long long london log

Something about uploading a load of photos has not been on my Top Exciting Things To Do lately, but I finally have some. The trouble with London is that most of the photos I can post are so familiar, almost iconic, even if you haven't been there. Nonetheless, here are the first few out of several hundred I have chosen.

Mr. Button and I flew out of Athens. Doing so seemed to be a excellent idea at the time: faster (35 minutes or so vs. two plus hours); close to home (10 minutes max); no Atlanta ground traffic; super-cheap ($39 one way); no hassles with parking at the airport. More about the drawbacks in a later post. Here's the little plane--is this cute or what? I love little planes!





So after an hour layover in Detroit, we crossed over the Atlantic Ocean in a much larger lozenge of metal during the course of the night (though a very short night, as we were winging into the sunrise). I love to look out the window of the plane, and I'm beside myself with disappointment if I don't get a window seat. Trans-oceanic and night flights, though, offer little in the way of entertainment. I'm always puzzled at my fellow passengers, though. No one seems to care about the incredible view of tiny toy houses and roads and all the tiny little people with their suddenly tiny little problems so far far below. I'll never tire of the perspective. Another thing on planes: no one ever listens to the speech about What To Do in Case of a Crash. Almost as if they're all too cool and too jaded to die. Who knows? It might be important that your seat can act as a flotation device! And are we clear that we're supposed to put our own oxygen masks in place before helping others position theirs? I doubt it.



[Aside: I wonder what it feels like to crash and survive. Can you imagine the jolt (too weak of a word, really)? How does anyone ever live through such a thing??]

Tried to sleep on the plane, but doing so was like trying to sleep in......well, a small cramped seat on a plane. No go.



WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24: We land in London at 7:40 am (exhausted!) and arrive at the hotel long before check in. We were at the Wyndham Chelsea Harbour for four nights. I ended up being frustrated with my search, and I'd waited so long to decide that, by the time I checked out (photos, prices, location) of available hotels, the rooms were gone when I tried to reserve. So I resorted to hotwire, where I've had really very good luck in the past. I got a good deal on this room as well. It was a suite, actually. Even had two bathrooms. The reservation confirmation said a queen bed, but at the desk the clerk said we had twin beds, directing this comment to me: "Sometimes you can use a break, huh?" Apparently she zeroed in on Mr. Button as the sex machine he is. I started to tell her it was our honeymoon, but didn't want to wait even LONGER, as they were expediting our room-readiness.

Here's the living room, huge by London hotel standards.








Here are the twin beds....















We took about a three hour nap and headed out. We liked taking the buses the first few days because they afforded so much better views of the route along the way to anywhere. Slower, yes, but what's the hurry. Our first stop was Piccadilly Circus. I wonder if that place is EVER deserted! It's like Times Square/London.


We walked down to Palace Road from there and then around to Trafalgar Square. In fact, almost anywhere we went in London, we'd eventually seem to find our way back to Trafalgar Square. I love it though. Here's the fountain and Victoria and Albert Museum.

Another angle, St. Paul's in the distance.

We ate at Angus Steak House that evening, because it was in our line of vision when hunger set in. There's one on about every corner, that and Pret a Manger.

Here's a typical street scene from the bus.

THURSDAY, JUNE 25: A typical day of touristy sight-seeing ahead. We covered some serious London pavement, distance-wise, which by Friday took its cruel toll on my walking ability in the form of two blisters on the balls of my feet. Plus I'd gone to the doctor the day before we left because somehow I'd hurt my knee, twisted while gardening, I think, so it was a big bother.

We walked through Green Park to the Buckingham Palace gates.

We'd just missed the changing of the guards. Thank god for these guys, though, huh, in case some crazed fool were to decide to scale the palace and set fire to the queen's bedchambers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2022274.stm

(from the link: notice the "DISused toilet"! Not UNused, meaning not, but DIS, meaning badly. Her majesty's lunch must have disagreed.)

A view of the gardens of St. James Park across from the palace:

We continued our walk through the altogether lovely St. James Park, happening upon this strange fellow. Clearly a familiar figure to the pigeons therein, they FLOCKED to him as soon as he walked up. At one point he had birds sitting along both outstretched arms and one on his head.

We lunched at the highly recommended by Frommer's Inn the Park. Should you find yourself there, be sure to order from the menu and not from the cafeteria line. It didn't look nearly as good.

http://www.innthepark.com/index.asp

One of the royal pigeons:

A fairy-tale view from a bridge over St. James lake:

We continued walking toward the Thames and Westminster Abbey.

A crowd was gathered at No. 10 Downing Street. Why? I passed by a couple more times on the trip; always a crowd. To catch a glimpse of the PM?

Here's an undereave of a government building. Thought it might be a shot not many people have seen:

Next we went to the beautiful Westminster Abbey. No photos allowed inside, though I probably could have managed without a flash. Sometimes, though rarely, I enjoy following the rules, and this was such a time. This window was semi-outdoors, though, on the covered portico:

This small room was off the portico is called the Pyx Chamber, built in 1070. A pyx is a wooden box in which coins were kept---the examples of true currencies. If any coin was in question as counterfeit, it could be checked against the pyx coins. Pretty inconvenient if you're in the checkout for groceries, wanting to get home and start dinner, and the check-out wench doubts your coin, I suspect.

