Read Part 1 first.
Part 2--the second week in London
Thursday. Up early to get the train to Windsor. As it turned out, there were no more tickets for the Castle that day, so we didn’t need to go there. We changed our tickets, paid a little extra to go on to Paddington and cancelled our luggage storage. We had time for yogurt and strawberries at the station but got in 39 minutes late because of signal problems at Slough.
At Paddington we dropped our bags at our hotel and walked the two blocks back to the station where we got our travel passes on my two Oyster cards. That was very convenient—just tap the card on the circle on the machine and off you go. I had to rejigger our schedule since we weren’t going to Windsor on this day. So our first London stop was the National Portrait Gallery. I wanted to go here because I had read about the exhibit of early Beatles photographs (1963-65) taken by Paul McCartney who was a very good amateur photographer. There were lots of casual and backstage poses which I liked. And, of course, they looked so young.
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| Paul's photograph of John |
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| More formal portrait of the four Beatles |
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| The boys being goofy |
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| Paul's hand-written lyrics for "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" |
We went through the rest of the museum also. I like seeing the royal and other portraits, many of them the ones that you always see when a person is mentioned. There was only one of Charles and only one of William and Catherine which I didn’t especially like.
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| Buckingham Palace still with lots of flowers in the garden |
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| Victoria Monument in front of the Palace |
Veering to the right, we walked up Green Park which I have always liked as do the Brits who come out in droves in good weather to sit in the chairs and bask in the sun (which really isn’t out all that much, at least without clouds also). Interestingly, a few days after writing this I read an article in the New York Times that was about how the Londoners come out to the parks when the weather is good. I’d planned for us to walk up to Fortnum and Mason, but it started to spit so we just dipped into the Green Park tube. We never did get to F&M which I like very much and where I always like to see what royal-ish items they are carrying (foods primarily).
We went back to the hotel to get our room, stayed there a few hours and then went to a Paddington restaurant for ribs which were really quite good. It was an early dinner because we had tickets for Moulin Rouge. The sets and music were amazing, the music at times very loud, as my watch told me. The show was a bit like a Bollywood show with all the song and dance that was barely related to the story. The two leads were really good, especially Christian, the star. We both really loved it as did the always demonstrative London audience.
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| Marquee for Moulin Rouge |
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| Stage before it started. It was a spectacle. |
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| Paddington Bear in the lobby of our hotel |
Friday. This day was a pretty good one starting with breakfast at the hotel. We took the Circle line to Westminster to the Abbey for our 10:00 reservation. The audioguide there is really good with just enough information. As an aside, most tourist destinations have switched to audioguides rather than human guides. I actually think that is better; you can do the tour at your own pace even though you lose the ability to ask questions.
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| North side of Westminster Abbey |
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| Lots of arches and vaults |
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| Abbey nave |
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| Altar in the nave and screen behind |
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| Love the quires |
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| Ceiling of crossing, quire and apse |
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| Main altar beyond the quire |
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| Wonderfully decorated tomb |
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| Tomb of Elizabeth I (and Mary I)--they were buried together |
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| Banners in the the Henry VII Chapel |
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The Coronation Chair--minus the Stone of Scone
which is back in Scotland |
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| West Front of the Abbey |
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Tower of the Abbey and, on the right,
Victoria Tower of the Palace of Westminster |
There was very little new on this trip for me, but getting to see the newly-opened Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries in an open area way above the floor of the Abbey was something new--and wonderful. This area displays items belonging to the Abbey—lots of silver vessels, illuminated manuscripts, replicas of coronation objects and, most interesting to me, funeral effigies of monarchs and others. Some of these were just the wooden inner layer, but others were dressed and still had the wax where the exposed skin would have been. We weren’t supposed to take pictures, but I snuck a few.
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| Rafters and boss in ceiling of Abbey above quire |
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| Effigy of Charles II |
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| Looking down at the nave from the gallery |
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| Effigy of Admiral Nelson |
After a visit to the Abbey shop, which is a good one, we walked through Parliament Square and over Westminster Bridge to the London Eye.
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| Statue of Ghandi in Parliament Square |
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| Here I am with the Tower of Big Ben behind |
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| Another view of the Tower of Big Ben |
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| Churchill in Parliament Square |
We were early for our reservation, so we sat down for a few minutes for a drink and, in Rita’s case, an ice cream cone. The line was really long, but it went pretty quickly, only taking 30 minutes. The weather was good, and we had great views of London as the wheel went up and down.
