Backstory

(Where the author waxes nostalgic about his time living in Britain as a young man.)

It seems so long ago now -- the mid-1980s.  Those three years when I lived on an island called Britain were the most exciting of my life.  I had grown-up on a different kind of island called Kansas City, which is an island in the sense that you have to travel very far to get anywhere really worth seeing. My family did no travelling and I stayed in town for college, so I didn't finally get off that island until after graduation when I joined the Air Force.  It seemed like I was really venturing out when my first assignment was in Tampa, but that was nothing compared to my next assignment in England.  It's like a whole 'nother country there!

I lived in Basingstoke which isn't a particularly interesting place in itself but is surrounded by many incredible places just within a short drive.  In my free time I could jump into my car and drive in any direction and quickly stumble upon castles, stately homes, cathedrals, ancient ruins and beautiful landscapes.  The English Channel and London were both only an hour away and the rest of the country was chock-full of regions that each had their own unique character.  I spent as much of my free time as I could exploring and took an entire month just before returning to the states to make one last grand tour.

I had intended to return frequently to Britain but I had only managed to go back once in 1994.  Marnie and I got married in '98 and I've been telling her ever since how I would someday take her there.  But year after year various complications prevented us from finding at least two weeks that we were both free. Finally we decided we would make it happen in June 2013 and this is my journal of that trip.

A Word of Explanation

This blog was made to preserve some of the memories from our trip to England.  Friends are welcome to view the photos or even read the daily entries (although you do so at your own risk of being bored).

I've embedded hyperlinks to Wikipedia for more information on many things mentioned in the journal. Also embedded are some links to panoramic images at 360Cities just because it's so cool to see a place like you're actually standing there.

A map which pinpoints the main places that we went to during our week with the rental car can be found here.

A Cunning Plan

(Fans of the 1980s British sitcom "Blackadder" may recognize the author's rather obscure reference in the title of this section to the character Baldrick's catch phrase "I have a cunning plan.")

So, how often in life is the anticipation better than the resulting experience?  I'm really enjoying the anticipation and a cunning plan will hopefully result in the actual experience being great too.  We've found that vacation rentals are the best lodging option, so I combed through hundreds of rentals looking for the ideal places that should make memorable homes for a week.  I've lined-up the following two for a week each:

London, Southwark, just 100 yard from the Thames River and midway between the London Eye and the Tate Modern.  After much searching for vacation rentals on the north bank of the Thames it finally dawned on me that the south bank can be centrally located too.  Its just that you'd have to first cross one of the five bridges, but a bend in the river means that those bridges fan-out so you can quickly get to most of the north bank attractions.  Back in the `80s there wouldn't have been much to see except warehouses on this stretch of the south bank, but there's since been a renaissance and the Queen's Walk along the river bank provides a scenic pedestrian link to many new attractions.

Bradford-on-Avon, near Bath.  Take a picturesque town on the southernmost edge of the Cotswolds, a location next to the historic canal with a path stretching along it for miles in either direction, a nearby supermarket and bike rental business and what else could we want?

(Feel free to skip the next paragraph where the author grouses about high-season airfares.)

Okay, now for finding the best deal for getting there.  Supposedly the sweet spot for international airfares is 89 days prior to travel.  I'm embarrassed to admit (so I won't) how many hours I wasted checking airfares for weeks on end only to discover that the sweet spot apparently doesn't apply to the months of June, July and August.  In mid-April I started to see airfares begin to creep upwards so I reluctantly pulled the trigger on our ticket purchase without ever seeing anything around my target of $1,000.  I also reluctantly decided on United (yech!) because it offered the best choices of itineraries from Sacramento.  From the standpoint of airfare cost, May and September are the ideal times for warm weather Britain trips.  In fact, had we gone in September each ticket would have run $400 less, which coincidentally was the entire cost of my flight in '94 when I last went to Britain (granted, that was on a really miserable Suntrips charter flight where passengers were shoe-horned into seats that had no leg room whatsoever).  

So the hunt for great vacation rentals was a success, the search for good deals on flights not so much.  At least our flight itineraries in both directions are very good -- no rushing, only one connection with a reasonable layover, and we will arrive at our London vacation rental at about the hour when it is suppose to be available to us.

