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Published: June 29th 2010
Friday 25 June
Our final day in Israel was another interesting and educational one. We made a fairly late start (which seems to happen whenever we don’t have something booked in for a set time) and went on a fairly long drive to Rechovot, to visit the Ayalon Institute on Kibbutzim Hill. When we arrived we were told that we did need to book a tour, and that there was an English one starting 45 minutes later, which we could attend. We rushed off to look for a place for a quick bite, so that we wouldn’t have to worry about lunch afterwards. We found a burger bar not too far away and shared two burger meals between us. In Israel the portions are so huge that we have not once ordered us each our own meal!
We then dashed back to the Ayalon Institute for the tour. The museum is on the original site of a clandestine bullet manufacturing factory that was operated by the Haganah from 1942 until independence. The tour was amazing in that every exhibit was completely authentic. We went down into the secret room under the kibbutz laundry and bakery, where the bullets were made and even tested. Many members of the kibbutz did not know that this operation was going on right under their noses - and they were aptly nicknamed the ‘giraffes’ by those in on the secret! The chap whose job it was to snip the ends off the bullets was nicknamed ‘mohel’! We were told he once snipped his finger instead because he was too busy looking at the prettiest girl in the organisation.
After the tour we headed to Jaffa and walked around the Old City and then the market. We bought a couple of small items and after a while tried to find our way back to where we had parked the car - which proved rather tricky in the warren of streets. Russel had set his GPS watch but even that was confused and sent us around in circles! Just as I was starting to feel nervous, we found the right spot.
Then it was back to the flat to pack up and have our check-out inspection, before heading to the David Hotel to say a quick goodbye to the Bernsteins who had just arrived back in Tel Aviv from Eilat. Unfortunately there was a mis-communication with the Israeli from the holiday rental company, and he arrived too late for us to see them, as they had dinner arrangements. We then drove across town to drop of the cursed GPS, fill up the tank and get some take-aways for supper. We needed to get to bed ASAP as we were waking up at 4.15am in order to be at the airport in time for our 8am flight to London. Russel and Ryan first went for a walk on the beachfront to hide the bullet that Russel had found in Akko, hoping that one day Ryan will come back and find it again!
This morning we made a very early start and arrived at the airport at 5.45am, after returning the car and taking the shuttle bus to the terminal. There was an extremely long queue for the security screening, which moved excruciatingly slowly. Fortunately we passed the test and were sent straight to check-in (others had to have their bags x-rayed and searched). Then it was passport control with more questions. It seemed to take forever, but eventually we were through the formalities and went to spend our remaining shekels in the airside shopping area.
The five hour flight to London was uneventful, but we were all pretty tired from our crack-of-dawn start. We arrived at terminal 5, then took the train to terminal 3 where we collected Ryan’s Oyster Card (there is a different process for 11 to 15 year olds as photo ID is required). We then took the Piccadilly Line directly to Earls Court, and finally as we exited the station, we felt immediately that we were in London. Earl’s Court Rd is just so typically London! Wide streets, beautifully restored old terrace buildings, even the signage has something ‘English’ about it. We went to an old-fashioned Italian restaurant for lunch, and then took a very short walk to 13 Earl’s Court Gardens, where we are currently staying. Again we have chosen a fantastic position! The flat itself is the upper 3 levels of a 4 level terrace, fairly old in design and furnishings. However we are quite comfortable, apart from the smell of the cats owned the landlady on the bottom level, which only seems to be offensive to me. And London is hot! . Not quite in the same league as Israel, thank heavens, but hot nonetheless. Quite ironic, as in Israel we were looking forward to the cool London weather! Apparently it is the first decent weather of the summer season, and there were hoards of people out and about, taking advantage of it After starting to unpack we decided rather to join them outdoors and explore the neighbourhood. Judging by the cars parked in the driveways in our street, we are in a wealthy area, although I would have to guess that our house is in need of some major renovation to match its neighbours.