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| Houses of Parliament and Big Ben from Westminster Bridge |
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| London Eye against the sky |
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Five of the capsules of the London Eye.
There are 32, one for each London borough |
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| Rita in our capsule |
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| Me in our capsule |
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The pretty Golden Jubilee Footbridge on either side of the
Hungerford Railroad Bridge from the air |
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| Close-up of a capsule and the infrastructure |
Probably better, as I think Rita felt, was the river cruise on the Thames which we did next. The guide (here it was a human) was really good, so we learned a lot from the things she pointed out. The route first turned back toward the Houses of Parliament (actually called the Palace of Westminster) going under Westminster Bridge and then turned around, cruising under the Hungerford Railroad Bridge/Golden Jubilee Footbridge (a modern look which I like), Waterloo Bridge, Blackfriars Bridge, the Millenium Footbridge, Southwark Bridge, London Bridge (an absolute big nothing since they moved the previous one to Arizona many years ago), and finally Tower Bridge (the most iconic of them all) where we turned around and came back.
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Londoners love to name their skyscrapers.
Our guide said that the name they seem to be settling
on for this new building is the Kim Kardashian!
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| Tower of London from the Thames |
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| Tower Bridge from the Thames |
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The Walkie Talkie Building on the left
which we visited later |
Back on land, we walked up toward the Golden Jubilee Footbridge whose two walkways flank the Hungerford Bridge. It brought back a bad memory when a long time ago Glenna and I took opposite walkways and then couldn’t find each other for a long time, one of us with a dead phone.
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| Crossing the Golden Jubilee Footbridge |
On the north side of the river again, we walked up toward Covent Garden. We stopped at St Paul’s Covent Garden which I hadn’t gone in before; we sat outside on a bench for awhile and then continued on to Covent Garden which I always find to be fun because of the street performers. We watched one I didn’t particularly like except that his final act was to go under a horizontal pole only 26 inches above the ground; that was amazing. The next performer was a Charlie Chaplin (not my favorite) imitator, so we went on.
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| Dinosaur in Covent Garden |
Back at Paddington we ate at San Marco, one of my favorites in the Paddington area. I have had many meals there.
Saturday. This was our day for Windsor. We had some time in the morning, so we explored more of the Paddington area to see what is now there and then took the train out to Windsor and Eton Central station. It was only a short walk to Windsor Castle, but we stopped along the way after seeing lots of tourists and lots of police. I couldn’t imagine what this would be for since the Royal Family were all in Scotland. It turned out to be just the changing of the guard, but it was fun to see anyway.
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| Fresh soldiers marching to duty |
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Getting closer to the Castle
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We visited a few shops and then had a mocha/hot chocolate at a shop along the way. There was a really long line for our 12:00 appointment time. We hadn’t downloaded our vouchers and so had to go out to a Starbucks to get wifi. But they let us back in without standing in the line again.
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| Rita at the coffee shop |
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| Photo of the royal couple on Windsor wall |
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| Round Tower in Windsor Castle |
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| Eton playing fields from Windsor Castle |
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| For the first Queen Elizabeth |
We trudged up the hill around the Round Tower to the entrance to Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House where we queued only for 15 minutes. I have seen this Dolls’ House many times, but I like it every time. It dates from 1921 and shows furniture and furnishings and cars of the time. It has real electricity and running water. The tiny books have writing in them. Everything is authentic. It’s not something that anyone would actually play with, but it is a spectacle.
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| View of the courtyard at Windsor Castle |
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| South side of St George's Chapel |
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| Nave of St George's Chapel |
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Quire of St George's Chapel (where all the
important things happen) |
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| Queen Elizabeth's memorial plaque (along with her family) |
We decided to have an early dinner in Windsor where I had fish and chips and crushed peas again. Back at our hotel we still had a couple of hours before we had to leave for our second musical Grease. It too was very good with lots of familiar tunes and good dancing though we didn’t like it quite as much as Moulin Rouge. It’s fun mostly because it was the era we lived through. At the interval there was a “disturbance” in the balcony which held up the show for 20 minutes. There were rumors running through the downstairs audience—a mouse, a fight. But it turned out to be a naked man. Why it took that long to restrain him, we didn’t know.
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| Marquee for Grease |
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The stage--as well as the audience
looking up at the balcony |
We came back to the hotel on the new Elizabeth line—only two stops to Paddington. It reminded me again that I need a new London map book. I’ve been using the same one since 2010.
