Thursday
Arrivederci Roma and hello London! The process of getting to the airport was a lot less complicated then with our flight from Madrid. We were able to take a bus for only four euros that got us there in about forty-five minutes and over three hours early for our 3:20 flight. We had to wait around for a while in order to check-in because apparently there is a no earlier than three hours rule. For an inexpensive lunch we stopped at the airport McDonalds and much to my surprise they still had a one euro menu that even included milkshakes. Then we went through security and then customs and I got my passport stamped for the second time finally.
The flight went smoothly and I felt relatively little pressure in my ears which was a great improvement from the flight to Rome. To get to the hotel we had to take the metro and it is no simple system that is for certain. It took a good hour I’d say and we had to change lines twice, but fortunately we made it to the hotel and got settled in a bit before heading out to see The Hunger Games at a nearby theater. The commercials started at the time the movie was supposed to begin and they were unlike any I’ve ever seen before and were really ridiculous. I thought movies started late in the U.S. but after being in a London movie theater and waiting about a half hour after the scheduled time to begin, ten or fifteen minutes late doesn’t seem so bad. I enjoyed the movie, however I think I preferred the book and some things were taken out that I wish had been left, but overall it was good.
Friday
It was another early day, because we had to be outside our hotel at eight to be picked up for our tour to Windsor Castle, Stone Hedge and Oxford. It took about an hour to get to Windsor and we had only about an hour and a half to see the castle and grounds, which was hardly sufficient time. An audio guide was included with the price of admission, but I didn’t have enough time to listen to all the descriptions and we had to go straight to the State Apartments and then St. George’s Chapel in order to see the most significant things before meeting at the bus. Windsor is the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world and according to our tour guide Queen Elizabeth spends Friday through Sunday there although she has a total of six residences. In fact, our guide said it was quite possible that she was there while we were there since it was Friday. Rather neat. Paige and I started off seeing Queen Mary’s doll house, which is a miniature palace complete with miniature artworks by the top artists of the time, real gems in its treasury room, gold and silver tableware, and electricity among other things. It was never used to play with though, since it was given to the Queen when she was an adult because she liked to collect miniatures. It was really cool and I would have loved to take pictures but they weren’t allowed in the castle or chapel. We then saw the State Apartments which are still in use on certain occasions. We saw some ornate rooms full of art collections, including by famous artists like Rembrandt, as well as the bedroom used by Napoleon when he came to visit. There was a big banquet hall and fancy rooms that are used to greet very important guests, as well as a huge room that has on the ceiling and walls crests for every knight of the garter. An interesting note was that some of the crests were just white and I learned that these ones were from knights that had done some dishonorable deed and so their crests were painted over as a reminder of their shame. We also saw the room where the knights meet with the queen when they are knighted and have a celebratory meal together. While we were in the castle, we heard music and watched out the window for a bit as the changing of the guards took place. We had tried to watch earlier from outside, but there were too many people to be able to see, so we at least got to see a bit of it from inside anyway. Then we made a very quick visit to St. George’s Chapel where a bunch of past kings and queens are buried including the infamous Henry VIII and Napoleon I. Then it was a fast-paced walk to get back to the bus on time, which didn’t end up leaving right away after all so our rushing was unnecessary but we didn’t want to take any chances at being left behind.
Our second stop to Stonehenge was an hour and a half drive away so I got to take a bit of a nap to pass the time. On the way we passed by Ascot Race Track which is a big deal place that all the royalty and upper classes go wearing somewhat absurd hats to watch horse racing. We had forty-five minutes to walk around Stonehenge, and it seemed like plenty of time, however with listening to the audio guide and taking photos, we again had to book it to the bus in order to be on time.
Our last stop took over an hour and a half due to a detour in order to avoid an accident on the freeway. It was a neat detour because we ended up driving through a quaint little English town as well as seeing some nice scenery of the English countryside. Finally though we made it to Oxford and Claudia, our guide, led us around to see a few of the thirty-eight colleges of Oxford. We saw the oldest one, called Balliol and we also saw a couple others as well as seeing a huge library that apparently has tunnels and tunnels underground filled with books. Right next door to the library was the Radcliffe Building which is used as a place to read the books from the library since it isn’t permitted (not even if you’re the king) to check-out the books. Then we saw a courtyard area of the library that is exciting for any Harry Potter fans since it was used for filming some parts of the movies. Apparently a lot of the movies were filmed in Oxford. We walked by a couple of other buildings that are part of Oxford and then we were given free time before heading back to London. It was a rather long day, but I definitely enjoyed getting to see some cool English sights that I wouldn’t have seen if I hadn’t done the tour since they’re so far out of the city.
