Remembrance Sunday and London

Today we took our Hop-On Hop-Off Bus tour of London just to see the main sights again, which we did, but we also got a bonus lesson in what Remembrance Sunday means to the British. Remembrance Sunday is the Sunday after November 11 where the dead of past wars are remembered. There is a major wreath laying ceremony (led by King Charles) at the Cenotaph at 11 am followed by a solemn parade of 10,000 mostly ex-military members. All the wreaths are made from poppies. There were also smaller ceremonies later such as in the one we passed in the photo.

Of course, we knew nothing about this and booked lunch at the Red Lion Pub, a half-block from the Cenotaph. So at 1 pm we were squeezed in the pub with a bunch of thirsty military men reliving their past glories with their comrades. The pub lady told us that this was their busiest day of the year and many people book it a year in advance. I'm not sure how I was able to book. Just luck I suppose.

We are leaving tomorrow and I have to pack so here are the other photos of the day.

The Tower Bridge

The Tower of London

The London Eye

Churchill's War Room

Big Ben and Westminster Palace (Parliament)

Westminster Abbey

Today was our day to tour Westminster Abbey. When we arrived, we found that we had just missed the tour that we wanted to take and had to wait an hour for the next, but it was worth it.

The tour guide was a verger and as he promised, he compacted 90 minutes of English history into a 90-minute tour. He did an excellent job and kept it interesting all the way. Benedictine monks founded the Abbey in 960 but major re-construction of the Abbey was started there by Edward the Confessor, who died in early 1066 and is buried there. 1066 is also famous as the year of the Norman conquest of England and William the Conqueror was crowned king there. Since then, all kings and queens of Britian have been coronated there. 

The abbey is the burial site of many of the kings in the Middle Ages, from Edward the Confessor up through King Henry VII. Also buried in the abbey are many other famous English people such as Chaucer, Dickens, Newton and more recently Stephen Hawking and Laurence Olivier. King Henry VIII and all following monarchs are buried at Windsor Castle. 

The abbey has been the site for many royal ceremonies. Most recently was Queen Elizabeth's funeral and the next one will be the coronation of King Charles III, all done in front of the altar in the center of the photo on the right. That ceremony will be May 6, 2023.

On our way back to the tube station we ran into a protest near 10 Downing Street. What was it about? Don't care. There have been on-going protests and strikes every day since we have been here. Rail workers, nurses, Stop Oil, climate change and even loss of starling habitats.

Finally, we decided to splurge and go to see our last stand-up comic, Sarah Pascoe, in style. We took Uber up and back. Costly but it saved several hours and an untold amount of train and bus rides. In addition, a portion of the track was closed due to a fatality, and it wasn't clear that we could even get there!

Kensington Palace and Our Anniversary

First, a word about the show last night. Jon Richardson was hilarious but the trip there and back was not so much fun. The tube strike made us take alternate routes and added more walking and more time to each leg of the trip. All the train rides out were fine, but when we got back for the last ride on the Elizabeth line only to find it was closed and we had to take an Uber back. Of course, city traffic was still terrible even at that time of night, so we didn't get to our hotel until 1am.

Our first stop today was a tour of Kensington Place. We know it as the place where Princess Diana lived with William and Harry and later where William and Kate lived with their children until they very recently moved to Windsor Castle so their children could all go to the same school. They lived in the wing to the left of the main building in the first photo. The tour we took was only the state apartments on the right in the photo.

Kensington Palace has a much older history. It was transformed into a palace by William and Mary in 1689 and later was the residence of Queen Ann, King George I and King George II. It was also the home where Queen Victoria was born and lived until she ascended to be the Queen in 1837 when she was 18. The statue in the foreground is of her as a youthful queen.

As today, 11/11/2022, was our 50th wedding anniversary, we celebrated with a tour of the grounds (Kensington Gardens) and a high tea in the gardens. Cheers!

Day Off in London

Tonight, we have a late standup comic show that is a bit out of London in Southend-on-Sea and we're not getting back until after midnight. We're seeing Jon Richardson who is a well-known comedian on British TV, famous from 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and other comedy shows. He has a very dry, self-deprecating style of comedy and he should be very funny.

Because of the expected late night and the tube strike that is full on today, we're taking some time off and not doing any hard touring during the day. Just some shopping at a Marks & Spenser department store near the hotel and a couple of other shops nearby.

We're also conducting an unofficial taste test of biscuits (cookies in the US) and I've shown a photo of some of the top brands from a list I saw on the Internet. We're not going to sample all 15 on the list, but I would say from what I have tasted that they are less sweet than our cookies. This is probably because they are intended to be eaten with tea. 

Back to London

After a much too short stay in Paris, we took the Eurostar back to London this afternoon. The waiting area at the Gare du Nord train station was much nicer that it's equivalent at St. Pancras station in London, but it had one big flaw. We had to go down two flights of stairs to get down to the track level. There were escalators for some tracks but not the one we left on. Fortunately, we had several people offer to help us, which was much appreciated.