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| Rita sitting on one of the pretty seats |
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The new line is enclosed with glass
as many airport trains are |
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| Purple for royalty |
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They dressed up the Paddington
Station area also |
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| Paddington Bear at Paddington Station |
Sunday. Another leisurely breakfast before we set off for St James Park tube, then making our way through St James Park to Buckingham Palace. We saw part of the changing of the guard ceremony, the part where they begin at their barracks before marching up to the Palace. In the Palace we once again got an audioguide which as usual was very good.
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| The pond in St James Park |
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| Buckingham Palace in the distance |
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The beginning of changing of the guard
at Buckingham Palace |
The palace was just radiant; Rita was impressed. The original Buckingham House which belonged to the later Hanoverians is the west wing. George IV added the north and south wings, and Victoria added the east wing which is what we see today from the Mall. So the Palace is a large square; on occasions such as weddings, you see the cars going through the gates in front and into the Palace and up to a door. They are then in the courtyard in the middle of the Palace. The tour is of the formal State Rooms on the back but none of the private or business areas which are in the other wings. Again no pictures, but I found a few online.
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Another nice picture of the royal couple even though
I was told I shouldn't have taken it |
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| Grand Staircase in Buckingham Palace |
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| Throne Room in Buckingham Palace |
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| The Green Drawing Room in Buckingham Palace |
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| The Picture Gallery in Buckingham Palace |
In the ballroom we saw a special exhibition of coronation items (no pictures, of course—very frustrating for me). First were some family photographs of Charles, Elizabeth and others in the hallway leading to the ballroom. In the ballroom were thrones that were used for Charles and Camilla for part of the day, the ingenious screen that surrounded Charles when he was being anointed with the holy oil from Jerusalem which was consecrated at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the very beautiful invitation, the gauntlet from 1937 (George VI coronation) which Charles wore on his right hand, the girdle from 1911 (George V coronation) which he wore around his waist and the stole (just created) that he wore around his neck. We also saw the clothes which Charles and Camilla wore, for Charles the tunic, pants and robe with an incredibly long train and for Camilla the beautiful coat and dress with all the embroidery and her very decorated train. It was great to see them so close up.
At the end of the tour, I had my picture taken with Charles and Camilla (just as I did with the whole royal family in 2019). I’m so glad that the family is loosening up and allowing fun things like that for the public. We visited the shop where I always find something to buy and then walked through the Palace gardens (flowers all gone) and out onto Grosvenor Place and up to Hyde Park Corner.
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| My fun picture with the King and Queen |
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| Buckingham Palace gardens |
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| Looking back at the rear of the Palace |
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| Wellington Arch at Hyde Park Corner |
We got a few sprinkles as we went into the tube station, but by the time we got to Liverpool Street station it had stopped. We meandered through the East London markets of Old Spitalfields where there has been a market for more than 350 years and Brick Lane, neither of which I had been to before. Tons and tons of clothes and jewelry; we didn't buy anything. My favorite part was the Sunday ethnic food vendors in Brick Lane. Everything looked wonderful, partly because I was hungry but also because they were making the food right there in big woks and it just looked so fresh and appealing.
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| Elephant sculptures at Spitalfields Market |
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| Scrumptious-looking food |
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| And more of it |
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| And more of it |
We decided to have a traditional Sunday roast since it was Sunday. Rita really enjoyed it—roast beef, roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, carrots, leeks and some greens which were very good, accompanied by a light gravy. We went back to the room for a couple of hours and then went out for dessert—sticky toffee pudding. So good.
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| Animals at dinner at Paddington Station |
Monday. Today we were off to Tower Hill--or so we thought. There was an “incident” on the tube, and several lines (including Circle and District which we needed) were shut down. We later learned that someone had somehow gotten onto the tracks and was hit by a train. We regrouped and went to St Paul’s Cathedral first (which we could get to on the Bakerloo and Central lines). Again there was an audioguide, this time with lots of sub-videos for further information, some of which I listened to. St Paul’s was built by Sir Christopher Wren after the previous one burned down in the Great Fire of London in 1666. The replacement is rococo which means a bit over the top, looking somewhat like St Peter’s in Rome. I hadn’t realized that it is the only church in London with a dome. We didn’t climb the 237 steps to the gallery for a look down to the floor. Rita probably could have made it just fine, but it would have been very hard for me. The commentary was pretty good, focusing on the architecture.
