London

Buckingham Palace
Westminster Abbey
Big Ben
Parliament
National Gallery
Trafalgar Square
London Underground (The Tube)
China Town
Pub supper

A beautiful day in London yesterday! My first trip that didn’t involve airports. After arriving by train at Liverpool Station, we took the tube to Victoria Station and walked to Buckingham Palace. The building itself was a little bit of a let down. It is made of white stone and very plain. The only part of it that looks royal are the gates! We watched the changing of the guards from across the street – too many people packed along the front fence. Being far away ended up being a good thing because while everyone else was focused on the guards, they missed Princess Anne driving away from the palace in a dark blue Jaguar. Her car passed directly in front of us (about 3 feet away) and we had a clear view of her in the back seat with her lady-in-waiting. Apparently she was on her way to Ascot for the races. There was a police escort and several security vehicles in front of and behind her car, but no one else seemed to notice.

Another tube trip and we were at the gorgeous Westminster Abbey. Well, gorgeous from the outside. It costs £7 to get in and we decided that our money would be better spent on lunch in Chinatown, so we just walked around the outside and peeked into the cloisters. The Abbey is right near Parliament and Big Ben, so we saw all of that in one tour around the block. Parliament was bustling with dark-suited, striped tied men rushing in and out carrying briefcases full of important (I’m sure) documents.

Dim Sum in Chinatown. Yum yum! It was a place called Jade Garden. Lots of funny little steamed things. We stayed away from the Glutinous Rice balls, though.

I don’t what I was expecting from Trafalgar Square, but it was kind of boring. The front of the National Gallery opens into the Square and I’m sure it is a lovely spot. Unfortunately it was covered with scaffolding and plywood for some sort of renovation and there was nothing to see except concert posters stapled to the wood. There were a few pigeons, but mostly there were Red Cross volunteers accosting passers-by asking for blood donors. The interior of the National Gallery is beautiful. All marble floors and huge, high ceilings. We spent a very nice couple of hours wandering around looking at some Carravagios, Botticellis, and Monets (among others). Several times we joined groups of uniformed (uninformed?) schoolchildren to listen to informative talks about particular paintings. The best thing about the National Gallery is it’s FREE!

The famous London Underground is incredibly clean and well organized. After riding the metro in Brussels and Paris, I have to say that the “tube” is definitely the best. And the most extensive. Whoever decided to construct it should be given some sort of Nobel Prize because it is the saving grace of downtown London. The streets are busy with traffic anyway and without the tube, transportation would be unbearable and practically impossible.

The Geffrye Museum was an interesting (and free) place to visit. Located in Shoreditch, slightly north of downtown, a somewhat dodgy neighborhood. It is a converted Almshouse set back from the street surrounded by an herb garden and a wide, peaceful tree-lined green lawn. It is an interiors Museum and has complete rooms decorated and furnished in the major periods from 1500 to the present. There were very few people there, probably because of the location, so it was quiet and relaxing to walk through.

A pub supper at The Master Gunner. Yum yum again! We shared fish’n’chips and roasted vegetable lasagna.

Then two hours on train back to Norwich. We were worn out from our day in the big city. I think I’m getting old!

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I love London. It surprised me that I liked it so much. R has been there several times for research and school activities and I knew that he liked it, but I didn’t expect to love it. A great city with beautiful architecture, red double-decker buses and a huge variety of restaurants. It is however one of the top most expensive city in the world to live in (more than Copenhagen).

~K