Last Two Days in London

There was only one day we didn't have a hotel. I left one night open in case we wanted to rent a car and go somewhere outside London. Turns out we were perfectly happy in the location we were. The only bad thing is we had to try to find another one. We walked all the way next door and rented a triple room. Good news for dragging our heavy luggage, bad news is they put us at the bottom of a really long, narrow staircase. No, there was no lift. *sigh* I was really tempted to stand at the top of the stairs and give my case a good kick, but I endured. It bumped easily all the way down.

The last sight Julie wanted to see was the Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace. We walk umpteen miles only to wrestle our way (or was that muscle our way?) as close to the fence as possible, which is about 7 people deep. It's 80+ degrees out and yup, I'm sweating. People are swarmed around us. I can't see a dang thing! Our running joke was, "Oh look, fuzzy hats!" At one point I asked Andy to put me on his shoulders. We all laughed. The best thing I saw that made my day, were two little blonde girls sitting on their parent's shoulders. They couldn't have been more than three years old, cute as buttons and looked like twins. They both had expensive digital cameras and were happily snapping photos from their vantage point. I heard the mom tell one of the little girls she did a great job. Too adorable. Save yourself the trouble go here:

http://www.royal.gov.uk/RoyalEventsandCeremonies/ChangingtheGuard/Overview.aspx

and here:

CotG Video Youtube

Later that evening Andy and I met his Eve online buddy in London for dinner. We caught the underground tube to the Oxford Circus area. Andy had sent him a picture of us so he could find us outside the station. It was really nice to put a face to a voice. He and his significant other are from South Africa. We went to a great Thai restaurant and spent several hours visiting with them. It was a great way to spend our second-to-last evening and get to learn a bit about South Africa. Now I want to go there!

Tonight we are hanging out at the Sheraton Heathrow Hotel. It's right next to the airport as we don't want to have to worry about getting there tomorrow. Overall it has been the most enjoyable trip I have ever had. I have memories upon memories and we have about two gazillion pictures to go with them. Look for more pics on my facebook. See you back home!

Edinburgh Scotland Tour

Edinburgh is a definite must come back to. After a very rocky start, meaning we waited for 45 minutes to be picked up (starting at 5:45AM), finally called the tour company, and they send a private car to come get us. Apparently our transfer driver was waiting for people who hadn't bothered to tell them they didn't need a ride. Little did we know that our train tickets were for 7:00 AM. We arrived at 6:58AM. Needless to say, our frantic tour person at the train station had our tickets changed to the 8:00AM train. The good news is we have first class tickets so the ride is very nice, great scenery all along the route. The only downside is we lost an hour of our self-guided tour day. We arrive in Scotland at 11:30 and catch the hop-on-hop-off bus to Edinburgh Castle. We spend a couple of hours there and stop for lunch at a local cafe. Our train was leaving for London at 5:15PM, so we finished the city tour and headed to the train station. Whirlwind day...we all want to take a day off from sight-seeing.

I'm already planning an extended tour of these places for when Andy and I retire. Andy says I'm several years too early but I'm too excited to wait. :)

Tour of Bath, Stonehenge and Windsor Castle

First day in London, we have a day-long (really, really day-long: 14-hour) tour of Bath, Stonehenge & Windsor Castle tour. This picture is of the Roman Baths in Bath. Our transfer driver picked us up at 8:15 a.m. in the pouring rain. I had been forced to buy an umbrella (I would have thought they'd make them better than this in LONDON!) as I seemed to have left my really nice Seattle umbrella somewhere on the property of the Italian Villa. I'll chuck it just before we leave to come home.

We get a late start as we need to wait for the tour company to find us a bus. Hmm. Turns out we get a brand new one that doesn't even have the company logo painted on. It was nice and our tour guide Steve is very knowledgeable and quite witty. He's been in the business for 25 years and is hellbent on making up that hour we've lost. Here's his website: http://steve-tourguide.com/ It has a lot of interesting pictures and information there. We can tell he is a seasoned tour guide as he proceeds to tell us all about the London sights on the way out of town to Bath which we hear again when we take the big Hop-on-hop-off London city bus tour.

First stop is Stonehenge. Turns out that a few years ago they discovered that it wasn't extra terrestial or a sacrificial offering ground. It was a grave yard. They had the stone part, what's left as we see it today, which signifies death, and a replication of it built out of wood, with little houses built. People would save their dead (either cremated, or boiled clean bones) and meet there twice a year. Once at the winter solstice and again at the summer solstice but only if they had anyone from their tribe die during one of those times. They know this as there are several sites they have excavated and found bones. Read Steve's website for more info. Pretty interesting stuff.