The less-famous North Entrance:

Here's an old fave, Big Ben:

And a couple of views of the Houses of Parliament:

The London Eye, which I regretfully never rode!! The line was super-long that afternoon, and we were hungry again. The line was even longer on Saturday when I was there again alone. Though we kept meaning to come back, come back we did not :(

We ate a SUPERB dinner that evening at a Greek restaurant behind the Aquarium next to the Eye. Very memorable meal. Afterwards, we had Turkish coffee with our baklava. I hope this photo shows it looking stout because it was! And delicious!

FRIDAY, JUNE 26: We got a slightly later start today as we were still catching up on some sleep. We walked along Chelsea Harbour for quite a way, exploring the hotel's environs along the Thames. (more interactivity: http://www.wyndhamgrandlondon.co.uk/). Each morning for breakfast I'd go down to a small grocery to get yummy pastries for a pound. The hotel was in a "design center" amidst a sort of mall housing stores selling fabrics, lighting, wallpaper, etc. Anything you might need for the hoity-toity home. If you're into that sort of game, here's the web site. The video offers lots of chances to poke fun at hoity-toity snooty-tooty. If you're into that sort of game, haha. www.designcentrechelseaharbour.co.uk/

We spent the afternoon at the British Museum, which was wonderful but so awfully crowded (it's free) that it was actually rather difficult to view the exhibits.

Oh, and did I mention the HEAT?? We were soooo looking forward to getting out of the Georgia parched near-100 degree madness. What kind of luck plucked us straight down into one of the worst heat waves of England in many years? It was low 90's, but very few places were air-conditioned, so there was really not much respite. And the heat, until MJ died, was the topic of convo everywhere. In the U.S., one can avoid the elements with ac. At least our hotel room (the first, anyway) was a welcome relief.

So, yeah, the British Museum was pretty sweltering. I did have to see the Elgin Marbles (that Britain stole outright, it seems, from Greece about 18o1), the subject of my favorite Keats poem. Here's my view of one of the friezes.......

.....and, above, Wikipedia's better view of the room.

I liked this shot below for the incongruity of the modern crowds milling around these ancient objects.

I was actually a little stunned at the low level of security at the museum. Very few docents around, and flash photography allowed anywhere. I didn't get the impression that I could have grabbed a carving from 10,000 BC and stuffed it in my purse or anything, but it was definitely a "people's" museum.

We had lunch at a Thai restaurant in Bloomsbury, then walked around a bit. This was my first visit to this section, and I really loved it. If I go back, that's where I'll want to stay.

I'd bought tickets online for a concert at St. Martin in the Fields (back to Trafalgar Square) that night: Vivaldi by candlelight, played by the London Soloists Orchestra. I'd attended another classical concert (all Mozart) there ten years before and knew the acoustics were incredible. The music did not disappoint. In fact, it was transportative. Beautiful, beautiful performance. Plus, we had second row seats. The soloist, Mia Cooper, was wonderful. They played Bach Violin Concerto in EM, a personal favorite of mine, followed by a great! performance of Spring and Summer in Buenos Aires by Piazzola, Bach's Air on the G String, and a Handel air. During intermission, chatting with the people next to us, it was discovered that they lived in Georgia about an hour and a half from us. Itsy bitsy planet. Then the orchestra finished with Vivaldi's Four Seasons. The whole sequence has become so familiar to me that I never listen to it any more after all these years; I don't feel that I really hear it. So I felt that I was hearing it new that night. Fabulous performance from beginning to end. Before the concert:

Ceiling of the outside entrace to the church:

During performance (no, I did NOT use a flash!):

Afterwards, Trafalgar Square was WILD. Big groups had formed and people were screaming and clapping at whatever was going on in the middle of them. I could never see. But later we read that dancers were getting down to Michael Jackson tunes.

Fountain at Trafalgar:

Famous Trafalgar lion:



SATURDAY, JUNE 27: Mr. Button was waxing tired today. He wanted to stay in longer. I wanted to go out earlier. So we compromised: he stayed in longer, I went out earlier. I took the tube to Covent Garden and walked around (er wedged myself between people). Lots of performers, very festive. I took a photo of a fortune teller reading the palm of an obese lady with a bad dye-job. Hopefully her fortune involved improvements in both areas. But you can see that the teller has her palm toward me with a stricken look on her face. She is saying "NO PHOTO!!! NO PHOTO!!!!" I look like I'm pretty close to her, but I'm actually across the street with the camera on zoom. I can't imagine that she was paying two pound fifty worth of attention to her customer's palm if she was scoping ME out so quickly. She called me over to tell me "Delete photo! Delete now!!"

"Okay," I said.

Bottom line: It's my camera and I'll delete and keep what I want, and then blog about it, I didn't say.

I ended up walking around quite a bit that afternoon, but needed to be back at the hotel by 4 to ready for a concert we had tickets for up in Hampstead Heath that evening

Here's a photo of Westminster Cathedral from the bus trip back: