Blogging the London trip- Day 5 (part 1)

Okay, I'm finally back to blogging about our trip to London. Geez, was it really a month ago we were in the UK? Sure enough...



This post promises to be an extremely long one, as we had an action-packed day. So I'm breaking it up into smaller chunks.



Our second field trip day was to be spent in Oxford, the Cotswolds, and Stratford-upon-Avon. (The last should be familiar to English students everywhere as the birthplace of William Shakespeare.)



We got up early and headed to breakfast, then to the bus. This might have been the morning that the breakfast area was overloaded, so we were redirected to the upstairs restaurant (which, I guess, handles overflow). We managed to grab a quick bite then head out. Once we were properly sorted out at Victoria Station (which is where Evan Evans bus tours departed), our bus headed out... and we were bombarded with the shrieks of one very unhappy baby. Our tour guide acted with astounding speed and courtesy, asking if the couple might prefer to sit out this trip (and get a full refund), given that they would be on the bus for several hours and the baby seemed extremely unhappy. They assented, perhaps sensing that the rest of us were NOT in love with their infant (or at least its antisocial behavior), and hopped off before we got out of London.



The trip to Oxford was about an hour in duration, affording us another view of the countryside. Oxford itself is a fair-sized city that contains 38 different colleges under the very loosest of administrative umbrellas. Applicants apply to the individual colleges, not to the university as a whole, and while the costs are (currently) rather low, prices have been rising sharply in the past few years.



We toured Christ Church, founded in 1546 by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (advisor to King Henry VII and King Henry VIII). There are about 600 students in total in this college, which is the oldest and perhaps most prestigious of Oxford's colleges.



We visited the dining hall, where there is a stained glass window celebrating Alice Liddell (aka Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), because Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) was a mathematics professor there before he became a storyteller to the children of other faculty members and then a novelist. The dining hall was rumored to be the basis for the dining hall of J.K. Rowling's Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (of Harry Potter fame), but our guide debunked the rumor by saying that there are easily a dozen locations that could make an identical claim. However, part of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" was shot at the entry to the dining hall in Christ Church, so there.



Our tour continued with a walk through the church that is the heart of Christ Church. It is truly a beautiful building, impressive in every way, with exceptionally friendly reverends on hand to welcome visitors.



We walked through Oxford, taking in other colleges (some of them truly tiny) and enjoying the hustle and bustle of a college town in late spring. Our destination was the Martyr's Memorial, where three men were executed for heresy in 1555. (Supposedly this execution was the basis for the childhood rhyme "Three Blind Mice.") Kat grabbed a sandwich while I snapped pictures.



I was mostly interested in the pub where J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis met with their fellow Inklings. Turns out we were to pass it shortly afterward-- it's The Eagle and Child (at least, that was their hangout from '39 to '62). We would have enjoyed going in, but it was well off our touring area. Ah well, maybe next time.



Our trip was then into the Cotswolds, which are truly "countryside" in England. The landscape is rolling and absolutely gorgeous, featuring scattered flocks of sheep and cattle, along with the now-ubiquitous fields of rapeseed plants. Many of the cottages are positively ancient and sport thatched roofs (we heard that the thatch need only be replaced every 10-15 years if done right, but it is costly--probably only slightly less than having a new roof put on a conventional ranch home).

If you're in the UK and minded to get out of London, you should make a point of seeing the Cotswolds.

Tomorrow I'll resume the narrative with our arrival in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Blogging the London trip- Day 4

Two days of our trip (Wednesday and Thursday) were set aside primarily for out-of-London field trips. The first of these was to Bath, then Stonehenge, and finally Winchester Cathedral. It would mean a long day on the bus, since Bath is about two hours from London, situated right about on the western edge of the island. It doesn't overlook the various bodies of water that surround England but it is darned close.

On the ride out, our guide described the agriculture of the British countryside, especially the vast fields of bright yellow plants that are called rapeseed or canola. They are grown for export to make biofuels (canola oil) and currently comprise about 11% of the total acreage under cultivation, if I remember correctly.