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| View of the dome of St Paul's |
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| South side of St Paul's |
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| West front of St Paul's Cathedral |
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| Wellington Monument in the nave |
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| World War I cross sculpture |
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| Looking up into the dome |
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| Ceiling of the Crossing |
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| St Paul's pulpit |
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| The quire stalls |
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| Baldochino over the altar as in St Peter's |
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| Modern sculpture of Mother and Child |
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| Memorial to Florence Nightingale |
We then wanted to get to the Tower of London. We found bus #15 which took us very close. After buying our tickets (it turned out to be unwittingly foresightful not to have bought tickets for these two places since we had to reverse the order), we waited 10 minutes to join a Beefeater-guided tour. After 30 minutes I suggested we ditch it; he was so focused on talking about himself rather than the fabulous place we were walking through that I was disgusted.
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| The Beefeater guide |
Instead we went through the Medieval Apartments (which I like—you see the original exposed walls), the prison chambers (with the graffiti from many centuries), the munitions museum and then the piece de resistance, the Crown Jewels, which was organized differently this time because of an exhibition related to the coronation. Interestingly we saw some crown frames with no gems or fabric. There was also video footage of past coronations projected onto the walls—great overhead shots which I love since you get better perspective. We also saw lots of gold-plated serving pieces (massive containers for wine) and the crowns and coronation regalia. I noted that small diamonds sparkle more than large ones.
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| Gate of the Tower of London |
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| Exterior wall of the Tower |
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| View of the medieval architecture |
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| Recreation of the furnishings of the Medieval Palace |
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| Tower Bridge from the Tower of London |
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| New cipher for Charles III Rex at Jewel House |
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| Two of the Royal Beasts |
Last on the list was the White Tower, actually the first part of the complex, built back in 1066 right on the Thames River by William the Conqueror who felt the need to demonstrate Norman control over the conquered Anglo Saxons. Strangely on this trip I saw only one raven.
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| The White Tower, now containing armaments |
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| Some of the medieval kings and their horses |
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| Beautiful armor |
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| An ancient garderobe (potty) |
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Chapel of St John in the White Tower.
I've always liked all the round arches and pillars. |
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One of the ravens. The legend is that if they
fly away, the Tower of London will fall. So they
aren't allowed to fly away! |
After a brief rest along the Thames, we walked up to the Walkie Talkie Building where we had a reservation for the Sky Garden, the area on top of the building that is open to the heavens. We sat there over hot chocolate/mocha (or coffee?) and a brownie for quite awhile, just enjoying the day. We eventually walked around and up to the very top for views around London.
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| The Walkie Talkie Building in the Financial District |
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The new financial area of London--Canary Wharf--
from the Sky Garden |
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| Tower of London and Tower Bridge from the Sky Garden |
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| St Paul's Cathedral from the Sky Garden |
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The Cheesegrater (second from left)
and the Gherkin (next to it) |
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| Rita on the top level of the Sky Garden |
We were tired at that point and so came back to the room for a few hours. Since Rita had liked her Ethiopian food, I asked her if she was willing to try Indian food. She agreed. We had chicken tikka masala, pretty ordinary as Indian food goes, but I don’t think it was her favorite food on the trip. I love Indian food. It is so flavorful. If you don’t eat meat, as most Hindus don’t, you have to use spices to add zip to the vegetables. Eating chicken, of course, is a Western addition. Maybe a vegetable dish would have been more representative and more satisfying.
Tuesday. Today was our day for Kensington and Chelsea, the posher part of London. First we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Rita had said she didn’t want to visit art museums (or antique markets), so the V&A is a good compromise. It has art hanging on walls, but it has loads of furniture and furnishings. In fact, it is the world’s leading place for art and design—or so I read. It is popularly called England’s Attic.
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The Victoria and Albert Museum
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Raphael's cartoon (a preparatory drawing for another
artwork) for the Miraculous Draft of Fishes |
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| The tapestry result (reversed) |
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| Yves St Laurent evening gown from 1960 |
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| The Badminton Bed from 1754 |
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| Virginal (early piano) from 1570 |
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| The Hereford Screen (from the cathedral) from 1862 |
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| Balcony railing from 2018--I quite liked this one |
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| Columns in the Egyptian room |
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| Silver swan from 1985 |
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| A Google StreetView camera--cute |
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A Kehinde Wiley painting (so recognizable--
remember the one he did of Barack Obama?) |
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| Rita in the museum lobby |
I have a huge collection (well over 1300 pieces) of English royal memorabilia. A year ago I wrote a couple of letters to see if there was any interest in having the collection (I swing back and forth between wanting to keep it and knowing that isn’t practical forever). I got two replies, one from someone at the V&A. She said she couldn’t help me but suggested that I write to the various departments—china, glass, etc. I never did do that. Strangely when we were right there, I didn’t even think about trying to see someone. I may have missed my opportunity with the Jubilee, death and coronation having gone by.