....And They're Off!

(Follow hyperlinks to Wikipedia entries and 360Cities for panorama images.)

 

Wednesday, June 12 / Thursday, June 13

 

I was surprised at how good the dinner on the flight was as well as how old the flight attendants were.  They were all in their 50s and 60s!  Our landing in Chicago was in doubt due to severe weather, but O’Hare Airport was reopened after we circled it for half an hour and we easily made our connecting flight.  Those storm clouds looked otherworldly while we circled O'Hare at 30,000 feet in the evening sun.  We got to Heathrow about 11:15 and then through customs and into central London without a hitch by 1:00.  

We killed a few minutes on the river bank on our walk from Waterloo Station to our flat but still arrived a few minutes early.  Our vacation rental landlord, David, was very nice about that and showed us around the flat before leaving us to enjoy it.  It was a modern two bedroom/two bath flat but was still somewhat small by American standards.  Still, there's no denying its great location virtually on the river just behind the OXO Tower.  It also was one of the rare vacation rentals in central London to include some kind of area outside, in this case a deck with lots of potted plants.  Many things took getting used to like the door locks to the flat and the oven controls.  Besides having Celsius rather than Farenheight settings the oven was made even more puzzling due to the mysterious icons on the controls.

 

We had a nice mid-afternoon meal at the Studio 6 restaurant at nearby Gabriel's Wharf and walked around for a couple of hours seeing some tourist places that we'd get back to when time permitted. There was no shortage of other tourists; I had hoped that we might first take a ride on the London Eye but the queue for it discouraged that for the time being.  It was a very blustery day, as Marnie's hair demonstrates below.

We picked up our London Passes that will cover the admission fees for most of the places we’ll see and briefly took-in Covent Gardens before taking the hydrogen powered RV1 bus to Sainsbury for groceries.  We’d make use of this bus route several times during our stay as it runs every ten minutes from Covent Gardens with a stop immediately in front of our flat on its way to the Tower of London.

We sat out on the deck polishing off what little remained in a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream and then had salmon for dinner.  I was relieved that the salmon turned out so well given the mystery of the oven controls.  Despite neither of us getting any sleep on the plane, we managed to stay up until 9 pm before going to bed, although I woke up four hours later and couldn't get back to sleep.

 

 

"Oh What Fools These Mortals Be"

(The author is misguided in thinking that quoting Shakespeare will class-up his blog.)

Friday, June 14

Besides the Bailey's Irish Cream, one of the other items we found in the kitchen cabinets was a jar of Marmite.  This is a British culinary oddity that I first became aware of back in the `80s but had never tasted.  For some reason, probably because of the similar color and texture, I had thought the primary ingredient of Marmite was molasses.  Marnie likes molasses so we thought we'd try a bit on toast for breakfast.  It was the most disgusting stuff I've ever tasted and it isn't easy to get its taste out of your mouth.  We didn't look at the ingredients until it was too late -- Marmite is primarily made out of yeast extract left over from brewing beer.  The manufacturer's marketing slogan is "Love it or hate it".   You can buy Marmite in the States at World Market and it makes a great gag gift (as it makes most people gag).

We managed to get to Shakespeare’s Globe Theater just in time to join the 9:30 tour and we had a very knowledgeable guide whose talk never seemed scripted.  After the tour we spent a few minutes in the theater museum and had fun with an interactive exhibit where a recorded actor would read the lines of one character in a Shakespeare play and you'd read another character's part into a microphone.  The two recorded parts would then be merged and played back.  Another exhibit featured recordings of famous actors (i.e. John Gielgud, Marlon Brando, Judi Dench, Ian Holm and others) performing the most famous bits of Shakespeare plays.  Their unique voices and cadences were like soothing music and it made me wonder where I could get my own copy of their performances.

 

 

 

Afterwards we walked across the Millennium Bridge to St. Paul's Cathedral where we immediately tackled the 500+ stairs to the top of the dome.  This wasn't particularly strenuous because the steps have a low rise and for some reason I had only gone half way up in my previous visits in the interior of the dome.  I had been missing out on the commanding view from outside at the top of the dome (the image below looks south to the Millennium Bridge, and the Shakespeare Globe Theatre on the left and the Tate Modern on the right on the far side of the Thames).

