London Vacation

Dear Paris, two words…. Air Conditioning!

Thursday I had an early start, getting up at 4:50ish London time to get to the St. Pancras Eurostar Station for 6:00 to meet the tour people.  We got our tickets, and instructions and then went through bag check, passport check etc and got on board our train, which left at about 7:30. We traveled the 213 miles or so in about 2 hours on the train, which was pretty smooth and comfortable. It has a bar and food on board, tho I didn’t avail, but all in all I much prefer it to flying!

Once there, we departed and met our guide at the station.  This tour was in some ways the most disappointing of the three I took as we didn’t have a dedicated tour bus, but rather were availing of one of the hop on hop off services (with no air conditioning) with the guide just interjecting some.  We traveled around and saw the opera house, and the stopped near the Eiffel tower.

We didn’t head there right away though, first we took a quick cruise on the Seine. That was very nice but not overly conducive to taking pictures because of the plexiglas sides and bad angles, but was nice to see museums, the Louvre, Notre Dame cathedral etc from the water. It was a hot hot day, 30 degrees Celsius, and the trip on the water had a nice cooling effect as well.

After the cruise we went to a restaurant for lunch, again no air conditioning, and oh yeah, the water wasn’t cold either! After lunch we went back to the Eiffel Tower and some went up to the observation deck, this didn’t appeal to my dislike of heights so I just stayed down, relaxed in the shade and took some pictures.  Of course we also had the most brain dead tourist ever with us, who had already gotten lost once and caused us to miss time while the guide tracked him down.  Up on the tower, he decided to come down early without telling anyone and made the rest of the tour search for him for 20 minutes more wasting everyone’s time!

After that, we fought our way through traffic (I would never drive in Paris, it’s like those pictures you see of India!) to Notre Dame cathedral, seeing the Louvre, the Opera House and other things whose name escapes me now en route.  After that we went to the opera district, but because of “our friend” we really didn’t get much time to do anything other than get a snack at the House of Lindt.

From there our Paris excursion came to an end, heading back to the train station for the uneventful trip back to London.

 

Today was the day I came to London for, the day of the Monty Python reunion show.  But that wasn’t till 6 o’clock.  So, as I wanted to see some things that I had seen on the bus in more detail, I bought a day pass for the London Underground for 9 pounds, and around 8:30 took off from the hotel to find the famous department store Harrods.  I walked quite a ways to the underground station (probably a couple kilometers) mainly because it was new to me, and I really had no idea what was involved in transfers, so I went to a station that was on a direct line to the station near Harrods.

The trip once aboard took 10 minutes or so and I got there shortly after 9 to find that the store didn’t open till 10, doh! Guess I should have checked.  So I walked around the block to look around, to find that Harrods IS the block, the store takes up a whole city block.  I can’t remember how many floors there are (Google says 7), but I do remember the guides saying it has over a million square feet of retail space.  Easy to believe!  I walked through and looked around some, not everywhere, but some, was quite overwhelming, with many luxurious things I didn’t even want to think of the price of!  I’m not a shopping lover, but I’m sure there are people who could spend days wandering inside!

From there I caught the tube again and this time did take a transfer and went to the Westminster area to get a better look at the Abbey, Big Ben and Parliament.  All so beautiful, and all stone, hard to really fathom how old things are in Europe! I took some pictures, heard Big Ben chime 11, and headed back to home base to get some food and relax a bit.

Wandered around the local neighborhood for an hour or two, then lay down for a bit because I had an early start planned for Thursday and knew I would be fairly late from the show.

I left the hotel around 5:30 and took the 2 minute walk to the local station, caught the tube, transferred at Waterloo (seems so odd to say these names I’ve always heard in relation to doing things myself) and from there to North Greenwich, just outside the O2 stadium.  Looked around at the overly outrageously priced souveneirs and when the doors opened made my way to my seat, where I nearly panicked and left! I’ve been to arenas here in North America, but I really don’t recall the nosebleed section being so steep! felt like I was on the side of a cliff.  Anyway, I was able to relax after a bit, and just focus on the stage (I have anxiety issues, not just being a total wuss here) and made it through. Once the lights were down, it was much better, and once the laughs started, it was great.