The British countryside is absolutely beautiful. Seeing the tiny farms, diverse herds of sheep and cattle, hedge rows and expansive farmlands, it made me think of Tolkien's Shire. It didn't hurt that the weather was incredible, with clear blue skies and cool temperatures; there probably isn't any better way to see the land, unless it's flying over it in a small plane (one of my favorite ways to see landscapes).

If the country is beautiful, Bath is ten times more so. The town lies atop a natural hot mineral water spring; per our guide, the water down in the depths has been there for about 80,000 years and is making its way up through some very hot subterranean spaces. We hopped off the bus and had about two hours to view the ruined Roman resort and wander the town before embarking for our next destination.

Bath was built by Roman occupiers who found the hot springs and decided to make a spa. The construction was elaborate, making great use of the Romans' legendary skill as engineers, and enjoyed considerable popularity until the Romans retreated from England. Once that happened, the natives lacked the skills necessary to maintain the buildings, and they slowly fell into ruin and collapsed atop the springs.

Hundreds of years later (12th century, I believe?), a bishop rediscovered the springs and created a resort for himself. It became popular quite awhile later, when Queen Anne was recommended to the hot springs to ease a chronic discomfort. That assured its rise as a place to be, such that the nobles built elaborate houses for themselves and the townfolk prospered.

Bath fell into decline with the ebb of its popularity, but enjoyed a third rebirth when the Roman ruins were found and excavated in the 19th century. Nowadays, the town enjoys a thriving tourist business, trading on its great natural beauty and history. Tours of the Roman baths are fascinating, and though they tell you not to touch the water fresh from the springs, you do anyway. (It's hot--not scalding but warmer than you'd think.) In the Pump Room, you can actually drink the water... which tastes like hot mineral water. No surprise, hm?

We wandered the streets for awhile. The Starbucks in town made one of the best peppermint mochas I'd ever had, and Kat loved shopping in the maze of streets, side streets and alleyways that comprise downtown Bath. We thought about going to Jane Austen's home but that would have been a trip beyond our temporal means-- we would have had maybe five minutes in the building before having to run back to the bus, which is not enough. We settled for buying postcards.

Once back on the bus, we headed for Stonehenge. Our guide gave us the story of the structure, which is the third and last of three great cycles of construction. The most ambitious, apparently, was the second one, wherein the handful of locals carted stone from Wales (about 300-350 miles away) without the use of wheels. Think about that, hauling multi-ton stones that distance. Let's say this: they were motivated.

Stonehenge may not be vast in size but, considering it was built using Bronze Age (or maybe Iron Age) technology, was torn up to scavenge stone by latter-day locals, and yet has lasted about 2500 years, that isn't bad at all. Kat and I, needless to say, were greatly impressed.

Not so much with Winchester Cathedral, our final stop of the day. We didn't pay to go inside, but instead glanced in the vestibule and then walked around the town for a bit. Kat did a little clothes shopping, then we were on the road back to London. We got off at Knightsbridge and busied ourselves with finding a place to eat (which proved to be a challenge). Ultimately we found a tapas place, then bought souvenirs and headed home by way of Pall Mall (taking a peek at 10 Downing Street), the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Bridge and then along the Embankment.

We were ready to crash by 11pm that night, having had an exceptionally busy day.

Blogging the London Trip- Day 3

If memory serves, Tuesday was the day we walked our feet off.

We stayed in London, having no official tour activities but a day of leisure instead. So we made our way around London and saw... pretty much everything.


Our first foray out was a walk to Westminster Abbey. It's about a fifteen minute walk from our hotel. We headed out and paid the ten pounds price of admission (the museums are mostly free but the cathedrals charge admittance during non-worship hours to cover their expenses). The place is staggering in size and roomy, despite being the final resting place of a colossal number of people. I think you could fill a small stadium, honestly. The Abbey also boasts enormous cenotaphs and memoria to great individuals of British history-- Charles Dickens, Winston Churchill and many more have large plaques celebrating their lives and contributions.


