Sunday,
October 06, 2013 Wandering around London; Greenwich and Play
This
will be a two part journal for most of the day. We all had breakfast together at the bar
which serves the same food as the restaurant but to many fewer people.
It was another good meal at the hotel. Then we headed our separate ways. The others went on a boat trip up (or down,
I’m not sure which) the Thames to Greenwich. I’ll let one of them tell that story later.
I
headed all around London. It was a sunny, quite warm day but it was
beautiful weather. First, I took a taxi
to the Tate Modern Museum,
not to see the art, but to look at some of the wonderful children’s books that
Paula and Sarah told me about at breakfast.
They sure had a lot of nice ones but I only bought three. Zoe is going to have lots of books in her
future, if I can haul them all back in my luggage – no IF about it really, I
WILL be hauling them back. Then I walked
across the Millennium
Bridge, which was new to
me. It was a neat bridge and certainly
frames the Dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral very nicely.
I
couldn’t tour the cathedral because they were having a service but I did look around
without disturbing anyone and really enjoyed that.
It is such a beautiful building and I’m so
moved every time I think about someone standing at the top of the dome watching
London burn
during the blitz!!! Then I walked to a
hop on, hop off stop and bought a ticket from Golden Tours.
He gave me a good price on it (20 pounds) when I said I was not
interested in the boat tour and then I stood and waited a long time for a bus
of that type to arrive. I watched
several Big Bus Blue Line buses go by.
One finally came and I rode it over London Bridge
and got off to see the New Globe Theater.
Had to do some walking to get there, but then that’s the story of seeing
London. There was a play performance going on so I
couldn’t tour there. Oh well, I visited
the two next important places at any stop – the restroom and the gift shop – so
it wasn’t a total waste.
I
went back to the bus stop and waited for a bus, watching the Big Bus Blue Line
buses go by but one of my type finally arrived.
I rode this bus past places I had already seen and got off at Buckingham Palace.
(All during this trip I talked to a man who worked for the bus company,
but he wasn’t a driver or a ticket seller, so I don’t know what he did. He said he inherited three houses along the
Thames, sold one for 2.9 million, bought a shop in Cornwall, spent 60,000
making it into a home that he and his family visit quite a bit and rent out the
rest of the time. He said he lives about
30 minutes away from London
and he described his six acres of meadow land, one acres of playing ground for
his four kids and so forth. He also told
me about some of his previous working places and how her felt he was just a
protector of the desk he worked at since it was so much older than he was. Anyway, I don’t know whether to believe him
or not but I’m not going to give it anymore thought.) When I got to Buckingham Palace
I found that I could not tour it because it is only open a couple of months a
year. Bummer. However, the gift shop and bathroom were
available so you know where I did tour.
I have been buying a lot of pins and putting them on a white sheep I
bought so that will be my animal souvenir of this trip. I did walk to the front of Buckingham Palace
and the guards were changing!!
It was
not the huge once a day change, but rather four guards marched to the two
guards on duty and two new guards took the place of the old ones. They must do this every few hours, but there
was no big fan fare about it; however, they performed the change with precision
and briskness.
So, I wandered back to
the bus stop and watched more Big Bus Blue Line buses go by til one of mine
finally appeared. I got on and rode to
Picadilly Circus and walked quite a bit to Fortnum and Mason. This is a pretty fancy store and I didn’t
spend much time in it. It seemed a little to rich for my tastes – there was a
huge area of candies and it almost seemed like the shoppers were in a frenzy to
fill their fancy little carts and stand in the long lines to give their money
away. It was actually kind of creepy so
I left.
I walked quite a ways down the
street and waited at the bus stop. I
finally got on one of my buses after watching lots of Big Bus Blue Line buses
go by. My next stop was Harrods. Gee, that’s a big store and lots of those
people in there were RICH!!!! I was
totally overwhelmed. Just out of
curiosity I picked up a couple of items to look at the price, but I couldn’t
find a price anywhere on them. I guess
if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it. I didn’t spend too much time there but I did
finally find the section of the Diana and Dodi Memorial which is what I went to
see anyway.
Then I left as soon as I
could. I don’t exactly understand how I
was able to look at lots of women who were completely covered up by the black
veils and floor length dresses they were wearing and tell that they were
obscenely rich, but it seems I could do that or at least that’s how it seemed
to me. I left Harrods and found the bus
stop.
Guess what I saw?? That’s right – several
Big Bus Blue Line buses go by while I waited on mine. I had had enough. I bought a ticket and got on a Big Bus Blue
Line bus myself. I rode a while and saw
new stuff and decided to get out at Kensington
Palace because I wanted to see the
Diana Memorial on Serpentine
Lake and to see what the
Palace looked like. It was completely
hidden from the road by trees. So I got
out and carefully paid attention to my path as I walked through a huge park toward
the palace.