We walked to the Natural History Museum (about a fifteen minute walk) and spend about an hour and a half there, and of course saw only a fraction of it. Dean has been dying to see the “dinosaur bones museum”, so we did that first, wizzing through the great display (but unfortunately T-Rex was closed for renovations!). Then we skimmed through the human body section, which was ‘super-good’ to use one of Dean’s expressions, but we were all exhausted by that stage and headed back, stopping at Sainsburys to do a shop on the way home. We were quite surprised that the grocery prices there were on the whole cheaper after converting to Australian dollars than at home. We stocked up on juice, cereals, yoghurts, readymade curry and rice for tonight’s dinner and ready-to-bake pastas for tomorrow night.
It’s now 10 pm London time, which is 12 pm Israel time, and since we’ve been up since 4.15 it’s definitely time to call it it a (very long) day.
Saturday 26 June
Today was jam-packed! We literally walked our feet off but we saw so much and enjoyed it immensely. We spent most of the day in the company of the Original London Bus Tour. We left the flat at about 8.45 am and walked up Brompton Rd to Gloucester Rd, where we caught the Museum Tour bus to Piccadilly Circus. After having a quick look around (there is scaffolding on some of the buildings) we walked to Trafalgar Square and had a longer look around as the boys were very impressed with it all, especially the lion statues, onto which they climbed for photos. We later learned on the bus tour that they are the most climbed-on statues in the world! And also that the sculptor had never seen a real lion and modelled them on cats! These tours are a mine of (useful?) information.
We then went to the tour company’s office near the square in order to join the 10.30 am ‘Changing of the Guard Walk’. There was a huge group of tourists on the walk, but the guide was terrific and made it really interesting. We first went to Whitehall to see the Horse Guards perform their change over ceremony, then dashed across St James Park to see the marching band come out of their quarters and walked alongside them down the Mall. We left the band and arrived at the Wellington Barracks in time to see the guards leaving for the palace. Then it was off to Buckingham Palace, or rather to a vantage point a little bit away in Green Park, as we wouldn’t have seen anything with the swarms of tourists by the fence. Our guide explained how the captains of the old and new guard have a hand-over of the ceremonial key (there is no real key to the palace!), and then head off for a drink, leaving their men to do their duty in the grounds of the palace. On our walk back up The Mall we saw another small change-over ceremony near St James Palace.
On arriving back at Trafalgar Square, we bought take-away rolls and sandwiches and sat at the base of one of the lions to eat our lunch. We then got on the yellow Original Tour bus, which had live commentary from a very informative and entertaining guide. The route took us to Hyde Park Corner, up alongside the park to Marble Arch, down to Buckingham Palace, past Westminster Abbey and Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, across Lambeth Bridge, back across Westminster Bridge, along the Strand and Fleet Street to St Paul’s Cathedral, across London Bridge and then finally over Tower Bridge where we disembarked. There were thousands of tourists wherever we went, and the buses tours were all pretty full too. We started off this trip sitting downstairs, and moved to the upper open deck when it emptied out at Buckingham Palace. It was very hot in the covered areas of the bus, but there was a lovely cool breeze in the open air section, where we eventually landed up sitting.
At Tower Hill we walked down to Tower Pier, stopping for ice-creams and drinks on the way. We boarded the boat for our included City Cruise to Westminster Pier, with interesting live commentary about many of the sites and buildings along the Thames. The first of these was the ‘Traitors’ Gate’ to the Tower of London, where condemned prisoners were brought by boat for their final days before their hanging. We sat under cover, purely because all the outside seats were taken, and enjoyed the shade and cool breezes coming through the open windows.