This picture from the top of St. Paul's shows the OXO Tower on the river bank, behind which our flat was located.

 

St. Paul’s now costs £15 ($23) but our London Passes covered the fee as well as the £13 for the Globe.  I have to agree with Marnie though that the exterior of St. Paul's looks more like a government building than a church.  It may be a magnificent building, particularly the interior, but I'd still take a medieval cathedral over it any day.  We had a light lunch in the cafe located in part of the crypt and headed for the Borough Market back on the South Bank.  This market actually would have been a better source for lunch had we been able to put off eating a little longer; it's foodie heaven but all we bought were some strawberries. 

We then took the RV1 bus back to the flat for 90 minutes of rest and then walked to The Strand to catch the #9 bus to Knightsbridge.  We took front row seats on the upper deck and had an interesting ride during the Friday rush hour.  I hadn't previously appreciated just how many buses were on the streets of London; while we waited for the #9 to arrive other buses went by about every 30 seconds.  I used the London Underground on all my prior trips but I think I missed-out on the better experience of bus travel.  It's slower but you get to see much more than on the Tube where all you have to look at are other people in a rush to get somewhere.

 

We had planned on seeing both Harrods and Selfridges but the former was disappointing so we never made it to the later.  Everything is upscale at Harrods and incredibly expensive but luxury goods just don't seem to be all that interesting to me anymore.  It might have helped if we had found the Food Halls but we somehow missed them despite later learning we had been on the right floor.  We did find the Pet Department where we watched some very pampered dogs get groomed. 

By the time we got to Hyde Park we were ready for a rest, so we paid £3 to rent two lawn chairs for an hour at the Serpentine Lake and watched people and all manner of fowl.   The sun was out and we basked in the 66 degree weather which was one of our best days of weather in London.  You can witness a moment of this in the video below:

 

We walked to Piccadilly Circus to find the Whole Foods but ultimately decided not to bother buying anything.  We then walked through a very busy Soho where various pubs had patrons packing the sidewalks enjoying their drinks.  At first glance it looked like people were lined up just to get in to the pubs, but they already had their drinks and were actually on the sidewalk because the weather was so fine.  Marnie had fond memories of Soho from when she was previously in London but that had more to do with hip little shops she remembered which we didn't run across.

 

We continued on to Covent Garden [360°] where we watched an old Chinese man play a traditional flute consisting of a dozen or more pipes and at about 8:30 hit Sagar, an Indian vegetarian restaurant. It didn’t seem like it was that late because sunset near the summer solstice at this high longitude isn’t until 9:20.  Our RV1 bus stop was just steps away from the restaurant and it dropped us off at the bus stop right in front of the door to our flat.  We went to bed almost immediately with the beginning of blisters on our feet.  Even with the bus rides we had probably still walked at least ten miles.

Westminster Abbey and the Camden Town Markets

Saturday, June 15

 

I woke up with ambitious plans of jumping on a train today by 10:00 to either go to Windsor Castle or Hampton Court since much of London would be especially busy with the Trouping of the Colours, the official celebration of the Queen’s birthday.  But we lounged about so long on the patio enjoying the sunshine that we didn't get out the door until nearly 11:30.   So instead we decided to try Westminster Abbey and see just how bad the crowds might be given that it is only a quarter mile from that ceremony.

 

Traffic was in a complete logjam on the Embankment due to diversions but getting around on foot was still possible.  We got into Westminster Abbey after only a 20 minute wait in line and found that movement inside was not too bad.  The place of course is spectacular and I never tire of going there.  The audio guide narrated by Jeremy Irons was very well done and there was a special Diamond Jubilee exhibit in the Chapter House that covered the 1953 coronation of the Queen.  Lots of royalty are buried there in addition to other notables like Darwin, Dickens and Isaac Newton.  The Tudor Chapel built by Henry VII is magnificent and it's so ironic that the half sisters Mary I and Elizabeth I are both in the same tomb because they were such fierce rivals (Mary the Catholic was always on the verge of beheading Elizabeth the Protestant).

