Initial Impressions
More damn stairs in our hotel!! Seriously we are so done with stairs in our hotels, give us a break or an elevator or something. The English language, oh how we love it! TV we can understand, people we can understand, train
stations we can understand, menus we can understand. We didnt realise how comfortable we feel surrounded by our own language. For the first time in a month we didnt fear for our life while crossing the road because we knew which way to look. Finally a country that smokes less, honestly we were beginning to feel like a pack a day smokers in some of the other countries. England, ahhhh.
Day 1
After a comatose sleep we arose to
face the centre of the British empire, or that which once was. We
knew we had a formidable task to see as much as we could in only five days so
we strapped on the shoes and walked our arses off.
First stop was Piccadilly circus as
its meant to be super cool, lit up with massive screens and just a general hub
of activity. We found it after about 40 minutes walking and sure enough,
massive screens, lots of activity but not the “wow” we were expecting. That
would come later when we returned at night. At Piccadilly though there is
possibly the worlds largest tourist shop specialising in British everything and
I mean everything! If you can think
of it, there's a British flag on it.
On our way around the corner we
stopped at a theatre to buy show tickets to Les Miserables at the Queens
Theatre for the following night. Moving along we hustled to Trafalgar square
but not before another ticket office to purchase more show tickets (We Will
Rock You) for the night after Le Mis and Big Bus Tour tickets.
The incredibly famous and popular
Trafalgar square features in its centre Nelsons column. The names derived from
the Battle of Trafalgar where Lord Nelson defeated both the French and Spanish
navies but in the process was killed. Immortalising him forever the Brits have
built an imposing tribute to Nelson complete with massive bronze lions and
fountains. We stopped to have lunch and Amy dealt with having about 400,000 thousand
pigeons around her. There is a space
in the square which is reserved for a local artist who for 12 months will have
a piece displayed. 2013s is a big blue chook. You figure it out, we cant.
After topping up our fuel tanks we
set off to visit Mr Cameron at 10 Dowling street. Unfortunately they wouldn’t
let us even SEE the front door. That place is locked down tighter than Chinas
internet filter. We waved and moved on.
Walking around a corner we spotted
The Queens Tower, otherwise known as Big Ben. There is a misperception that Big
Ben IS the tower, this is incorrect. Big Ben is the 14 ton bell that rings on
the hour whilst the clock tower itself is The Queens tower. Amy remarked that
she thought it would be bigger. I had to agree. Whilst its sizable and imposing
I think it gets played up in pictures and on TV. We did get to hear Ben strike
a few times whilst in London and its very distinct.
To get a better look at the houses
of Parliament that Queens Tower is built on we walked over the bridge next to
it. It was a breezy day and getting out over the Thames we felt pretty
windswept but the views were worth it.
Continuing our trek of London we
walked around the corner to Westminster Abbey where every Royal since 1066 has
been crowned, christened, married and farewelled in death. It is the grandest
looking Church\Cathedral I’ve seen on our travels and we considered going in
for a look until a) we saw the line to get in and b) the admission price. 22
pounds per adult for admission. This would turn into a theme and we learnt that
London is the most expensive city in the world to visit. Everything is at least
20 pounds to go and see or do ($40AUD each). So we have given Westminster a
miss this time around.
Changing direction we walked
through the beautiful St James Park on our way to Buckingham palace. St James
park is small in comparison to Hyde Park but it houses the Royals collection of
birds and water fowl. This was somewhat confronting for Amy but she handled it
gracefully even getting up close to the ducks (not geese) for some photos.
There are squirrels running everywhere that are completely tame and will let
you feed them nuts.
Emerging from the park we saw the
grey mass of stone that is Buckingham Palace and I could not stop “God Save the
Queen” from playing over and over in my head. The gates and fences are high and
pointy which encourage the peasants to stay out along with the several armed
guards marching around. Imagining the place full of a million people during
celebrations isn’t hard and we got a small preview a few days later of that.
After that we were quite done with
walking for the day, a pretty solid effort and knowing we had 4 flights of
stairs waiting for us back our hotel we called it a day and took the tube back
to Kings Cross.