Our next stop was the British Museum. A selection of major "ooh" moments:

• a crystal skull (referenced in INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL, no less);
• an amazing Egyptian exhibit;
• the Elgin Marbles (a collection of Greek marble statuary, most of it in fragments, retrieved from the Parthenon and various sites);
• a collection of books and curiosities compiled by the museum's chief patron, Edward III (IIRC); and
• some remarkable items from around the globe including a massive totem pole and Assyrian sphinxes.

We had a late lunch at the museum, then pushed on to the British Library (which is a moderate walk distant). This was a treasure trove, really. The new complex is only about ten years old or so, completely modern, and packed with stuff to see. Our chief goal was the Treasures of the British Museum room (aka the Sir Ritblat Collection), which includes:

• one of four surviving copies of the Magna Carta (and the only one with a vestige of the royal seal), including a copy of the baronial grievances letter that led to Magna Carta;
• one of two surviving copies of the first time Beowulf was written down;
• pages from Leonardo daVinci's notebook;
• a letter from Lewis Carroll discussing his literary Alice;
• the journal of Captain Cook;
• letters from Charles Darwin on his theory of evolution;
• a display of Beatles memorabilia, including handwritten lyrics to "Help!," "Hey Jude" and more;
• and LOTS of other stuff.

If you go to London (or already live in/near there), you absolutely must see this display. You owe it to yourself to see these foundations of our (Anglo-American) civilization.

We then went to Kings Cross/St Pancras Station. Since it was late afternoon by this point, we figured we'd grab an early dinner. We thought we were in the place where they'd filmed part of Harry Potter (the train scenes), but that was obviously the other station. Ah well. Maybe next time.

Next was a walking tour (courtesy of London Walks) of pubs in central London. Being cash-poor by then, we tried to find a Barclays ATM but there were none around (which was aggravating); we hiked along with our tour group and our grim spirits soon lifted as we drank as much as we could afford. We hit a series of pubs, including the Old Bank of England (which was converted from a bank to a pub after WWII-- the Crown Jewels were kept in that building during the War). We saw a bit of the City of London, via Fleet Street, and heard many stories about the legendary journalism wars that are now history. Our tour ended near the home of Dr. Samuel Johnson and one of the pubs he was said to have visited.

After that, it was about 10pm and time to head home. We had to hurry, since the Victoria (Tube) Line was scheduled to close at 10pm for ongoing maintenance... and that was the only Tube near our hotel. Took some jogging and some prayer, but we made it onto the last train, got to Vauxhall Station, and headed home, footsore but exhilarated from a wealth of new experiences and sights.

Blogging the London Trip- photos!

Kat added our photos to her Facebook page, so let me share some links.
There are seven sets of photos:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Take a look, enjoy and comment away! (BTW, a couple of them are misidentified; see if you can find them before I fix the mistakes! It's a game the whole world can play!)

Blogging the London Trip- Day 2

A quick count reveals that Kat and I took about 900 pictures while in London. Clearly, this blog is NOT the place to view all of them. I will try to add in pictures this weekend (sorry, got home way too late last night to do much blog-enhancing), so apologies if you're keen to see what we saw.

Anyway, day 2...

We got up early (being still on East Coast time) and got downstairs for the continental breakfast. Didn't take us long to tear through cereal, fruit and cold cuts, believe me. The coffee was singularly bad.

Our tour activity of the day was a half-day trip through Westminster. This is what most folks think of when the words "West End" are thrown around, but it was originally a separate city from London and the home of the royal family. Greater London (as the sprawling metropolis is called, if you want to be technically accurate) swallowed up Westminster and various tributary villages and towns a long time ago. Nowadays Westminster is where you'll find:

• Buckingham Palace
• The Houses of Parliament
• Westminster Abbey (name sort of says it all, doesn't it?)
• Big Ben
• 10 Downing Street
• Hyde Park
• and lots and lots more

The great benefit of taking tours is learning a bit of a place's history. Our guide for the day, Rosemary, offered something on nearly every street corner we passed. Kat kept busy snapping pictures and noting key locations (among them, Barclays, which charged us no ATM fees).

