London

---

Our final stop before getting on the plane home is London. The airfare to fly round trip Boston/London is so much cheaper than flying direct to Paris, or in October Barcelona, that just makes London a stop on any trip to Europe. While our last night in Paris the hotel was paid with IHG points, our night in London is paid with Hilton Honors points. So, we are at the Waldorf Astoria. Both hotels are 5 star, but the difference between the two our extreme. The Hotel in Pairs, upgraded us to a better room, included breakfast, had fresh strawberries upon arrival, and at check in explained everything, welcomed us and IHG premier members and made you feel special. At the Waldorf, barely got the room let alone any welcome, put us in a Handicap room, and did not explain where the executive lounge was, what the hours were, here is your key you in room 236. Here is the amazing thing, we are pretty much at the lowest tier of membership in the IHG program and the Highest level of membership in the Hilton program yet treated 100 times better by IHG.

That all said, the room was spacious and bed comfortable and very centrally located to the theater district and Covent Garden. Our train was about an hour late, because the train ahead of us hit a cow or something so we sat on the tracks until that was cleared up. Traffic in London is the worst there is. It took 40 minutes to get from the train station to our hotel, you could walk faster, but not with our luggage. The tube would have been an option as well, but again, just to much luggage. It really didn’t matter; our Tea reservation was not until 2:30 so we had plenty of time.

Since our room was not ready, they did let us use the Gym locker rooms to change for tea. Our bags stored, and us all prettied up headed to tea. In 2016 when we spent the Holiday’s in London, we had tea at the Oscar Wilde Room at the Royal Café, located just off piccadilly circus. It is a beautiful room, and you can just imagine Oscar Wilde sitting in the corner with his attractive upper crust male admirers (which unfortunately landed him in jail doing two years of hard labor.) Apparently, they no longer wish to be associated with Oscar Wilde as they have dropped that from the name, now it’s just the Grill Room at the Royal Café, how boring, your not having a burger here your having High Tea.

The place was pretty busy, with people enjoying their tea, from couples to the women that lunch, and of course the guys that were there with their wives/girlfriends because they were forced to be. We had a nice table with a good view of the room and the piano player, all that was missing was Sarah Vaughn singing “Lush Life.”

The tea itself is amazing, you can do a traditional high tea or add some champagne as well. We added the champagne. You only have to make two decisions, if your having champagne and what tea you want. The tea list is extensive, and you can change as many times as you want through the service. Tea comes in two courses, the savory and the sweet. The savory is a selection of finger sandwiches. The top tier is Truffle mousse parmesan cheese, a little parmesan cheese ball. The other two tiers and sandwiches a tier for each of us. There were four; Smoked Salmon with cucumber, Coronation Chicken (hint of curry), Egg & Truffle, and finally my favorite, Roast beef with horseradish cream.

Before the sweet tier there is naturally a palate cleanser of Blood orange sorbet. Then its off to the sweet. Now while the top tier was beautiful, from a flavor point of view there wasn’t much there, I suggest they bring in a French pastry chef to up the game on the sweet side. On the other hand, the scones were to die for. A plain scone and a raisin scone served with strawberry preserve, earl grey tea jelly and clotted cream.

After tea, we didn’t have much planned for the rest of the day, so we went back to the hotel to check in and then hung out in the executive lounge. While we were in the lounge had a nice conversation with a couple from Charleston, South Carolina. He husband didn’t quite get that we were also a couple, since he asked if we were traveling buddies, I am sure his wife explained it to him later.

Since we were ending in London, we could not pass up the opportunity to see a show. This evening we had tickets to “Six” a musical about the 6 wives of Henry the VIII, it opened in New York, but London is really a much better place to see a musical based on the wives of Henry. We had great seats, front row dead center in the dress circle. The show was entertaining, certainly; no “Dreamgirls” but still a fun show.

After the show we went to what was one of our favorite places to get a nice dinner. However, covid pretty much destroyed this place. The staff was completely new and untrained, they got every part of our order wrong, and I had the second worse martini ever. I don’t know how any bartender could possibly not know how to make a proper martini when your in of all places London. The food wasn’t horrible, but we won’t be coming back for a while to give them time to get their act together.

So ended our last full day of vacation.

---

Photos

The Savory Tier
Dish of the Day