Our hotel for the next five days in London is a also Hilton but not nearly as nice as the Hilton in Paris. It's okay, but just a bit small. Small rooms seem to be a common trait of central London hotels. 

Dinner tonight was at a nearby pub - Fountains Abbey. Very local pub with a cast of characters straight out of a British film. I would have taken a photo, but I thought I might get beaten up. I settled for a photo of the bar.

The food was listed as classic British pub food. That is in contrast with a lot of pubs who sell a largely American fare. For example, burgers, tacos and southern fried chicken (southern as in the US, not the UK). We even saw one place selling "Philly steak toasties." A toastie is English slang for "grilled cheese." I can't imagine that it would be any good.

Tonight, I had a Steak and Ale pie, which was really good and very filling. Jeanne had mac and cheese. We shared a Sticky Toffee Pudding for dessert.

Touring Paris

Since we only have one full day in Paris, we took the Big Bus to try to cram in as much sightseeing into the day as we could. The bus is a 2-hour ride with narration past all the major sights in Paris and you have the opportunity to get off at select spots. We rode past the Louvre (first photo) but didn't stop as it is closed on Tuesdays. We rode past Notre Dame and didn't get off as it was closed due to the extensive repairs that were needed after the fire.

Our first stop was the Musee d'Orsay which is the home of a world-class collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings. The building was a former train station as you can tell from the photo. We had been to the d'Orsay about 25 years ago and as I recall, we went up, bought tickets and went right in. This time we queued for 30 minutes to get our tickets. You can buy timed tickets, but with the bus schedule it was uncertain when we would be there so we couldn't buy the timed tickets.

I selected one painting to include in the blog. I chose a self-portrait of Vincent Van Gogh as he is my favorite painter but there are many, many other great paintings here.

After the museum, time for a quick French lunch of crêpes and crème brûlée.

Our second and final stop was the Eiffel Tower. The queuing for tickets and to catch the elevator was at least 30 minutes. Once again you can buy timed tickets, but it wasn't feasible today.

The Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 World's Fair. Upon completion, it surpassed the Washington Monument to become the tallest man-made structure in the world, a title it held for 41 years until the Chrysler Building in New York City was finished in 1930.

I had never been to the top of the Eiffel Tower, and this was one of the items on my bucket list. In the photo of Jeanne and me you can see me trying not to look terrified or frozen. The temperature here in Paris was mild, in the upper 50s, but very windy at the top and hence very cold. 

Afterwards we had dinner at a very nice French restaurant right across the street from our hotel. Say what you want about the French, but their cooking is first class. We dined Parisian style tonight. I had foie gras (appetizer) and fish and Jeanne had duck breast. We shared profiteroles for dessert (shown in the photo). The food and the service at the Mollard were excellent. 

Paris and the Moulin Rouge

Again, the day started out with some drizzle, but nothing major. It's been three days in a row like that, but the rest of our trip looks dry.

We took an Uber to the St. Pancras train station to catch our 1:30 pm Eurostar train to Paris. The check-in process was slow with x-rays, passport control, etc. and it was a really overcrowded facility. Part of the crowding was probably due to the strike which canceled a number of trains so everyone was trying to fit into whatever they could.

The Eurostar is touted as a luxury train but it really isn't. The only "luxury" is the speed of the trip to Paris and a decent luggage storage facility. Our seats were cramped and there were no open spaces. The trip took a little over 2 hours and you spend 30 minutes of that going through the Chunnel (under the English Channel). We hit a top speed of 301 km/hour in the open French countryside.

Our first hotel in London was the Holiday Inn Regent's Park. It was nice enough, but the room is small by American standards even though they upgraded us to an "executive" room. Our Hilton hotel in Paris, however, is on a whole different level. The room is at least three times the size of the London and with a view of the Eifel Tower. Also, with our Hilton perks we have access to the Executive Lounge, which gives us free food and drinks. Life is good.

We had to make a quick change of clothes and head to the Moulin Rouge for dinner and the show. This would have been pricey, but I booked with points so no worries. Turns out it might have been worth the money they charge. The meal was excellent (including a full bottle of champagne), and the show was great. One of the best we have ever seen.

One thing I noticed that is different from when we were in the UK five years before is that almost all payments now are cashless. It's encouraged and I even had one place that wouldn't take cash. I suppose that this is a by-product of COVID but I kind of like it. No more fumbling through coins to figure out which ones to use. France, on the other hand, is still more like the US and relies on the "cash" system a lot. Yes, you can charge most everywhere, but I did have to pay cash for a couple of things. Fortunately, I had some Euros with me.

Sherlock, Madame Tussauds and an English Sunday

Today started out raining but stopped by mid-afternoon. Our first stop was something touristy but hard to resist. It was 221B Baker Street, the fictional address of Sherlock Holmes in London but a real address here. If you look above the Bobbie, you can see the address in the glass. Baker Street is only one tube stop from our hotel, so how could we not go?

The building today is a tiny walk-up filled with antiques from the Victorian era made to look like Holmes' flat, complete with his study where he received his clients and a spot for Doctor Watson to sit and listen as well.