The forecasted rain arrived while we were inside so we lingered until it died down to a drizzle.  I had no particular plan on what we might do next, but we discovered that a nearby #88 bus could take us to the Camden Town markets and decided that would be fun.  There is also a Charles Dickens Museum and a canal boat tour that leaves from Camden Town, but we never did find those nor get around to having lunch.  Instead we really enjoyed exploring the markets which are at their peak on Saturday.

I had briefly been to one of the five Camden markets in '83 but I must have been in too much of a rush to discover the other four.  There are hundreds of vendors and all sorts of ethnic foods, vintage and antique items, and tons of clothes.  It all seemed to go on and on forever.  Marnie shopped for small gifts and also bought a Banksy sweatshirt because she was cold.  Banksy items were everywhere and the famous graffiti artist must now be a very rich man.  Aside from the brief return of heavy rain, the whole experience was unforgettable and we were glad we chose to go there.

 

We walked to the nearby Tube station on Camden High Street (a meld of working class and alternative) and took a train that 20 minutes later had us at Waterloo Station near our flat.  We stopped at a neighborhood market for some wine and Bailey's Irish Cream (to replace the landlord's bottle we polished-off the first night) and arrived back at our flat just as the highlights of the Trouping of the Colours began to be televised by the "beeb".  It was fascinating to watch although the queen no longer gets into uniform to review the troops on horseback.  I guess we can overlook that scandalous departure from tradition now that she is 87.  We enjoyed some more Bailey's while we watched and ate the sushi rolls that we had intended to have for lunch as an appetizer.  After watching the highlights of the ceremony we finally had our first meal since breakfast and shortly afterwards went to bed very tired.

The Tower of London and Tower Bridge

Sunday, June 16

 

We got on the RV1 bus just outside our flat just after 10:00 and it got us to the Tower of London[360°] before 11:00 allowing us to get a jump on most of the day's tourists.  There were big lines for tickets but our London Passes allowed us to go directly to the entrance and we joined a group that was already being led by one of the Yeoman Warders.  His speal was very entertaining but we left the group after the third stop when it was apparent that the line to see the Crown Jewels was starting to back-up.  We joined that line when it was still only 50 feet outside the door and when we came out afterwards it had become a couple of hundred yards long.  Throughout the rest of the time at the Tower we watched that line grow further still and we were glad we didn't delay joining it or, worse yet, arrived at the Tower in the afternoon.

The Crown Jewels are pretty impressive -- they are valued at $32 billion!  Some question the accuracy of that figure and some wonder if they are really just replicas of the real things that are perhaps stored elsewhere.

Mesh wire animal sculptures, seen in the background below, commemorate the menagerie that once was a feature of the Tower of London.

 

The armories in the White Tower [360°] have been scaled back from my prior visits when you would reach a point where you just couldn't bear to look at anymore armor or weapons.  Some of the weapons displays have also been replaced with interactive exhibits which are interesting and avoid the previous problem of being overwhelmed.  One of the interactive displays allowed you to see through a knight's visor to appreciate just how restrictive your vision would be with a helmet on.

We went through several other towers along the outer wall including one which I'm sure I hadn't previously seen which had once been the residence of both Henry III and Edward I.   There was also a display of the less fortunate residents who had been tortured on a rack and something called the Scavenger’s Daughter which did the opposite of the rack, forcing the victim into a crouch and squeezing them.  Good times!  Other prisoners like Sir Walter Raleigh lived for years in comfort but in his case he was ultimately executed.

After the Tower we toured the Tower Bridge and walked along both sides of the walkway running across the top where I took the short video below.

 

 

We took the river boat back to the London Eye pier where we learned that the Tower Bridge is classified as a ship and is the only ship never to sail.  The river boat guide was very entertaining and informative as we passed riverside landmarks but he never elaborated on why the bridge is also a ship.

We observed another British custom by getting some Indian take-out but before dinner polished off the bottle of Baileys.  We also called my cousin Richard on Skype hoping to catch him while he was still with Mom at the barbeque being put on by her retirement home.  We discovered we were too late for that so we called Mom seperately who seemed quite surprised to be hearing from us while we were in London.

Marnie stayed up to finish watching "Mr. Bean's Holiday" but I had previously seen it so I went to bed and got my first decent nights sleep since we left Sacramento.