I gave up on the Memorial as
it was still a long way off but I did go into the Palace since I was allowed to
do so. I actually paid for a self guided
tour and saw some of the rooms but felt that I shouldn’t spend the time to see
it all – I knew that the buses would quit running at some point in the near
future.
I found the bus stop and didn’t
have to wait too long for the right bus to come along, thank goodness. We rode and rode for miles and miles (seemed
like it anyway) and then we were told we had to change buses. I got on the right bus and we waited a long
time until we were going again. (There
was a poor lady who had been on the same bus and she kept talking to herself
and getting off the bus, then getting back on it.
The driver had gotten off and pointed her to
different places, but she got back on the bus.
She obviously has severe problems but the bus people were very nice to
her.) The new bus was going by Baker Street and I
knew I didn’t have time to see the Sherlock
Holmes Museum
but I thought I could jump off the bus, run to the Baker Street Underground and
take photos of the wonderful Sherlock tiles on the walls of the station. So off I go with the driver telling me that
the LAST bus of the day is not far behind him!!
I moved quickly but found no wonderful tiles. I asked a worker about it and he directed me
to some small tiles but I would have had to buy a ticket for the underground to
get to them and I knew I didn’t have time for that.
I went back to the bus stop and sat for a long
time. I had decided that I would soon
take a taxi if a bus didn’t show up within five minutes but lo and behold, one
did. It was the last bus and last bus
and it was packed but I stood up for a long way, happy to be on the bus as I
was on the other side of London
from my hotel. I finally got a seat and
rode a long way enjoying the sites.
I
love London and
I hope to come back another time because there are still things I want to see
and do. I got off the bus and walked to
the London Eye again to see how late it is open at night. It stops at 8:30 so my friends and I can’t
ride it tonight, but we will in the morning. I came back to the hotel and packed my stuff all up – it’s ready to
go. I even washed some clothes so that I
would have clean things to wear for the last day or so!! I bet my friends will appreciate that.
Sue
has sent me a story of there day up until the play so I will put that here:
We
left for the boat about 11:00
Linda called her daughter Susan from the Prime
Meridian. Happy Birthday Susan from both sides!
We walked across Westminster
Bridge taking pictures of Big Ben,
parliament, the London
Eye and other sites along the way. We purchased our tickets, joined the
queue, and boarded our boat for the 75 minute ride to Greenwich!
We made several stops along
the way and one of the crew filled is in on all the sites along the way
including but not limited to:
Where captain Kidd was hanged
Where Charles dickens wrote great expectations
Docklands
The oldest pub in England
The recreated globe
London city
Westminster city and where they come
together
Tower of London
Tower bridge
Assorted wards
Old tea warehouses
The shard
The anchor pub
The canary Wharf
Heard stories about be headings -they were gross. After
chopping off the head of Anna Boleyn they dipped it in tar and hung it on a
post. They did that to traitors too.
When we arrived at Greenwich we went into the Royal Naval
academy and asked how to get to the Prime Meridian Line. We got directions and
then hailed a taxi to take us there. He was great. We paid him to wait
for us. We found the area and then we learned that we needed to pay 7 pounds to
see the line. We of course paid and entered. We located the line, took
everyone's picture on the line.
We of course visited the gift shop.
Our taxi was waiting. We entered the taxi and headed
back to the docks
We paid the driver and made out graceful exits.
As the taxi drove off Paula realized she had left her bag of wonderful
souvenirs in the taxi. We looked at the group and Sue looked at Sarah and
decided she would have to be the one to chase the taxi. We knew that he was
going to pick up a guy a block back. Well bless her heart, she did it! We
look up and here comes Sarah with Paula's bag!
Whew! Crisis averted.
We returned to the dock in time to catch the next
boat.
We got to hear ore stories on the way back to Westminster.
We all managed to climb the million steps back to the
top of the bridge!
We returned to the hotel and ate in the hotel bar. We
had ham and cheese sandwiches, club sandwiches, fish stick sandwich, and
pizza.
Most of us went to a show titled "Let It Be.
". Yes it was a Beatles show. It was just like being at a Beatles concert.
It was 2.5 hours of Beatles music. Everyone really seemed to enjoy
it.
That’s
their day. We plan to meet downstairs
and pay our hotel bill tonight instead of being in the mob in the morning – we
have seen how crowded it is in the mornings and we don’t want any part of
that. Tomorrow morning after breakfast,
we will put our luggage in storage and then go see some more of London. At some point, we will pick up our luggage
and take taxis to the Holiday Inn at Heathrow
Airport to spend our last night in England for
this trip. We will be at the airport
nice and early Wednesday morning to fly home.
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