After disembarking at Westminster, we walked a big loop, across Westminster Bridge, along the South Bank to the London Eye, across the Jubilee pedestrian bridge, and down Victoria Embankment. The whole area was buzzing with tourists, and the South Bank was particularly festive, with plenty of buskers entertaining the crowds. The queues for the London Eye seemed chaotic. The boys were pretty tired by now and were keen to head homeward. However we decided to detour past Westminster Abbey in case we don’t get another opportunity to visit it. The Abbey was already closed to visitors by this time, but we did admire it from the outside. Across the road, occupying a small park, was a small tent city protesting to bring home the British soldiers still in Iraq. Around the park were statues of prominent statesmen of modern history, including Churchill, Smuts and Mandela.
It was time to head home. We walked for about fifteen minutes towards Buckingham Palace before we managed to hop on one of the tour buses, which took us to Hyde Park Corner. We were hoping to then catch the Museum Tour bus back to our starting point, but it was close to six o’clock and the driver told us there would be no more buses. So we walked a little way through Hyde Park, which was packed with all sorts of people, including a fair number heading to an open-air Stevie Wonder concert. We saw a very interesting ‘upside-down’ tree, on top of which some males were sitting cross-legged. The boys were quite intrigued. We walked for a little way along the Serpentine, and then headed back to make our way south to Knightsbridge and then along Brompton Rd to Earl’s Court. It was a long walk home but definitely more interesting than hopping on a bus, so we persevered. The streets were crowded, particularly around Harrods, which is currently on sale. I am sure that it being a beautifully warm and sunny Saturday evening also had something to do with it. To our amazement, it only gets dark close to 10 pm and the sun is up again before 5 am. It’s great, but it doesn’t leave too much time for sleeping!
When we finally reached the flat, I heated the ready-to-bake pasta dishes and garlic bread we had bought at Sainsburys, made a simple salad and dinner was served. Then it was to bath and to bed.
Sunday 27 June
Sunday dawned bright and sunny, with a top temperature forecast of 30 degrees. So much for escaping the heat of Israel for the cool of London! Russel headed off for a 10km run around Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, Greg had woken with a headache and was feeling very sorry for himself, Dean was telling his car stories and Ryan was sleeping. By 10 am we were on our way to the Science Museum.
We hopped on the 74 bus for the couple of stops up Cromwell Rd.
We spent an hour and a half at the Launchpad, which is the kids’ interactive area of the museum. The boys were fascinated by the hands-on activities and were keen to try them all. Even Dean had fun pushing the buttons or pulling the levers on the exhibits and watching the results. We also watched a 20 minute live show on Explosions, learned a lot and even witnesses a few small ones!
Then it was time to head to the Globe Theatre, where Ryan and I were seeing the production of Macbeth. We caught the tube from South Kensington to Mansion House, and then walked across the Millennium Bridge to the Globe in Southwark, arriving just in time for the 1 pm performance. Our seats were in the Upper Gallery, one behind the other, and after we were seated we had a few minutes to take in the thatch-roofed, open-air theatre that is an authentic replication of the 1599 original. Before the production started, we were entertained by the three witches and some very bloody ‘corpses’ who were scaring the audience members in the standing area in front of the stage (the standing tickets were only five pounds each but then you are standing for almost 3 hours.) The production was excellent and cleverly interspersed with comic relief from the witches and a corpulent, drunken watchman.
Meanwhile, Russel, Greg and Dean had fish and chips for lunch at a nearby pub, visited the Golden Hinde replica of Sir Francis Drake’s ‘pirate’ ship, and watched a little of the England-Germany soccer match before meeting us outside the theatre. We then went to a pub with an outdoor screen alongside the Golden Hinde so that Russel and Greg could watch the end of the game. What a different story it would have been in the streets of London if England had won!
