London 2016 – Day 2

Steps today: 26 137

I am having so much trouble with my laptop! It’s like molasses, and furthermore I can’t easily transfer the pictures I take from my phone. It makes no sense… temporarily, I have to email them to myself and then save them on my laptop – it’s a real pain in the ass! But I’m getting it done.

We’re getting to bed really late again tonight (after midnight!!!) but I blame the weather; it’ so nice out in the evenings that we’ve taken to walking ‘home’ after supper. I haven’t been up this late (and not tired) in decades!

Because we were up late last night, I felt bad bugging Vesna to get up early this morning so I ‘let’ her sleep until about 8:30 and we were on our way by about 9:45 ish…  normally by that time I’d be on the road for hours and already hit 6 major landmarks!!

This morning we walked through Hyde Park a bit to see the Italian Garden:

Then down Bayswater to Marble Arch and the Still Waters Sculpture:

After, we went down Oxford to Selfridges and snapped pictures of the art deco statue:

Then onto the Tube to Trafalgar Square for coffees… but just as we arrived I realized I left my money belt on the desk at the hotel! OMG! What got into me?? I’m normally SO vigilant! We had to go back, I could not continue with my day knowing that was out in full view.  So back we went – all in all wasting good chunk of the morning.

Our goal for today was St Paul’s. We started with a super-long DELICIOUS loungy lunch at Café Rouge across the street, sitting in a window seat that gave us a full-on view of the Cathedral; it was so great – it felt like a dream!

Climbing the Dome was SO worth it! When my husband and I visited in 2005, he climbed the Dome while I went to visit the crypt. What the Hell was I thinking???? The Dome is a billion times more interesting!

We climbed up first to the Whispering Gallery to test the theory of how if you whisper against the wall, someone can heard you from the other side…  we were clearly doing it wrong because we could not hear a thing.

After that, it was up to the Stone Gallery and Golden Gallery to get fantastic views across London. We both loved it!

When we left the Cathedral, we walked down Fleet Street thinking we’d stop for a drink somewhere. We first stopped at Ye Old Cheshire Cheese, but it was closed and the people there were MEGA unfriendly so we left.

Then we tried The Olde Cock Tavern which is supposed to be the narrowest pub in he city. It was surprisingly roomy in there! But the only available table was in a stuffy uncomfortable corner so that was out too.

We eventually settled on The Old Bank of England Pub, and can you believe that not only did the bartender not have Sherry, he claims he did not know what it was! Colour me suspicious.

Revived, we continued our meander around the city taking in Trafalgar Square again, Leister Square, Piccadilly Circus and Covent Garden. We settled on Italian for supper and splurged on a nice bottle of wine. (Shockingly for London, the wine was LESS than I would pay for the same in Montreal!!!)

We were still feeling good after supper, so we decided to walk home. I discovered along the way that my phone takes pretty decent night shots! I was impressed!

So now it’s almost 1AM and I have to go to bed! This staying up late business is just nuts! HA!

London 2016 – Day 1

Steps today: 21 482.

Not bad for Day 1 – it’s well after 11PM and I am not tired!!

The flight over wasn’t too bad, it was not as uncomfortable as I anticipated being with Transat… despite the baby that was slowly being tortured in the back of the plane and wanted everyone to know it, I still got about 4 hours of sleep.

Not that I mind, since all I want to do on the flight over is sleep, but do you notice anything missing here? ha! Transat is cheap for a reason.

We were sitting on the right side of the plane, and at one point the captain informed us that passengers sitting on the left could get a clear view of the Northern Lights! Damn! I tried to look across but that was futile; after I told myself the plane won’t tip over if people all move to the left side, I got up and tried to look out the windows, still nothing. I finally caught a SMALL glimpse out the window of the door at the back of the plane – had to get on all fours to do it! Forget getting a picture.

Our room was ready when we got to the hotel, thank God! It’s not bad at all, small, but it’s all we need…

Vesna took a micro nap while I unpacked my bags and changed out of my sweaty airplane clothes and then off we went to explore London.

It’s Vesna’s first time in London, so I wanted her first view of the city to be a “WOW” moment. I took her to the Golden Jubilee Bridge so she could see St Paul’s and the Shard from afar, then down to Millennium Pier to gawk at The Eye, across Westminster Bridge to admire Big Ben, through White Hall Gardens and finally the Sherlock Holmes Pub for a fish and chips lunch. She loved every minute!

After lunch, we went to Trafalgar Square, then down The Mall to Buckingham Palace, checked out where we have to go on Monday for the tour (I can’t wait for that – it’s a HUGE thing for me) and then stopped for a coffee to perk ourselves up. It was about 5PM by then and we were starting to fade.

The coffees boosted us enough to keep going and we had a great stroll through Hyde Park. The weather is so freaking fantastic that we stopped for a drink at the Lido and just soaked it all in. It was marvellous!

British Columbia 2016 – Day 11 / Victoria

Usually departure day doesn’t merit a post, there is rarely more to the day than: Wake up, Shower, Finish packing, Check out, Go to the airport, Wait, Wait, Wait, Wait, Wait, Wait, Wait, Wait, Fly home.

Of course, with me, you know there is food involved somewhere in that plan!

Driving ourselves to the airport was fairly straight forward – it’s a straight shot north… except we missed the exit and had to keep going for a while further before we could turn back.

    

Knowing we’d have a layover of a few hours in Vancouver, my idea was to have loungy lunch there and so I didn’t want a big breakfast. We went to Spinnakers on the Fly for a small bite.

It was the HUGEST “small bite” I ever had!!! And I even asked them to hold all the sides. I should have put something in the picture to help get an idea of the scale. I had trouble wrapping my hands around it if it helps…

 

Building my appetite up again for a loungy lunch was going to be a challenge!… so, I walked circles in the terminal for about an hour.  Just back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.

The flight from Victoria to Vancouver is 15 minutes of flying time – shortest flight of my life!

Interestingly, according to Google, you can’t even fly! But you can drive on the water to get there in less than 30 minutes! WOW! Had I know water-driving was an option I would have liked to have tried it!

We arrived at the Vancouver airport a little too early to eat, it wasn’t even 11AM, but that’s not too early to explore the terminal’s eateries and see what venue looked the loungiest for lunch.

Our Gate was # 29, and we discovered they had a Vino Volo nearby. There is one at our home airport in Montreal too, but we haven’t gotten around to trying it yet.

11AM came and went, and the place never opened -  Why the delay? My wine & cheese were trapped behind the gates!!!! We said we’d give it until 11:30 and if not we’d go somewhere else.

11:30 came and went so we went to the other end of the terminal to Palomino Bar @ YVR

It was total crap! Crap on crap, served with crap on the side with a sprinkling of crap.

Looks pretty… but it wasn’t good.

  

So much for a good food day! Ah well, you can’t win ‘em all.

After this, we were officially on our way home.

Great vacation!