London 2016 – Day 3

Steps today: 23 459

It was a rainy day today so we did not plan much sight seeing – and by extension, didn’t need an early wake up call either so I recovered easily from my late night.

Our room is great, we have all the room we need, we’re not in each other’s way, the beds are very comfortable… we only have 2 complaints:

1- IT’S FUCKING A FURNACE!!!!  OMG it’s so stuffy! My husband would HATE it. I am finding it though myself, and I am thanking God daily that it’s not humid outside which would make it worse!! As it is, we keep the windows open all night and since we are on the 5th floor it’s pretty quiet. We also have a fan to help circulate that bit of fresh cool air which is helping enormously. We are sleeping like logs so overall it’s ok.

2- The shower doesn’t drain… or rather, takes about an hour or so. I turn the water off between soaping up and rinsing which helps, but the threat of the shower overflowing is ever present if we take our showers back to back.

We were on the road this morning by about 9:45 (crazy late by my standards, but acceptable given the late nights) and walked from our hotel to Notting Hill to explore the neighbourhood. The weather forecast called for rain in the PM so this was a good destination for a morning outing.

From there, were went to Portobello Market which was a first for me – this is my 5th visit to London but since I am not a shopper I never bothered before. It was CRAZY PACKED!! but worth a stroll through.

Vesna who is a shopper (and who LOVED the market) described our visit as a whirlwind tour while I was impressed with how slow I was going! ha! Still, I’m sincerely glad she liked it – the whole point of this trip is to introduce her to The Wonders of London.  Needless to say I didn’t by anything… she bought a sweater.

As we were walking along, we noticed a huge glut of people all taking pictures of a particular store front. It think it was the book store that Hugh Grant owned in the movie ‘Notting Hill’ with Julia Roberts… but I barely remember the film so I can’t be sure; still, I took a picture too!

We had lunch at Harrods – I wanted her to see it because I was sure it would blow her mind… and it did! Her head was on a swivel and her jaw was on the floor. The food halls really are impressive.

It was a nice lunch but I am upset with myself over a stupid incident. The waitress asked if we wanted water and because I was distracted I replied “still” instead of “tap” and we were given 2 small bottles of Harrods water…. that cost 9£!!!!!!!! I drank every. last. drop. London is expensive, I should know better than to order while chatting.

Ironically, we had lunch at the same place and sat at the very same table as my husband and I did when we had lunch there last spring.

After lunch, we rode the Egyptian Escalator and went to see the creepy Diana & Dodi display at the bottom.

Since it was raining, and because Vesna wanted to do some shopping, and because Harrods’ prices are prohibitive, we set off to check out Selfridges. It was a mad house – SO SO SO many people and so crowded and busly… it wasn’t pleasant. We gave up and went for a walk.

(Royal Arcade)

It was on and off rain, so I didn’t stop all that much to take pictures and although I did have an umbrella I was too lazy to bring my rain jacket so I got pretty wet - I hope my shoes are dry by tomorrow!

We stopped at a French café to recharge our batteries and afterwards since the rain seemed to have stopped we started walking home (it was around 6:30PM by then)

Unfortunately the rain started up again and so we gave up on the walk and just took the tube directly to the pub near our hotel to finish off the day there.

The sun is back in the forecast for tomorrow, so I’m excited to get back to some good sight seeing! It’s almost midnight now, so I have to get to bed.

Bye for now!

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!