Awwww, Dear Readers. It is such a pleasure to share with you our last stop in our traveling adventures. Finally, we have visited London. What a joy to wander the sights and streets I have only read about or seen on screen. We spent the last week in the heart of the city, and though we checked everything we had on our list, there is OBVIOUSLY so much more to see and visit!
The hotel Dale found for us, the London Bridge Hotel, turned out to be perfectly located for all our sightseeing activities. Nelson, the fabulous Uber driver who took us from Gatwick Airport, gave us his short list of must-dos while in London, which included the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Turns out London is a very walkable city, just ask any one of the thousands of residents or tourists on the streets everyday. So we started out early Tuesday morning and made our way over to the Westminster Bridge for our first crossing of the Thames and first good look at Big Ben. Then around the corner and arrived at Westminster Abbey at what must have been opening time because we walked right up to the front door, bought entry tickets, picked up our audio guides and started the history immersion. We were in and out in no time, bumped very few elbows as we wound our way around Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Mary, had a personal escort to the loo and was shown the very unadorned burial stone for John Burgoyne (the only American buried in the Abbey) and finally stopped at the coronation throne. It was the first time I’d wished I’d studied more of the British history.
We took the long way around to the Palace as I was on the hunt for the Mounted Guard. I wanted to see silly tourists break the rules, cross the white line and get bit by the horse. I have no idea what map I was following but we were nowhere near them and stumbled upon the main courtyard of the Palace about 45 minutes ahead of when we thought the parade was starting. We had a little excitement when we saw a car escorted inside the gates and the small crowd surged over to see who it was. I have no idea if anyone ever figured it out, but from our view way on the other side of the courtyard, the grey haired gentleman I saw through the car window looked like King Charles to me! We then proceeded to wander up and down The Mall to a) stay warm, and b) find the best place to see the parade, until it was painfully obvious that there was no parade. We finally found the sign telling us it happened Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sundays….unless it’s raining too hard. Well, we had time the next morning to try again! So we just kept on walking, we found the mounted guard where everyone was behaving well, the queue for the Eye which was just long enough we didn’t want to wait, the Shakespeare Globe, a couple of good places to eat and drink and then back to the hotel to chill out! It made a fine start to our stay.
Wednesday dawned as a true London winter day….rainy. And not a light drizzle, but break out the brolly kind of rain. We both had reached the point of desiring a swap of some of our clothes, so we set out that morning on the hunt for a clothing store. TKMaxx was a quick walk away. Just a couple of things and both of us felt so much better. We were happy we didn’t beeline for the palace, we were quite sure the parade would have been cancelled.
Our scheduled plans were in the evening, so I decided to tour the Shakespeare Globe. Dale skipped this one, Shakespeare, like raw tomatoes, is not his cuppa tea. But I adored it. Shakespeare in Love remains one of my all time favorite movies, and I could picture all my favorite scenes with Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow, and had to ask if there was any chance the real Queen Elizabeth I would have come to the theater. Of course not, but Dame Judi Dench did for 5 minutes in the movie and won an Oscar!
That night we had tickets for the ABBA; Voyage show. If you haven’t heard of this, it’s a concert with halographics of the band in their 1970s heyday. It was one of the most impressive things we’ve seen. They looked so real, and we looked so hard for the projection system to no avail. They do not allow pics, but if you do find yourself in London, do yourself a favor and go see the show. It’s worth every penny!
