20240529 Wednesday, May 29, 2024; A Full Day In London
Breakfast was a full buffet but no separate hot food to order. They had all the makings of a full English breakfast on the buffet steam tables as well as eggs scrambled, sunny side up, or hard boiled. They had automated espresso machines so Ben was able to have real flat whites for a change. That brought back memories of Australia, where the flat white originated.
We had timed entry tickets for the British Museum at 11:20, but had hoped to maybe sneak in at 10am when they opened if there was not too much of a line. We left the hotel at 8:30 and it took just under an hour to get to the British Museum from the hotel using a bus and a transfer onto an underground line. There was about a half mile of walking for the last leg to the British Museum. We were surprised there was no connecting bus service or even an underground line directly to the British Museum. If fact, prior to WWII, there had been an underground station at the British Museum, but that was closed permanently when some of that infrastructure was appropriated for Britain’s WWII defenses. With all the walking, it is rare to see any obese Londoners.
We arrived 45 minutes prior to the 10AM opening, and there was a cue forming up right away. We were about the 6th and 7th in line, but within minutes, the line was stretching down the block. It was evident that we weren’t going to be able to get in with our 11:20AM timed tickets if 10AM ticket holders were lining up around the block. So we decided to strike off and see the memorial for Diana Princess of Wales and Buckingham Palace. When we got to park where the Princess Diana memorial was supposed to be, we discovered they did not ever actually build the fountain and memorial for her. Instead, they inset commemorative markers in the pavement marking a 7 mile trail system through the park.
We did learn that a changing of the Guard would be taking place at Buckingham Palace at 10am, so we joined the rapidly gathering crowd around the huge traffic circle in front of the Palace. The British certainly love their pomp and circumstance. They had not one, but two processions lead by marching bands escorted by police mounted on horses and bicycles.
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Then came a surprise as high speed motorcade lead by motorcycles sped by with a burgundy Rolls Royce carrying King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla along with several other black SUV’s. They sped around to a side entrance out of sight. So we got a very brief peek of King Charles III. The King’s arrival isn’t usually a part of the changing of the guard, but this probably coincided with the King’s commute to work this morning.
All of the fancy ceremonial changing of the guards was taking place behind the closed gates in front of the palace, and since we were across the traffic circle, all we could see was an occasional glimpse of bearskin hats and red uniforms marching past the gate to the sounds of military band music. The crowds were so packed, it took a lot of effort to escape and head to another underground station where we could get back to the British Museum.
The British Museum website had a list of 14 “Must See” items in their collection of particular cultural significance, so we had our British Museum scavenger hunt to follow. The collections are so vast that you could easily spend a full day in many of the galleries, but we did manage the discipline to be able to see all of the “Must See” items and also wander a bit through the galleries. We thought the most interesting items were some thing we caught a glimpse of in the National Museum of Scotland, and those were the Lewis Chess Set pieces. Scotland has 11 pieces, while the British museum has the rest. The intricacy of the walrus tusk carvings isn’t the only thing about the pieces. They have so much individual expression and personality, it is wondrous to think these came into being in the dark ages.
We were pretty much spent after 4 hours, so we decided to take in a couple of other sights. A niece of ours, who just finished a semester abroad in London, had highly recommended we see the Outernet Now building. Since it was right next to the Underground Station we would need to take to get to Trafalgar Square, we did check it out. It is a super high tech multimedia installation with several rooms completely lined with LED panels that can immerse you in images and sounds. There were several “shows” that played in sequence. It reminded us a little of the Laserium shows we had ushered during our college days at the Pacific Science Center in being immersive, but the computer generated animations were amazing and creative. We were very glad to have had a reason to sit and watch something like that rather than spend all that time walking more because our feet were pretty tired just from doing the British Museum.
We walked a bit through the West End theater district and even stopped at a Burger King for lunch.
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Then it was a short Underground trip to Trafalgar Square, but we found it was completely obscured by 8’ high fencing and inaccessible. It has been turned into a venue for a FIFA World Cup entertainment event. We could barely snap a picture of one of the lions and Lord Nelson through a gap in the fencing. We did arrive at the National Art Gallery in time to quickly tour a couple of the galleries. We enjoy the impressionists, and they did have a nice collection of impressionists and post impressionists. They even had a beautiful Klimt portrait. The museum stayed open until 6pm, but the guards and staff became very aggressive about pushing people out of the building at 5:45pm. They even roped off the bathrooms at that time. It was a good thing we started heading out at 5:42PM. We were the last people allowed to use the toilets.
We then walked down to the Thames to see the London Eye, Parliament, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, even though we had seen those on a prior visit.
We decided to take surface double decker buses home to see more of the city, and the first one took to just past Victoria Station where we were supposed to catch a connecting bus service which would take us directly back to our hotel in the Regents Park area. Google maps kept showing arrival times for the bus, but no bus would appear. After a half hour of waiting, Ben checked alternative sources and discovered that this particular bus route was impacted by the World Cup Event. So we had to turn around and head back to Westminster and then take another Underground line to get us back up to St. John’s Wood, which was within walking distance of our hotel.
We had dinner at a nice restaurant called The Ivy at St. John’s Wood. They had Italian and English food on the menu, and had a much nicer dining room with fancy upholstered chairs, table cloths and waiters. The food was excellent, but we broke our tradition of fish and chips and steak and ale pies because they had a special on a starter and entree for a great price. We ended up with their version of Shepard’s pies, made with a mix of ground lamb and beef served in a bowl topped with mash and gravy, following a delicious roasted tomato soup and endive, goat cheese and nut salad.
We’ll have to reconfigure our suitcases for the Rail portion of our tour which means shifting more weight into the small suit cases so the big one is not unmanageable for getting in and out of the train stations. Our travels in the Underground today demonstrated having our large suit case in addition to our back packs and smaller suitcases would be too much to wrestle with. So we’ll call an Uber to take us to the Eurostar train station after breakfast. We will have to clear French Customs before boarding the train so we have to arrive early.