We saw part of the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, rode past the cavalry barracks and stables (which have their own changing ceremony), got out at the Abbey and wandered a little, then rode back through Knightsbridge and got off near Harrods. We had a disagreement over what to do with the afternoon-- our choice consisted mostly of going on the afternoon tour of the City of London (which includes the Tower of London) or going our own way. Kat didn't care about seeing the Tower, so we ended up wandering in the West End.

We grabbed lunch at Sainsbury's, a local grocery chain, buying sandwiches and chocolate "pastilles" (buttons) and eating at Harrods. After that, we wandered through Harrods for awhile and Kat got to see where I bought her the first present I gave her (a black scarf).

We then headed for Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. Kat figured we might be able to have tea in the Orangery of Kensington Palace. Walking through Hyde Park, we had some of our sandwiches left over, so we thought we would toss crumbs to the pigeons, ducks and geese nearby.

Foolish mistake.

Once they knew food was being distributed freely, the geese came up... closer and closer... until we were virtually mugged. Kat and I discarded what we had left and made--not quite a run for it but a brisk walk, leaving the geese honking and waddling along behind us.

We joked that we could have been the first American tourists murdered by geese in "yet another tragic bird-feeding related incident." The BBC headline really writes itself.

Moving along, we crossed into Kensington Gardens, the vast lawns encircling the palace where Princess Diana made her home. It was a royal dwelling until Buckingham Palace was complete (and Queen Victoria became the first monarch to live there); since then, it's housed members of the royal family and currently features an exhibit of Diana's signature fashions, as well as a circular fountain-and-watercourse dedicated to "the people's princess" and a commemorative walking path.

Our goal was the Peter Pan statue that I didn't find back in 2001. Sure enough, we found it on the easternmost edge of the gardens, overlooking the Serpentine (a twisting lake that forms the border between Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens). It's quite impressive. We watched visitors feed the squirrels (who were uncommonly bold, even for us who are used to Washington squirrels); a fellow there fed birds and squirrels from his hand.

I'll have to ask Kat where we had dinner that night. Still, Monday was quite a busy day for our visit to London. Expect this post to be revised (significantly) once I lock down or remember some key details...

Blogging the London Trip- Day 1

It's really nice having an entire day to get ready for a trip before you leave. Our flight out of Dulles was at 10:20pm Saturday, which meant we would get a ride from Super Shuttle at about 6pm. Kat thought that was crazy-early but I said that between security and everything else, it might not mean hours of waiting.

It did, but that's beside the point.

Anyway, we got on the plane before 10pm, a British Airways flight, to find that the air conditioning was out of commission. The temp inside was climbing steadily as more passengers embarked, which meant the Cadbury chocolate bar I bought got melty real fast. Kat and I did our best to ignore the heat but... you can only ignore so much.

We got airborne by 11pm and the air conditioning kicked in once the big engines were going. That was a relief. We found, however, that our overhead lights weren't working at all; this meant the pilot had to reboot the entire system, which meant the TVs were down for awhile. Argh.

Landing in Heathrow, we got through the gate, cashed some US money for UK currency, and then waited for our tour group's bus to show up. Turns out we missed one (must not have heard them calling our names) and caught the next one, putting us into London around 1pm Sunday. We saw a huge mob of soccer fans in the street at one point, shouting in support of Manchester United (who beat Chelsea in a very close match in Moscow last week). We were a bit taken aback by the intensity of their demonstration.

Arriving at our hotel--the Riverbank Park Plaza--we settled into our room, then changed rooms (we were close to the train track behind the hotel). Our hotel was right on the Embankment, with a terrific view of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, with reasonably convenient access to the Vauxhall Tube station. (I'll add pictures and links to this post tonight, so you can see what I mean.)

