A guard at Buckingham Palace
October 7
We awoke to one of those classic sort-of sunny, sort-of cloudy days for which London is famous (at least, that’s the weather that I’ve become accustomed to when visiting London). Since our colds still hadn’t completely subsided, we thought we’d take it easy and spend our day seeing London’s sights.
Before going out to see the sights, we needed some breakfast. We thought about eating at the hotel. But, they were charging £12.50/customer. Since that seemed outrageous to us, we set off to look for another breakfast establishment. Dianne remembered seeing a Tesco next to the Organic Pizza where we ate the night before. So, we went back to Gloucester Road and into the Tesco. For £2.30 per person, we had a muffin and juice. That was much more in line with our budget.
After finishing our breakfasts, we walked across Gloucester Road to the Gloucester Road Tube Station. I was really beginning to love our choice of hotel. Not only were the rooms comfortable, but, with restaurants and a Tube station being less than a five minute walk from the hotel, the location just couldn’t be beat. I made a mental note to remember this hotel for the next trip to London.
We went inside the Tube station and purchased a couple of day passes. The day passes were now £5.40…I could remember when they were a lot cheaper than that. With our wallets a bit lighter, we boarded the Piccadilly line to the Knightsbridge Station. While I loved the feeling of being on the Tube again, I was also a little anxious because of the subway bombings that had happened about three months earlier. I gave a couple of nervous glances around the subway car to see if I saw anyone suspicious. But, it soon became clear to me that there would be little I could do if anyone came onto a subway car with the intent of causing mass damage. Once that realization came to me, I stopped worrying and enjoyed my subway trip (and all the others I took while in London).
We disembarked at Knightsbridge Station and made our way to Harrods. In all my trips to London, I had never been to Harrods. So, in my quest to always see something new on a return visit to anyplace, Harrods was a natural stop. I had heard a lot about the opulent, capitalistic orgy that associated itself with the Harrods name. But, I wasn’t ready to experience it. I was dumbfounded by all the goods and merchandise that one could purchase in the store. From the amazing food court to the stupendous Christmas store, Harrods was a toy store for adults (and it also had a pretty amazing toy store for the kids). No wonder it has the reputation it has. Once we pulled our jaws up from the floor, we made our list of things to purchase before we departed for the United States.
We left Harrods, got on the Piccadilly line again, and headed northeast. We disembarked at the Green Park Tube Station, and strolled across Green Park to Buckingham Palace. That morning, the park was lightly populated with tourists and others who had the day off and were enjoying the temperate weather. We eventually made it to Buckingham Palace. The Royal Standard wasn’t flying over the palace, so the Queen wasn’t there that day. But, Good Morning America was there broadcasting live from inside the palace (a first for American television). I didn’t get to see anyone associated with Good Morning America (other than a lone cameraman atop the Victoria Monument), so we just took some pictures at the palace’s gates and moved on.
We walked down the Mall, stopping occasionally to see the flowers and swans in St. James’ Park. The juxtaposition of traffic racing down the Mall and strollers taking their time on the sidewalks reminded me of how walking down the Mall is one of my favorite walks in London. We then passed through the Admiralty Arch and onto Trafalgar Square. As always, the square was filled with tourists and pigeons. We walked through both groups and made our way to St. Martin’s in the Fields church. I’d passed by this church many times in my visits, but had never gone inside. I had promised myself that I would take the time to tour its interior on this trip to London. As it turned out, the church was holding a free (although donations were strongly encouraged) lunch time piano concert that day. We took our seats and were serenaded by Joanne Camilleri for the next hour. While the church’s interior was not overly impressive (I’d seen better churches in London), the recital was so relaxing and pleasurable that we almost took a nap right there in the pews. Fortunately, the applause kept us awake and unembarrassed.
The concert ended promptly at 1 p.m. We headed to the post office just north of St Martin’s in the Fields to buy some stamp sets for a friend of mine. Once those purchases were made, we went to Leicester Square. Dianne had read about the TKTS office in Leicester Square, which sells half-priced tickets to many West End shows. We queued up for an evening performance and managed to get two tickets to an 8 p.m. show of Chicago. By this time, we were getting pretty hungry. Fortunately, there were plenty of choices in the Leicester Square area. Dianne was in a mood for Chinese food, so we stopped at the Mr. Wu Chinese Restaurant on Irving Street. While the prices were right (about £4/person), the food’s quality matched its price. I’d skip this place if I were ever in the area again.
With our stomachs full, we continued our walk through the heart of London. We went south past the National Gallery and Trafalgar Square, and proceeded down Whitehall. As was the case with St. Martin’s in the Fields, I had decided to make a special effort to find a site that I had never noticed on my previous visits. In this instance, I was looking for the Banqueting Hall. Sure enough, I happened to find it. I didn’t go inside because I wanted to get to Westminster Abbey before it closed. But, at least I now know where it is.
We continued down Whitehall to the Queen’s Horse Guard. Two of the Horse Guard were standing guard that day. Dianne couldn’t resist getting pictures of both of us next to these guards. We then continued down to Downing Street. From the group of tourists that were posted around Downing Street’s gates, it seemed that we just missed Tony Blair going into his residence. I really didn’t regret not seeing Mr. Blair. However, I was saddened by the security around Downing Street, which had noticeably increased since I last visited in 2001. It just seemed like a sad commentary on the times in which we live.
After our short detour at Downing Street, we passed by Big Ben and made our way to Westminster Abbey. I was looking forward to going inside the building and (perhaps) sneaking a picture or two. But, it turned out that the Abbey was closing in about 15 minutes (it was almost 3:30 when we arrived). Additionally, there is now no picture taking allowed in the Abbey (it used to be that one could take pictures at least on Wednesdays from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m.). It seemed the Abbey’s leaders were intent on driving out the tourists. So, we instead visited St. Margaret’s Church, which stands on the Abbey’s grounds. This church also possesses its share of history, as it is the burial place of Sir Walter Raleigh. We toured the inside of the church, and were impressed with the art and architecture. Best of all, entrance was free (as opposed to the Abbey, which charged £10/person).
By now, we were both feeling a bit tired after our walk. So, we went over to the Westminster Tube Station (I love the remodeling job they did on this station), and took the Circle line back to the Gloucester Street Station. We changed clothes at the hotel, and took the Piccadilly and Bakerloo lines to the Charing Cross Tube Station. From there, we walked to the Adelphi Theatre for the 8 p.m. show of Chicago. This particular production featured Lynda Carter, who formerly played Wonder Woman on TV, as the jail matron, Momma. I wasn’t expecting Ms. Carter could sing, but she did more than a passable job in the role. Overall, the production was very good. But, seeing the play actually made me enjoy the movie version of Chicago more, because I was able to appreciate the artistic choices that Rob Marshall made in order to get the movie on screen.
After the play let out, we walked back toward the Charing Cross Tube Station. Along the way, we stopped at a Ben and Jerry’s for some ice cream. We then got on the subway, went back to the hotel, and collapsed into a deep slumber.
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