their way out of or into life’s problems. We started our tour early, since we both are early folks, and were pleased we did. When we were ready to go home it seemed that half the world was touring the tour. The Royal Jewels display that we strolled leisurely through now had a waiting line two blocks long. We were pleased that we sought out the demonstration of medieval instruments of warfare and now feel ready to do our part if we find ourselves committed to seiging a castle or something.
We lunched on our first round of fish and chips and were each served the biggest piece of fish you can imagine. We ate it all but most of our “chips” went to a flock of pigeons watching us enjoy our meal. With a big piece of day left, we opted to board one of the many river cruise boats that ply the Thames loaded with tourists. Our round trip took us from Tower Bridge to Westminster Landing and back and gave us our first almost glimpse of “Somerset House”. We heard the onboard guide list Somerset House along with a number of other buildings he was pointing out but never really felt we knew that we had seen it. With a name like Somerset House, we decided we would make a point of finding it for a later visit. A light rain followed us back to our hotel.
The first couple of nights we were a bit on the tired side so we had dinner in the hotel dining room. The first night’s Chateau Brionde, one of the least expensive things on the menu, was so great we decided that a mistake was made in the pricing. Since then we’ve been seeking out small restaurants in the area with great success. Last night’s meal at a small French Restaurant was quiet with great food at a reasonable price. Dottie’s Coq Au Vin was marvelous.
Yesterday we set out to do Herrod’s, the world’s greatest department store where the claim is made and met that they will get anything the customer asks for. Our four hour visit had us gawking at watches (Dottie’s Wal-Mart special broke) that had more diamonds than we could count, marveling at the world famous “Foods Courts” where we actually saw some people buying things, to the fourth floor animal kingdom where you could buy diamond studded nail clippers to do for your doggie in style. We almost bought a basic pink accessory kit for Louie but we couldn’t remember if he was a girl or a boy. We lunched at the wine bar and ice creamed in the sweet shop feeling that our simple purchases had paid at least half of a week’s salary for one of the thousands of clerks working the mostly sight-seeing crowd.
Knowing that Herrods is not too far from Somerset House and being reminded constantly that our feet were in need of a rest rather than another walk, we opted to taxi what we were certain was a short trip. Our young cabbie showed us the sights of London taking a long around about way to our destination and a $22 fair. Leaving the cab without tipping (which most people don’t do in London anyway) we began our visit of Somerset House.
Listed as an art gallery and center for art students, Somerset House is a huge building that housed the offices of the British Admiralty prior to 1830. Why it was found unsuitable for the Navy’s use couldn’t be explained. It stood vacant for several decades before it became a museum. Rather than plan a run through the whole of Somerset House, we decided on a visit to the Courtauld Galleries and a display of the Courtauld collection of Cezannes’ works. The display complimented a current special display of French Impressionists works that included the work of Manet, Picasso, Renoir, Gauguin, Matisse and others. Seeing a few works of each of these painters made our visit very special and enjoyable. A light rain falling outside convinced us to spend a little time relaxing in the museums wine bar before heading home.
Today the forecaster foretold rain for the day even though the morning started with sunny skies and bright sunshine. Packing our handy plastic rain ponchos, we headed for the underground destination Buckingham Palace and the “Changing of the Guard”. We knew that this is probably the most popular venue in London and that if we wanted to really see the ceremony we would need to arrive early. We arrived so early that we took time to visit St. James Park adjacent to the palace. We strolled through the lovely park, admired the lily laden ponds and basked in a bright sunshine that was quickly being chased away by darkening clouds.
We found a great place at the palace fence where we believed we could see whatever was to happen. We were in place by 9:45 and the changing of the guard takes place at 11:15 each day. Within minutes after we arrived, we noticed that the crowd had thickened to three deep behind us. By 11:00 the crowd had filled the sidewalk and was a dozen deep on the sidewalk on the other side of the street. We were in a prime spot where we could see absolutely everything.
We enjoyed the spectacle of the red-coated guards with their tall shaggy beaver hats marching into the area in front of the palace and directly in front of us. The assembled guards went through a number of time honored moves and formations, one of which had the captain of the guard marching directly toward us with sword in hand. He stopped within five feet of us and our fence lined fellow gawkers, looked us in the eyes and marched back. I had to restrain Dottie who wanted to climb the fence and lay a hug on this beautiful person.
Twenty minutes after the first contingent of guards arrived, a second group of equal size marched in from the opposite direction accompanied by a similarly regaled brass band. After the change of guards, the band formed a semicircle directly in front of us to serenade us with something marchy and loud that sounded great. Three hours after our arrival, we left knowing we had seen it all…..from a ring side seat.
The off again on again sprinkles didn’t dampen our spirits but it did leave us with an appetite for lunch at a pub we had noted on our way to the Palace. Bill had his first “pint” of the trip as we both enjoyed sandwiches with multi-grain “bloomers” if you please. We decided that pub food is really our thing. After having “Bangers and Mash” a couple of nights ago we’ve decided that there’s a whole new world of culinary delights that we want to explore.
Life is getting better by the day,
With Love to all.
Gram and Grampa Bill, Mom and Dad, Dottie and Bill