Part of the Oxford Library
Once the bus dropped us off a street down from our hotel, we stopped at the grocery store nearby in order to pick up some cheap food items as well as some pizza for supper. Surprisingly food items weren’t super expensive and would have been relatively cheap if it weren’t for the dollars to pounds conversion rate.
Saturday
We headed out to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace on Saturday morning and although we were there about forty-five minutes early, people lined the whole front gate of the palace already. So we ended up staking out a spot along the road in the hopes that the guard would pass by us on their way in. It turned out that the guard went by the other road in, so we saw them from a distance and some of them went back by our side but before the band that accompanied them left, we had given up our spots to see if we could get any closer to the palace. Overall we didn’t get to see all that much, but once the crowds died down, we were able to see a couple of the guards marching back and forth which was cool.
The only part of the ceremony that went by us
what I could see of the band leaving
Buckingham Palace
After we took some photos in front of the palace, we headed off to see Big Ben and on our way we crossed through St. James Park which had a bunch of random birds about in it. I was especially a fan of these huge white birds with super long beaks, and a couple of them were even letting people pet them, so of course I had to join in. The top of the bird’s head was really soft and kind of fluffy and it made for a great photo opportunity as well. Finally we ended up in Parliament Square which as its name suggests has the building of Parliament and also Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. Then ensued a crazy amount of photo-taking. We didn’t go in to the abbey since the entrance fee was a little too much to make it worth it so we opted to at least visit the gift shop where I bought a postcard commemorating the diamond jubilee of the queen which is quite a big deal in the UK.
We then walked up to Trafalgar Square where we saw these huge statues of lions that were pretty cool. Our next stop was to King’s Cross Station that was necessary to fulfill Paige’s lifelong dream of seeing platform 9 ¾. So then we made a quick stop for lunch at Mickey D’s before heading to London Bridge. When we got off the metro at the London Bridge stop, we encountered this small and rather pathetic looking bridge and we were both rather confused. It certainly didn’t seem anything like the bridge we’d expected to see. Fortunately we decided to walk a little farther past it and after going a couple blocks we discovered the amazing Tower Bridge. After some more photo-taking, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for our night at the theater seeing Les Miserables. Although the tickets were a little on the pricey side, we fulfilled another of Paige’s dreams by seeing it, (it was a very fulfilling day for Paige), and it was quite a memorable experience.
Tower Bridge
Sunday
We went to an 11:30 Mass in a church on Queensway, a street just down from our hotel. After we did some shop browsing in search of a cheap shirt or something that says London, but gave up for a little while and took a stroll through Kensington Park and Hyde Park, which are both right next to each other. It would have been slightly more enjoyable if the weather had been a little warmer, without a biting wind, but it was still pleasant scenery anyway. There was a nice little lake that was full of swans, and other bird life, as well as some fountains including the Lady Diana Memorial Fountain.
Italian Fountains in Kensington Park
After about an hour and a half, we ended up at Kensington Palace, the current home of Prince William and Kate, as well as Prince Harry. We decided to pay the admission fee since there were several different exhibits to see within the palace, making it seem worth the price. We started off going through the Queen’s Apartments, which were set up to depict the decline of the Stuart line. Next we visited the Lady Diana exhibit that displayed some of her gowns. Then we saw the King’s Apartments and there were men and women in various rooms dressed as courtiers and they would tell additional information about the specific rooms. I believe there was also a game of sorts that involved collecting cards with letters to spell a word that would reveal your status with the king, but I never discovered any cards, so I’m not totally sure what that was all about. Our last stop in the palace was to the Victoria Revealed exhibit, which started with Victoria becoming queen as a teen and each room showed the events of her life. Definitely interesting to see, and we spent a good two and a half hours in the palace overall.
Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and their 9 children
Before leaving the palace grounds we made a quick trip to the gardens which were filled with some gorgeous and bright colored flowers. Then we headed back to the Queensway Street to do some more shop browsing and pick up a cheap supper from the grocery store. Once back at the apartment we rushed to use the internet and get all prepared to head out at three in the morning in order to take a taxi to Victoria Station, where we would catch a bus to Gatwick Airport for our flight at 7:30am. Despite our attempts to get to sleep at a really early hour, I didn’t fall asleep until close to midnight, which was kind of unfortunate considering I had to get up at two for a big day of traveling to Scotland.
Kensington Palace and the gardens
Scotland and Ireland info will follow at a later date!
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