Blogs from Greater London, England, United Kingdom, Europe - page 5

Our plane home was at 6 pm, which gave us time to have one final lunch. We choose Rock & Sole Plaice, the oldest chipper in the city. They make very good fish & chips, and the tartar sauce is the best. We have eaten here before, but you can’t be in England and not have fish & chips at least once. You can choose from 5 different fishes for your fish, cod, haddock, rock, plaice or sole. I had cod Jerry had haddock. It is one piece of fish perfectly battered and cooked; the chips are thick cut and my only issue with them is that they could be crispier. They have other things on the menu, one of which we got for a little starter, crispy camembert, it was the dish of the day. ... read more

Last time I went into London for a day of photography (see ), I moaned about the £22 cost of the travelcard. Now, it's an even more shocking £29. I can't believe that it's gone up by that much in a year, so I suspect that the ticket machine that has replaced the person in the now closed ticket office is programmed to sell the most expensive tickets going. I also think they have extended peak-time to weekends, as another way of increasing prices by stealth. Either way, I felt like I'd been mugged. My first stop was Canary Wharf, where there's another colourful tunnel that was worth a few pictures both inside and along the outside (it's actually above, not under the ground) looking towards all the other buildings. Similarly to last time when I ... read more

So it was up and at em at 5:30 am. We made it to the Delta Terminal expecting to see it crowded with people. My last experience with Heathrow was it was a mess! It was over crowded, not enough workers, crazy lines everywhere. When Chrissy and I arrived there must have been only 20 people. We went right through baggage, ticketing, and security and were gate side in about 20 minutes. That gave us plenty of time for breakfast. So we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, our last in England, for this time. We boarded our plane about 9:15 (take off at 10) and we were up in the air and headed toward home. I typically never sleep on the plane going home and this time was no different. I watched a couple of movies and ... read more

Today was a day off of sorts for me. All the kids were going to the Star Wars Convention, so I would be by myself. I already had to go to The Royal Albert Hall to pick up my lost Messiah Program. I also needed to wash clothes for the remainder of the trip. So after breakfast I headed to our room to organize, gather up all our dirty clothes, and head to the Central Wash laundromat just a few blocks up the street I called ahead to make sure they were going to be open….and they were. I was surprised how busy they were but I only had to wait a few minutes on a dryer. They’re about 20 washers, but only 8 dryers. Once the laundry was done I came back to our room ... read more

Today we met for breakfast downstairs. Everyday our hotel has a full English breakfast or cereal, pastries, juice and milk.....of course coffee and tea is always available. Once breakfast was over Corey, Jennifer, and I went for a walk. Our Hotel is very near St. Mary's Hospital. Joe Griffith and family were here over Christmas break and he suggested we go see the plaque commemorating where Alexander Fleming invented penicillin. Corey was walking on the outside and his foot turned over and he fell on both knees. I actually did the same thing in 2019 but a bus was coming and I thought i was going to get run over! Fortunately neither of us was hurt too bad. Corey discovered later his knees were scraped pretty good. We saw the plaque and thought about all the ... read more