Monty Python did a lot of thier classic sketches,  Argument, Four Yorkshiremen, Cheese Shop, Parrot, Spanish Inquisition, etc) but I think the biggest laugh for me was seeing how much fun they appeared to be having.  John Cleese in particular was unable to say his lines a couple times because he was laughing so hard, and in the Cheese Shop sketch, Michael Palin said to him something like: gesturing at the audience, “You know all these people have home to get to” to which John, through laughter said “Then why didn’t you come up with a punch line?” and then they walked off laughing together.

The show ended at 10:30, with an attendance of about 16000.  Was wondering how long the return journey would take, wasn’t sure how many could jam into a train!  But I was back in my hotel from that size of an event in 30 minutes (10 miles per google), amazing really.  Just think how long it takes to get home from a Mooseheads game!

Some pictures from the day:

Today I took a tour of the city itself.  Saw many things, some of which were hard to get pictures of because we were on the bus moving.  First off we toured around sections of the city, seeing some of the expensive properties and royal and formal royal buildings.  Drove around near Hyde Park, and saw many commemorative statues and the like.  We paused at the Prince Albert Memorial for a few pictures, and right across from it we saw Royal Albert Hall.

From there we moved on to the “mall” and saw the changing of the guard, was quite crowded, and didn’t get right up to the guard positions, but did see the march and hear the band, was quite a spectacle!

We then moved through the London traffic to St. Paul’s Cathedral.  Were on our own for a bit for lunch, then had a tour of the cathedral itself.  Unfortunately photography is prohibited inside, so only external pictures to share, but I’m sure there are better than I could take online anyway. Again not a huge church fan, but the architecture was amazing as were the many memorials to Lord Nelson, Churchill etc.

Lastly we moved on to the Tower of London.  This actually used to be a Royal residence, I never knew that, but the residential part was torn down in the 1600s.  Was quite spectacular to see, even having the small cutouts (whose name escapes me) for archers.  We toured inside and saw the crown jewels (again, no photos allowed).  Must be a rough life to own these paltry little items I say. Near there also saw the tower bridge, and some spectacular skyline including the eye.

I may try to get back near parliament again tomorrow before the show, would like some better pictures, will see how it goes!

A few more photos below.

Today I took a bus tour to Stonehenge, Salisbury Cathedral and Bath.

Walked to the pickup site about 7:15 am, and to others along the route till we got to Victoria Coach Station, from there at 9 o’clock we hit the road and went to Stonehenge.  I was expecting this to be an “Ok I’ve seen it, now what” moment, but it was quite fun, with an audio guide telling you history of the stones and even before the stones. We were there for an hour and a half and I could easily have stayed longer and listened to every bit of the commentary.  But I also needed food and souvenirs, and was even then pressed to get back to the bus on time.  Was an interesting side note, there was some man somewhere screaming out like someone had cut a limb off, couldn’t quite make out where though.

From there we went to Salisbury Cathedral, which has, I learned, a 404 foot spire.  Was interesting in its own way, but churches aren’t really my thing.  It does have one of four original copies of the Magna Carta there, written on sheep skin.  That was pretty cool, the writing it tiny! Unfortunately photographs of it are prohibited.  All in all, interesting, but didn’t really need the full hour and a half there for me.

From there we travelled to the Roman Bath’s in the town of, you guessed it, Bath.  These were rediscovered in the 19th century and having been undisturbed for centuries were in great shape when excavated.  Its the only hot spring in Britain, with waters gushing out at a temperature of 46 degrees Celsius.  Legend says drinking the water has healing powers, but I had a sip from the fountain provided (tastes like hot salt water), and my back was still aching, so I doubt the veracity of the legend.

The town of Bath itself if very pretty too, built on 7 hills apparently with views over the river Avon to all the other hills. Most if not all of the houses are built with a honey coloured limestone, so they colour really stands out.   One absolutely spectacular housing area is called the circus, apparently Nicholas Cage lived in one of the units.  Definetly google the Bath Circus.

Posting a few pictures below, hotel internet is really slow, so will have to wait till I’m home for more.