Day 2
As much as we are on ‘holiday’ we can’t avoid the inevitable,
so we headed to a Laundromat and spent the morning watching our washing go
round and finishing off the Belgium blog. We often find ourselves blogging
wherever and whenever we can – there is no perfect moment or place.
We had purchased a two day pass on the hop on hop off bus,
it was raining lightly but that didn’t deter us from getting right on the open
air top deck. We figured if we cant handle a little rain now then were are not
going to do to well with 2 months in the UK.
We jumped off the bus at the Tower Bridge, it really is very
beautiful, but again seemed smaller than what is fed to us in pictures and
movies. Just to clarify Tower Bridge is not London Bridge, Tower Bridge is the
amazing iconic bridge you think of, London Bridge is the kids nursery rhyme.
Interestingly London bridge was sold to the Americans some time ago, whoever
made the purchase didn’t investigate properly because they thought they had
brought Tower Bridge and were a little disappointed with the purchase.
Across the Thames next to the Tower Bridge is the Tower of
London where we explored for a little over 3 hours, but realised we should have
allowed about 5 hours. We arrived in time for a guided tour with a Yeoman
Warder (ceremonial guardians of the Tower of London). This is a highly
prestigious role, which many apply for but there are only 37. They live at the
Tower with their families and have served the Commonwealth in high ranking
military positions for over 22 years. The Tower is not literally a tower but
several within two rows of walls. The moat has been drained for some time now
and you can stand in it. The central tower or “White Keep” was started in 1066
to bring the newly conquered Londoners to heel.
The Crown
jewels are kept in the Tower of London in the basement behind security that can
only be imagined. The vault doors each weigh in excess of 2 tons. The
presentation of the Royal Treasury far exceeds the effort put in by previous
countries with multimedia displays, interactive exhibits and the precious
shinies. Britains crowns are seriously
impressive. We especially liked the horizontal travelators past the main
attractions so people couldn’t hog the spot. The Cullinan Diamond or Great Star
of Africa mounted in the royal sceptre is the largest cut diamond in the world
at 530 carats. The Cullinan II is mounted in the royal crown and at 317 carats is no wallflower. No
photos were allowed but you can google search yourself to see pictures.
We caught a cruise down the river Thames, it was not as
amazing as we had expected it to be, but a nice way to end a busy day on our
feet.
That evening we saw Les Miserables at the Queen Theatre, it
was really an unforgettable performance. Following we went to M&M world
(all 4 floors of it) and was really just mesmerised that people buy crap like
this and spend so much money doing it, but each to their own. It was a pretty amazing store just to come and have a play in. You cant help but just feel happy in here, surrounded by so much colour.
Day 3
We started the day by missing both buses required to get us
to Harrods, and when finally on board we were stuck in traffic. Ninety minutes later
we finally arrived at Harrods. WOW! We don’t have the time to describe this
place other than your jaw will be on the floor and you will be wishing to win
the lotto as this place flaunts a lifestyle that many can only dream of, and some
of this stuff even your dreams could imagine. As we walked into
the homewares section we couldn’t help but take a moment to realise how the
other half live. Staring at a dinner set we realised that if we ever went
anywhere that had anything this nice we wouldn’t know what to do. But mostly we
felt that should we ever be blessed to have money to afford this we wouldn’t
buy it because there are people in far greater need. As our jaws were on the
floor and we were thinking we were approached by a
saleswoman who we started to share our thoughts with. She was from Sri Lanka
and her husband from Uganda and she has seen the extremes of poverty and excess
wealth. She gave us examples of the customers she has, one who dropped 110,000
pounds on one dinner set which was only for his private jet. Can you even
imagine?!
We ate in the food hall which was incredible, and over the
top but we loved every inch of it. For the record there is 28 restaurants/
cafes in Harrods, just in case you’re in need of choice. We shared a piece of 4
layered chocolate cake, with chocolate ganache and mousse, this revolutionised
chocolate cake for us. I am actually salivating writing this blog. In fact just
go to Harrods to eat the cake.
We had purchased tickets to the show We Will Rock You, and
had no idea what it was about or what to expect other than it had great
reviews. Sure enough it is a musical from the songs of Queen and was written
with the remaining members of Queen. Completely cheesy and predictable story
line, yet hilarious, engaging, enjoyable and a magnificent night out, and the
pipes on these singers were sensational, people were out of their seats and
singing along it was a lot of fun.
