Where Time Starts

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Today we had to get up early so we could go get our pre-flight home covid test. We booked and paid ahead of time and it was not cheap. It was a quick walk to the clinic and the test itself took less than 30 seconds. We then went back to the hotel and had breakfast. This was the best breakfast of all the hotel breakfasts included in our trip. Not only was there the standard Full English buffet, there were pancakes, waffles and you could order off the menu. I ordered Eggs Benedict. Poached eggs were perfect, hollandaise sauce needed serious help. Jerry did standard scrambled and cheese melted on top.

After breakfast we were off. This is our third trip to London, so we have done much of the standard sights, London Tower, Buckingham Palace, etc. Today we were off to Greenwich and the Prime Meridian. To get there we took the river bus. This was our first time actually being on the Thames instead of just walking buy. There are not many pictures since Jerry was very focused on what the next step was and how to get there. It was about an hour trip from Westminster Pier to Greenwich

Let me back track a bit, before we got on the boat, we did get a few pictures of West Minster Abbey (original plan was to take a tour, but it was not opened today), Elizabeth Tour (Big Ben the bell is inside the tower), and Parliament. Then we were off to the boat.

The Prim Meridian is the starting point for all time worldwide. So, it is literally where time begins. In order to actually stand on the official meridian line, you have to go to the Royal Observatory, which we did have tickets for an 11:30 visit. I am going to give you a big tip here, all the guide books and signs say it’s a 15-minute walk from the pier to the observatory, what the fail to tell you that the last 5 minutes is straight up hill. I had to stop twice, but I did make it. Of course, the view is always worth the pain. The journey to Greenwich and the walk to the observatory are well worth the time and energy. We spent a little over an hour here, but you could spend much more time just exploring Greenwich itself.

We were back on the river bus to lunch at Roast in Burrough Market. We discovered this market and restaurant on our Christmas trip to London in 2016 and were looking forward to our lunch, especially the “Roasties.” Roasties are tripled cooked potatoes where one cooking is actually under the drippings of the roast, they are crispy and delicious. They were not exactly how we remember them, but what is after 8 years, but they were still good.

The rest of lunch was a series of small plates, Scotch Egg, Orkney Island Scallops with fried fennel (perfectly seared) and a brown shrimp mushroom sauce, crips garden salad and Tomato soup with Harris. There was of course the roasties. We had a nice white upper Rhone Valley wine and to start I had a Pink Beefeater Tonic (Beefeater gin, Indian Tonic with essence of strawberries, raspberries and mint.) Not what I had in Glasgow but still very light and refreshing. The rest of the menu is very good, but also very heavy and we knew we would be having beef for dinner later that night.

We had a nice leisurely lunch at a nice table by the window overlooking the street and market below. It always amazes me that in London at lunch the number of business people that are having a couple of pints, no food mind you, just a couple of pints, then back to the office. The plan after lunch was to go to the Victoria and Albert Museum, which has the largest display of decorative arts, Jerry decided we didn’t need to make the journey, and since this is his thing, we opted out. Instead, we walked a crossed the London Bridge and checked out Leaden Hall Market. It turned out to be a small street filled mainly with restaurants. By the time we got there it was 4 and the after-work pub drinkers were already crowding the streets. There were several potential nice lunch spots for future visits. We did pick up a nice bottle of Sancerre Rose for the room.

We had quite the walk getting to the tube to get back to our hotel room. The underground was Bank and it was one that you could connect to several different lines, however, to get to the district/circle lines it was quite a journey. First, we descended in what seemed to be the bowels of hell, then back up, after at least a mile or more under the London streets we arrived at our tube stop.

Back in the room, Jerry started pre-packing for the journey home and I of course did some blogging, we both enjoyed the Sancerre.

As is our tradition, our last dinner of a trip is almost always at a very nice upscale establishment or oldest restaurant in the city. This happened to be both. We first ate at Rules on our very first trip to Europe back in 2006 on a very hot Fourth of July night, the same night that the Italians one the Fife championship. This is on our list of the 10 oldest restaurants in the world and was the first one we ever marked off the list, so we felt it only appropriate to have our last dinner of the trip here.

Not much has changed, it still looks the same inside and is none the worse for covid. We did get to experience the upstairs Winter Garden bar before we went through to our table. It was fully of plants and they even tried very hard to hide the POS system to keep the allure of old school London. We pretty much recreated our first dinner here, minus the stilton watercress soup. We started with perfectly stirred martinis, each had a Caesar salad (good but still not Jerry’s) then did the roast rib of beef for two, with traditional Yorkshire Pudding, dauphinoise potatoes and buttered greens. The side of horseradish was great, just lots of shredded horseradish with just a touch of cream added.

The experience was topped of with the most wonderful server Natalie from Rouen France, whose first job was as a server at La Couronne, where we had a wonderful meal and best cheese board ever. Throughout dinner we had a great conversation with her about her experience in the UK, us retiring potentially in Carcassonne, it was just a lovely way to end our trip.

There was no dessert as the entrée was very large and of course the rib of beef was the dish of the day.

We strolled leisurely back to the room enjoying the London Night. Our trip now at its end, the only thin left is the flight back to Newark and train back to Providence.

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Comments

[Sharon Hughson]

Lovely London
Now I really need to visit London. Thanks for sharing all the photos, food recommendations and other travel tips. I hope you have a safe, uneventful trip home. See you in a couple of months in Boston.