Thursday dawned beautifully sunny and brisk. We knew it was not the scheduled day for the guard parade, so we went straight to the Mounted Guard for their change as advertised…..only to find that it’s only on Monday, Wednesday, Friday as well. Thank goodness we caught a changing of the guard in Windsor! We did find that at the top of every hour there is a mini change as the horses are relieved of their one hour duty and replaced with a new set. But, it was 20 after and we had just missed it. So off we went to take a picture of the iconic black door of 10 Downing Street. Of course I should have realized we would never get that close. Well protected as any home of a prime minister should be, but I was disappointed anyway. After all, I just wanted a pic of where Hugh Grant hung out in Love Actually. We spent enough time snapping a pic of the neighbor at 12 Downing Street that we made it back in time to see the horse swap, which in the end, was probably the best changing of the guard we could have seen. The good (bad???) news was all tourists maintained good behavior, nobody got yelled at by marching guards or bit by an anxious horse. Those poor guards though, so much time spent not getting to smile while they photobomb endless selfies. God Bless their dedication to duty! After that we walked through Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus on the way to our theater show at the Aldwych theater. Somehow I expected a more vibrant scene at these two landmark sites! Someplace to sit and enjoy a tea perhaps? But we found our theater with enough time to get lunch first, then went in for the afternoon show of Tina, the Tina Turner musical. WOW what a great show! The theaters in London are smaller than NYC Broadway, ticket prices are better, and the talent is just as good. We had such a good time and left the theater to most pleasant sunset walk back to our hotel.
Our last full day, Friday, dawned another clear and brisk day. And we had an early morning tour at the Tower of London to see the Crown Jewels. Our tickets included early access to the Tower to witness the opening of the gates for the unwashed masses to enter, a guided tour through as much of the site as we could get to, and two tickets for a boat tour on the Thames. Again, the joy of offseason travel, there were only about 20 of us watching the gates opened, so we were literally first into the Crown Jewels where it was so empty I rode the little moving walkway past them three times – they are as remarkable as I had imagined. Easy to see why Meghan mistakenly thought she was marrying into billions. Our your group was only five people, so he had us into every corner and skinny twisty staircase there is in the place and all I could picture was Natalie Portman as Ann Boleyn and Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I. I’m not sure if it’s a good or bad thing that the majority of my British history knowledge comes from Hollywood!
We had scheduled a High Tea at the Rosewood Hotel (chosen due to the very high ratings it had) immediately following our tour of the Tower so we banked our tickets and decided to catch the boat from Westminster instead. We grabbed ourselves a black cab (by now both our feet were feeling the constant walking) and were very delighted with our decision when we arrived. This was clearly NOT your run of the mill tourist tea. The hotel was definitely higher end if the collection of Porsches parked out front were any indication. Dale was happy with his decision to wear a collared shirt that morning when we were shown to our table. Our lovely waitress, Freya, then proceeded to explain the menu to us. We would be served three courses, sandwiches, scones and mini dessert, and dessert. With each course we could choose from a large collection of uniquely curated teas made just for them, or have them choose one for you. Oh, and would you like some Presecco or champagne with that as well? Needless to say, everything was delicious, we skipped the champagne, and took pictures of every course. Especially the dessert which was a collaboration of excellent pastry work and design of a local artist. They were so beautiful it was hard to cut into them! For the record, the pear was the best.
Then began our attempts to catch a boat. One taxi ride to Westminster Pier yielded the answer that the next boat was a two hour wait due to cancellations. So, we decided to Uber over to Harrod’s to check it out. Other than hearing that everything inside is too expensive for normal people, and that it was owned by the Fayed family (as seen in The Crown) we didn’t know what to expect. Since we had just enjoyed tea, there wasn’t much reason to have a snack, presumably the only thing we’d likely spend money on there. So we rode to the top floor and wound our way around and down until I’d had enough and could confidently say we’d been to Harrods. We at least found out it’s now owned by the State of Qatar! We then caught another Uber and went even further west to try and catch the Uber River boat, only to find out we were about 90 minutes early for the next one. Sooo after all that, we decided we weren’t going to see anything new from the river and it was time to take yet another Uber back to the hotel. One more quick walk for dinner and we capped off a perfect week in London.
And now it’s time to head back to the states. It’s been a month but it feels like it went so fast! And there are so many other places we still need to see. Downton Abbey, the park where the Great British Baking Show tent is pitched, the estate that was Pemberley in Pride and Prejudice, just to name a few. And I suppose there is Stonehenge, the Cliffs of Dover, and Liverpool. We will definitely be back, dear readers, but for now, it’s time to refocus on getting those US National Park Stamps!
Until next time, thinking of all of you. Lady Wanderingwise
Weise's Wanderings 
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