After leaving the museum, we walked up to Harrods, looking in store windows along the way and popping into one home goods kind of shop.
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Brompton Oratory, one of the
Catholic churches in London |
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| Mouth-watering window of My&Sanne confectionary |
Exiting Harrods, we walked up to Hyde Park and turned west eventually getting to Kensington Gardens. Along the way we stopped at the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain, a lovely spot where children can play in the water wearing not much. At the end is Kensington Palace where Victoria grew up and where several royals have apartments today.
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| I thought this was an interesting tree |
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| Child playing in the Diana fountain |
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| Birds in the Kensington Gardens pond |
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| Kensington Palace and Victoria |
At Kensington Palace we visited the Sunken Garden which was a favorite spot for Diana. This is where the sculpture of her with three children is, the one commissioned by William and Harry and unveiled on what would have been her 60th birthday, July 1, 2021. I rather reserved judgment on it the first time I saw it; this time I just plain admitted that I don’t like it. It’s fine from a distance, but when you look at it close up it just isn’t pleasing. The artist put her in an outfit that she actually wore, but in bronze it just doesn’t look flattering on the very feminine Diana. Nor does the hairstyle flatter her though she sometimes wore it rather plastered to her head. I don’t know why the boys didn’t object to it long before it was done, presuming that they saw it while it was being created. The setting is lovely though.
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| Rear view of the Diana bronze in the Sunken Garden |
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| Flowers in the Sunken Garden |
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| The sculpture reflected in the pool |
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Big so you can see Diana better from the front. I just don't
think it flatters that beautiful woman at all. |
We walked up the Broad Walk and on to the Bayswater tube station to go back to Paddington, our last ride, so I just had to take a picture of Rita using her Oyster card for the last time.
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Rita going through the turnstyle
for the last time |
We relaxed for a few hours and then went out for our last dinner—a pub meal, creamy mac and cheese (which the Brits adopted from us and do really well), salad and a malbec for me. Then it was back to the room to pack which always takes me longer than I think it will. But I did have to fit in the various items I had bought.
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| My (almost all royal) purchases |
Wednesday. We didn’t have time for a last breakfast at the hotel. We were up at 5:30 to get the 6:40 Heathrow Express to the airport. We didn’t have any trouble checking our bags or getting through security. After duty free we had to wait awhile for our gate to be named. When we got to our gate (distances in Heathrow are long), they were already boarding. In contrast to the flight over, this one was not full. We shared a middle row of four and thus didn’t have to have stuff under our feet. I watched two movies, Love Again with Sam Heughan (the dream from Outlander) and Priyanka Chopra Jonas and, after sleeping a bit, Are You There God, It’s Margaret, a coming of age tale. I enjoyed both of them. I also read some of The Last Castle, the story of Biltmore House and the part of the Vanderbilt family associated with it, the first time I had had a chance on the whole trip to read a book. Otherwise I was keeping up with the news. Rita watched some TV several nights.
We had applied for Global Entry but had been unable to schedule an interview. But if you return to the US through certain airports you can have the interview when you go through customs. In Charlotte we had to wait awhile even though we were in a special line, and the “interview” turned out to be getting our fingerprints and picture (which is so light on the card they sent that it is doubtful that anyone would be able to recognize me). By that time we had to run to the gate. I can’t run, so I told Rita to go on ahead. I was the last one on the plane, but we made it. We were soon in Greenville, and Martha was there to pick us up. I stayed up that night until 11:30 (which was 4:30 am London time) and then got up at 5:00. I had so much to do that I guess my mind wouldn’t let me sleep any longer.
Last year Rita and I went to Hilton Head for a few days after a trip to the beach with two others had fallen through. It was a good time to see if we were compatible travel companions. We decided that we were and thus planned first a Road Scholar trip to Botswana in November and then this trip to London in August. We had a great time together, never once having cross words. Now that is a rarity! I hope she felt that her tour guide was up to snuff. I know I enjoyed being that for her.
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| Lots of Ritas and Bettys |
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