Day 4
Today we set out of the mecca of London shopping, Oxford
street. We had realised over the last month that we had some gaps in our
wardrobe and decided to fill them. Catching the reliable tube we arrived and
walked the whole strip stopping at a few places to make some purchases, we
barely touched the surface, but felt we would only make ourself sad not being
able to buy everything if we kept looking.
We bought some sandwiches and went to Hyde Park to eat our lunch in the sun. Afterwards we hired some bikes to ride around the park. Setting off we explored the park on two wheels finding the Princess Diana memorial fountain, a lakeside cafĂ© where we had coffee and soaked in its beauty, its sounds, its vibrancy and its vitamin D. Riding was definitely the best way to see the park and a highlight of London for us, we recommend it if you’re ever there. Just to note the photos of Amy riding were taken by Simon whilst riding one handed - pretty impressive!
We bought some sandwiches and went to Hyde Park to eat our lunch in the sun. Afterwards we hired some bikes to ride around the park. Setting off we explored the park on two wheels finding the Princess Diana memorial fountain, a lakeside cafĂ© where we had coffee and soaked in its beauty, its sounds, its vibrancy and its vitamin D. Riding was definitely the best way to see the park and a highlight of London for us, we recommend it if you’re ever there. Just to note the photos of Amy riding were taken by Simon whilst riding one handed - pretty impressive!
That evening we walked to the local pub and had some beers
and a proper pub feed. Feeling properly British after our day out we turned in
for our last night in London to do a little more blog writing before catching
some Z’s.
Day 5
We felt as though we needed to see the changing of the
guard, because apparently this is what you do when in London (us along with
approx. 10,000 other tourists). We were clever and were going to beat them all
by getting there over an hour early. Yeah ok, at least 4,000 of them thought of
that to but aimed for 1hr and 30 mins before, taking all the best spots for
themselves. So the only thing we had going for us was Simon and his vertical
advantages. Amy gave him the camera for obvious reasons. The highlight was the
military band who were brilliant and played a collection of James Bond music.
We met up with Denise (Simons cousin) to say hi, we will be
staying with her later in our UK trip.
We then proceeded to pick up our car, and the office was
closed and had been for over an hour… Thankfully after a lot of ringing around
we were able to find the same company about 30 mins out of town who had the car
and could honour our booking. We were upgraded to a Ford Mondeo a little bigger
than our original option. The upgrade also meant that the car had a GPS, great
right… yeah not when you had dropped $140 on a GPS the day before thinking
you’re going to need it for the next 2 months.
Off to see the rest of England we go!
Parting Thoughts
- The city is huge, so huge, but dont let this put you off walking, you will find cool stuff everywhere. This being said we used the metro a lot, it is easy to use and navigate, but so expensive.
- Everything is so expensive, so so expensive! It can be seen it on the cheap if you are prepared to walk and see things from the outside to avoid entrance fees. Parks are also lovely and free.
- Clothes shopping unlike the rest of London is remarkably good value and Oxford St has the most incredible range of items with most stores having at least 5 floors to offer you.
- We wish we could have spent 2 weeks here, so much to see and do. We hope to spend a little extra here at the end of our England journey before we head to France.
- Media has done a lot to hype the 'bigness' of Londons attractions, in reality things are a lot smaller than expected.
Lessons Learnt
- Be prepared to sit around a lot if you plan on going on the busses around London.
- Tower of London needs a whole day not the 2 hours they recommend.
- Bring $$$ (actually bring pounds) and lots of it, if on a budget choose wisely about what you want to see as everything is inflated.
- Tube and oyster cards are super convenient but costs add up quick.
- Take the tube over a hop on hop off bus. The bus is nice to see everything and to hear commentry, but it is slow, expensive and inconvenient if you want to be somewhere at certain times.
- Allow a week to just shop, and bring an extra suitcase to fill.
- You might think you’re doing well for yourself but a visit to Harrods puts you in your place again providing perspective on how the 1%ers live.
Simon and Amy
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