And right next to the Baker Street tube stop is Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. Madame Tussaud was born in 1761 in France and began working with wax figures and exhibiting them throughout Europe. When she was unable to return to France because of the Napoleonic wars, she settled in London and opened her wax museum, and the museum has been in London ever since. Of course, the collection continues to be modernized to keep up with changing tastes but some of the oldest works are models of heads from victims of the French Revolution.

Some of the most popular wax figures are the British royalty and I was able to pose with two of them. Other pieces of note were all James Bond actors and a wide array of actors, singers, and sports figures.

I have to say that all the figures look amazingly lifelike, even when you look very closely.

That includes Chewbacca and Yoda and the one that looks like me!!!

So now for a bit of what a typical Sunday in London is like. We popped over to our local pub, the Albany, for a bit of Sunday Roast and some football (soccer) on the telly. A Sunday roast consists of roast beef (or chicken if you prefer) plus roast root veggies. Ours came with carrots, parsnips and potatoes. This is all topped with gravy and Yorkshire Pudding which is the bread-like item on top. It was absolutely delicious and very filling.

The match on the telly was Arsenal versus Chelsea and our crowd was all Arsenal supporters. They lived and died with each play and went crazy when Arsenal scored the only goal of the match. This photo was taken a few seconds after that goal. 

To close out the evening we went to see a comedian, Dara O'Briain, up in Milton Keynes, which is north of London. 35 minutes by express train on the way up and over an hour via the local on the way back. Dara is Irish and the long-time host of "Mock the Week" on BBC so he is very well known over here. The show was a sell-out with a crowd of maybe 2 to 3K. He was very funny, but sorry, no pictures. Got back to the room around 1 am.

Beatles and Afternoon Tea

Today we have a bit of light rain in the morning, which isn't uncommon for London in November. We did get a bit of good news in that we learned that the rail strike has been postponed as negotiations continue but that apparently doesn't stop random outages and slowdowns on the tube. Today the Circle Line was "suspended," and so we had to replan our afternoon trip. A full tube strike is still set for Nov. 10, which will complicate things for us if it isn't called off.

We took our Beatles Tour by Black Cab today which was brilliant (to use the Brit expression). Just Jeanne and me and the cab driver, Big T. He did an excellent job taking us to the sights and telling a number of Beatles stories, as well as a few of his own personal stories. There were quite a few stops, but I'll just mention two. The first was the Savile Road building in the first photo. This was Apple Records headquarters but also the site of the famous "roof top concert."

The second site is Abbey Road studios where Jeanne and I tried to replicate a famous photo taken there in 1969. The actual studio is directly behind us on the left side of the road. Our cab is the black car parked illegally on the right side of the road. By the way, this photo was taken while we were stopping traffic so there was no real time to pose properly!!!

Four other blokes trying to copy us. Since I have space here, I'll repeat the story the driver told us as this photo was used as evidence to support the urban legend that "Paul is dead" back in the late 60s. Paul, second from the back, has no shoes and is out of step with the other Beatles. John, dressed in white, represents the minister, Ringo, dressed in black, represents the mourners and George, dressed shabbily in double denim, represents the gravedigger.

Finally, we went to an afternoon tea at the Milestone Hotel. This is a very posh hotel overlooking Kensington Palace complete with a doorman in formal clothes. To give an idea of poshness, I've included a shot of the dining room. More like someone's living room than a dining room.

It was the best tea that we've ever been to. The Brits really take pride in afternoon teas, and this was no exception. The finger sandwiches were great, and the desserts were even better. Not shown: Our scones with clotted cream and homemade jam.

Phrase of the day heard while using the tube: "See it, say it, sorted."

Flight To London

Today we flew from Newark to London, and everything went as planned. We drove to Newark, parked, and got to the airport a little early, so we had time to use the United Lounge (free thanks to two passes we had from our United credit card). We had a light meal there and followed the Eagles and Phillies games as best we could until our flight left. Our flight was 6.5 hours but got to London early at 10 am, thanks to a good tailwind. Our landing path took us right over downtown London and I was able to get a nice photo since the day was clear. If you look closely on the right side of the Thames, you can see the Ferris Wheel that is called the London Eye. Right across the Thames and slightly lower you can see Parliament and Big Ben.

We took an Uber to our hotel, which turned out to be a quite lengthy ride. It took almost an hour and a half in traffic. Then we did what we normally do when we get to the hotel after a flight to Europe and that is to take a nap until dinner time. I know they tell you to stay awake, but this works for us. We had fish and chips at Fishbone, which is just around the corner. You will note the cup of green "stuff." Those are Mushy Peas, which traditionally are served with fish and chips in the UK.

After dinner we walked the neighborhood a bit and went to the nearest tube stop to buy our Oyster cards. Oyster Cards are how you pay to ride the tube and as we have an early start tomorrow, I wanted to get purchasing the cards out of the way.

And right next to Fishbone is a "Philly" themed pub called Passyunk Avenue. I stepped inside to have a look around and they were showing a replay of the Eagles game. They serve cheesesteaks, but I didn't see anyone eating one so I couldn't judge. I am calling this photo "Two Philly Originals"!!!