After the game, we made our way to London Bridge station, and after mistakenly going to the rail station instead of the tube station, managed to put ourselves onto the Northern Line to its end at Edgware, where we arrived some 40 minutes later. Our friend Rael met us at the station and drove us back to his house, and Jodi and the boys. We spent a lovely evening with them, or at least Russel and I did, as Greg’s headache had returned and he spent the entire evening lying on the couch, eventually falling asleep there. Ryan was also very tired and not very sociable. Dean managed to find some energy reserves and was happily entertained by Jodi’s little dog. They made a barbeque dinner for us, and we enjoyed our first taste of ‘home-cooked’ food in some time. As the kids were so exhausted, we booked a large mini-cab to take us home at 9.15 pm, arriving back in Earl’s Court at 10 pm, and straight to bed.
Tuesday 29 June
Yesterday we made a late start in order to give the boys some time to sleep in (Ryan), recuperate (Greg), play (Dean), and catch up on their journals (Ryan and Greg). When we eventually got going, we took the underground from Earl’s Court towards Wimbledon, alighting at Southfields, where the platform is bedecked as a tennis court and throngs of people were making their way to the stadium. We were hoping against hope to be able to buy ground passes for the day. We passed a South African shop in the main street and went in to buy a packet of sliced biltong and another of droerwors, which we snacked on while we walked. Presently we reached the park where the queue for tickets began, and then it snaked alongside the road, only ending at the ticket office a kilometre or so further on. We spoke to an official who said that the grounds were full, and they would only be letting people in as others exited, and the chances of getting in before 5 pm were pretty slim. However, it does happen that if you arrive around 7 pm you can get straight in. We walked to the stadium and had a look from the road, to see what we could see, which did leave us wanting more! We will be going back this evening to try again!
We caught a bus back to the station and took the underground to Tower Hill Station, and walked down towards the Tower of London. We had a quick bite for lunch, bought a forty-seven pound family ticket, and into the Tower we went. We waited a few minutes for the 3 pm Beefeater tour, which was jam packed. The Yeoman guard, also known as a Beefeater (the origins of the nickname are unknown, he told us, although he did mention a few theories), intrigued us with tales of imprisonment, torture and execution, which certainly caught Ryan and Greg’s attention. After the tour we headed for the ‘moat’ and a demonstration of siege weapons by some actors in character. As we arrived they were demonstrating an arrow-shooting device, and then we moved to a catapult-flinging machine. The actor asked for four male and four female volunteers, and my family very kindly decided to volunteer me! Greg said it would make the demonstration much more fun, so I went along with it. The actor explained two methods of operating the giant catapult, and we all elected to use the second method, which was to hold onto one of four ropes, give a big pull and land up sitting on our bottoms on the grass, hopefully having flung the weapon (in our case a water balloon) a respectable distance in the process. The ladies went first and were given two attempts. Our first was rather feeble and our second only marginally better! Fortunately for the men they did much better than us.
After the fun and games, we went back inside the White Tower, completed in 1100 by William the Conqueror, and used as both a palace and a fortress. Now it houses exhibits from the Royal Armouries’ collection, including full sets of armour and assorted weapons. Naturally the boys were fascinated - I asked Greg if he was enjoying it and he said “I’m a boy, mom, of course!” After the White Tower, we went into the Jewel Tour, where we were all impressed by the wonderful Crown Jewels, particularly the crowns, one of which is used only for coronations. We also admired the magnificent Star of Africa I (from the Cullinan diamond) in the royal sceptre, and an enormous, ornate gold punchbowl. Quickly before closing time we did a dash through the Bloody Tower and saw some of the instruments of torture on display, including the infamous rack. It was by now 5.30 pm and closing time, so we reluctantly exited and walked to the iconic Tower Bridge, which we then walked across, along with streams of others. At the other side, we caught a bus back to Tower Hill station, and then the underground to Earl’s Court. We did a quick shop at the Sainsbury’s Local, and then dragged our weary bodies up the stairs to our temporary home.
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chelfetI
non-member comment
I feel as if I was there with you, especially as I stayed in Earls Court on my last visit to London in 1990. You must all be exhausted by now and guess that you will sleep for a week on your return. Will you be seeing any of the family? if you do, give my love. Keep well and happy. Much love Nana