We pre-order lunch from the bus via Steve's cell phone and stop at a wayside restaurant. Andy has the bangers and mash (sausage with mashed potatoes smothered in lots of onion gravy). Julie and I have the pork. We get exactly 45 minutes to eat and have to rush back onto the bus to continue on to Bath.

Bath was interesting as well. Back in the 17 & 1800's rich people would go there to recover from the pollution in London, but several years ago they excavated it and found the actual Roman baths and have done a pretty good job of restoring quite a bit of them. I would like to go back and spend additional time there as the city is quite charming.

We are all quite tired by the time we get back to the station. It was a good day.

Viva La Chunnel!

Julie, Andy and I said goodbye to Sue and Brenda at the end of our cruise and the next morning cabbed it to the train station to catch our train from Paris to London, also known as the Chunnel. Brenda and Sue are heading back to the states, and we still have another week of excitement.

Everything is going well, this time we really do have first class reservations (see previous post from first train ride in coach) and it is wonderful. Nice relaxing 2.5 hour ride, we visit, watch the sights when not in the tunnel, and read our books. I highly recommend train travel. They have it down in Europe. Trains are super fast, it's really quite a rush when your train passes another one going the opposite direction.

We arrive at the station and grab another cab to the Best Western Victoria hotel. The hotel could not have been in a better location. Very near the Victoria Station which has trains, buses, underground and tons of shopping and restaurants. The only problem is that our rooms are actually in the annex portion which is around the corner from the main hotel and doesn't have a lift. Yes we have to lug our ginormous suitcases down a long stairway. (See many previous references to our huge bags.) Julie and I are lucky, the hotel worker carries mine down for me and Julie is on a different level so she only has a few stairs to go down. Andy carries his own. This is to be our home for the next 5 nights. Next up: City tour, Stonehenge and Bath.

Sue's Big Day-Last Night in Paris Dinner

Here we are, the last night in Paris. We are doing an evening dinner cruise on the Seine. Sue knows we are doing the cruise, but doesn't know about our birthday surprise. Note our cute little hats. Note also that Andy is taking the picture and he was a wonderful escort to this bevy of beauties. As we walk across the waiting room before boarding the cruise, I hear someone say, "that must be the party starters," I believe they thought we were paid entertainers. Heck, we do it for free, and we get better with wine.

When we first get seated., the family across from us has a small child who is enamored with a battery operated barkey-dog. She screams every time Dad tries to take it away, or turn it off. Brenda asks the waiter to tell them to put it away, and he looks at her aghast and says, "but it's only a CHILD," to which Brenda replies, "the child can be moved." We were not very popular at that point, but to appease us, he goes and has the live band turn up the music. Perfect!

We start the first course and people come over to take our picture. Apparently we are making a great new Parisian fashion statement with our cute hats. Either that or the wine is kicking in and we're having too much fun. :)

The sights are wonderful - people sitting along the banks are waiving as our boat passes, and the city is beautiful under lights, especially the Eiffel tower, and France's mini version of the statue of liberty. Food is really good, we have the waiter sign the cork from our wine bottle (a tradition we do when we are celebrating a special occasion). He seems to really like that.

It is time for our gifts to Sue, so Julie and I sing happy Birthday to her (we were pretty dang good I might add) and present her with the jewelry. Not long after, the waiter comes back with a wonderful confection that has a sparkler candle, along with the band who sings her Happy Birthday again. Overall, I'd say that's a pretty good way to mark a special Birthday year.

We all really enjoyed the evening, which was our last night in Paris. Next up: Julie, Andy & Theresa head for London via the Chunnel!

Sidetrack before the Big B-Day Cruise...Sights and Nonesense

As discussed in my last blog, we moved out of our 'slum' hotel (125.00 per night) in a seedy neighborhood and into what was equivalent to the Ritz, smack dab in the middle of everything you would possibly want within safe walking distance, even at night.

It's funny because the restaurant workers in the seedy neighborhoods were very nice and friendly to us (Chinese and Italian), while the fancier area restaurants were pretty snooty. I think they were mad because we made it farther in the Soccer Cup than they did. Not sure but they seem to be pretty passionate about it around here. :P

At our new digs in gay Paree, we had a nice walled-in court yard garden area where we could meet and have breakfast in the morning or drinks in the evening and the staff was extra accommodating to us.

I usually like to take a guided tour of the city I'm touring so I can decide what to go back and do. In Paris, we took a boat cruise early in the day and got to view everything from the Seine. Very fun! We then went on to see the Eiffel tower, the Louvre, and a special surprise Dinner Cruise to celebrate Sue's big 5-0 since we would still be gone for her big day.

Brenda and Sue's daughter Cassie had decided to buy Sue a piece of jewelry in every country they visited. Julie, Andy & I got in on the Italian piece of jewelry - a beautiful blue topaz bracelet and a French silver necklace.