Blogs from Greater London, England, United Kingdom, Europe - page 7

Today markets the start of the final leg of our trip - 2 final nights in London. We did our final drive to drop the car off at City Airport and it was uneventful. But we did feel like we needed to mark the occasion with a selfie with the car. We put more than 2000 miles on it over the last two weeks. We had a bit of chaos when the taxi to the hotel from the airport dropped us off at the wrong place and in the rush to get us and our luggage out, and pay the driver, Don accidentally left his phone in the taxi. A tense couple hours ensued…we put in a report and had to wait to hear. We distracted ourselves with a visit to Harrod’s. We wandered past clothes ... read more

1. All set. It's time to leave. After much discussion and planning we're saying goodbye to our neighbours and friends here in Europe, the necessary agreements have been sought and approved, all the paperwork is in place, and we've stocked up on medications, supplies and snacks for the journey. We are heading westwards, initially to the USA and then beyond, eventually crossing both the International Date Line and the Equator before returning home. Hopefully there won't be too many queues or delays at Heathrow when we fly out to Los Angeles prior to boarding the Star Princess As the trip takes us halfway around the world, I thought it would be an idea to mark the distance officially by beginning the trip (and my narrative) from the Greenwich Meridian, at 0 degrees longitude. I know this ... read more

Since we sorted out the laundry situation (is there a pun in that?), we were comfortable heading out for the day. After breakfast in the hotel lounge (same thing every day - scrambled eggs, hash browns, chicken sausage, and baked beans), we hopped the tube to the Tower of London. We walked the whole upper perimeter going up and down narrow spiral staircases in many of the external towers. We read about the murdered princes and other famous prisoners. Of course, there was a lot about Anne Bolelyn, Jane Grey and Catherine Howard. One thing that surprised me, though, was that the last execution there was in 1942 - a German spy in WWII. They make a big deal about the ravens but to me, they look like the noisy crows we get in the yard. ... read more

Europe. United Kingdom. England. Greater London. Heathrow Terminal 4. Holiday Inn Express. Undoubtedly comfortable and surprisingly well equipped room here but it has that ubiquitous familiarity that hotel room near airports have. It’s sort of cheap and will provide all services we require but it’s soulless and really the antithesis of so many of the pubs and BnB’s I’ve seen and stayed in recently. Drove from Newton Abbot to Heathrow today and with Lee as navigator the process was seamless and easy. Not having strict time constraints makes everything easier and the little stops we had were fine (except for the food which reminded us of the ’bad old days’ of English cuisine. The pub made zero concessions environmentally, serving several components of our meal in sealed plastic containers despite us eating at the table and ... read more

Today we planned to do many of the touristy things. We started out with a changing of the guards tour. While it’s definitely an option to just go watch the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, we did a tour which took us to several different perspectives. First we started at St James Palace. This is the senior royal palace where key events, like the pronouncement of the queen’s passing, takes place. The old guard came out and this time, they were a regiment from Nepal, the Gurkhas, they rarely have the opportunity to be the palace guards so it was a bit unique. From there, we marched with the military band to the Wellington barracks where the new guard came out. These were the traditional bear skin hatted grenadiers. We didn’t see much of ... read more