Our only schedule item that evening was seeing our friend Mike Carey at a pub near Tottenham Court Road. We headed out a bit late (after 5pm for a 6pm meet), found that Vauxhall Station was closed for maintenance, scrambled to figure out how to get to Tottenham Court Road, got there about 6:10, and then asked nearly every third person on the street how to find a pub named The Angel.

Nobody knew. Go figure.

Eventually we found a police officer and he produced a pocket map, which showed us we were about four blocks from our target. Kat insisted we buy that very map immediately, then we made it to The Angel... at 6:45. Mike was getting ready to go (or so it seemed to me), but we settled back in, got a round of pints (half-pint for Kat), and talked.

Don't know about you, but I like talking and it seems Mike does too. We covered X-Men (especially Charles Xavier [currently the feature character in Mike's X-Men: Legacy series]and Scott Summers), Felix Castor, writing in other media, travel plans, restaurants and sights of interest, and a dozen other topics--including a very cool writing project Mike is on right now. I won't say more about it because it's his news to reveal, when the time is right, but Kat and I wish him the very best. He's a great guy, a good friend, and we hope to see him again soon.

Mike had to get home, so Kat and I wandered to Rules, a restaurant Mike had recommended. (It happens to be the oldest restaurant in London; it definitely has that feel of genteel antiquity and the service was matchless.) We had a fantastic meal-- Kat said it was the single best meal she had in London-- and made our way home around 11 or so. It had been an exhausting day but well worth every minute.

And on Monday... our first tour. Stay tuned!

And We're Back!

Kat and I got home from London around 1:45am Sunday morning, exhausted but very happy to see our kittens (who seemed disoriented at being woken up so early in the morning). They've hardly left us alone since then.

In brief: London was incredible. I'll be posting a day-by-day of our trip, now that Kat is working on uploading the many, many pictures we took, so stay tuned for that. However, in the meantime, here's a short run down of the coolest things we did or saw while there:

1) Stratford-upon-Avon. My #1, definitely, was seeing Shakespeare's birthplace. It has a kind of mythic resonance to it and was a must-see for Kat even more than me... but it was my favorite stop on the trip. (BTW, "avon" means river so "upon Avon" translates as "upon the river"... which happens to be named Avon.)
2) British Library. Their "treasures" room is absolutely not to be missed, for its manuscripts and its music. A Gutenberg Bible, one of two first-ever print copies of Beowulf, pages from Leonardo daVinci's notebooks, hand-written lyrics to classic Beatles tunes by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and--oh yeah--one of four surviving copies of the Magna Carta. Mindblowing.
3) Hanging out with Mike Carey. One of the nicest guys we know, Mike was exceptionally gracious about our 45-minute lateness and made our first day in London unforgettable, just by sitting to chat in a favorite pub.
4) Notting Hill and Portobello Market. We did a walking tour on our last day (Saturday) and absolutely loved it. We saw a bunch of sights featured in "the movie" (as our guide Richard called it), including the travel book shop owned by Hugh Grant's character. We also learned where a lot of the scenes were shot, most of which were not in Notting Hill at all. And you really can find just about anything in Portobello Road...

More later, plus pictures!

Offline this week

Hey folks,
Just to let you know, Kat and I leave for London tonight. It'll be our long-delayed honeymoon (we'll spend our third anniversary in Bath/Stonehenge), so that's very exciting.
Take care and we'll be back a week from tomorrow!
Drew

Off to London in May

Kat and I are heading to London from May 17-24. We cannot wait.
This is our much-delayed honeymoon-- and to say HOW delayed, we'll be celebrating our third anniversary there.
Kat is researching things to do and see, and friends have already given us recommendations, so it is shaping up to be a very busy trip. The tour includes a visit to Bath, Stonehenge, and Stratford-on-Avon (Kat's especially excited about seeing Shakespeare's home), plus plenty of free time.
We're getting a couple spare chips for the digital camera-- I know Kat will be a shutterbug the whole time-- and are thinking what else we'll need to take.
Can't say how thrilled we are at making this trip.
More soon!