London

May 28th – Wednesday - London Today was a gray and rainy day perfect for maintenance and start up activities. There is a charm to coming back to a familiar city, a familiar hotel (The Chesterfield) and its familiar neighborhood (Mayfair). We know where to go for a bite of breakfast at Shepherd’s Market (the hotel’s being a little too pricey these days with the pound being so strong against the dollar). We know where the laundry is; where to find Boots (the local pharmacy), to purchase important incidentals. And most importantly we know how to find our underground travel passes. This is the magic entry ticket to London – with one simple pass we can get on any tram, bus or subway within the limits of the city and it frees us to be able to be whimsical in our peregrinations. If the feet get too tired to walk another step, hop on a bus for awhile and watch the sites go by while happily sitting down; need to get to a particular intersection, go down into the tube and get there more quickly. The London transit system is really quite remarkable. It looks sad around the edges right now but with the Olympics coming in 2010, the city is frantically working to spiff up all the lines and replace a lot of old track work. It means a bit of inconvenience as one or another line is shut for repairs, and some of the stations looked downright shabby since they’ve removed the tile and are in the process of replacing them, but all in all, it is the most efficient way of getting around. The new thing for us this time is that they’ve created a new ‘oyster card’ for all transit systems – bus, train or tube. The same card works for all modes of transportation and one simply has to top off the fare card with whatever you wish – a certain amount of pounds, or a specific time period. Gone is the original idea of the oyster pass: a picture id in one half of the folded plastic holder (the oyster) and the specific fare ticket which has been purchased on the other half. Now they don’t care about the picture and you don’t insert the fare card in the machine. It’s just one simple magnetic card which you hold over a large orange sensor pad, and presto you’re in the tube or on the bus. The things I truly miss are the wonderful old busses which were on every major thoroughfare - you hopped on the back or simply hung off the back platform until you decided to hop off. (You could even get off between stops if walking proved faster than the bus). They’re done away with those old busses along with the old ticket takers with their machines hanging from their neck strap, entering the amount for your fare and turning the crank to produce a ticket. The machine had this wonderful sound, almost like those old rattles which you turn at the end of a stick. All gone! Modern convenience (and probably security) now means you simply swipe your ‘oyster’ when you get on the bus, and the driver behind his plastic shield is the only official on board. And there’s no hopping off, you wait until the bus driver stops and opens the doors, thank you very much. I feel like an old geezer remembering the ‘good ol’ days. Dinner tonight was a wonderful event. We took the tube to Nottinghill Gate where we met our friend Kathleen Earley at Geals an excellent British fish restaurant. We ‘nattered away’, consumed some great fish (Bob had fresh oysters…the original kind), and were almost the last to leave the restaurant. It is so heart warming to have friends in different places throughout Europe. It breaks up our duet-dining-experience and provides a third person with whom to share the travel experience. It also allows us to catch up with the news of friends, and share a few good laughs. Kathleen as always was vibrant, filled with enthusiasm for life and had her own amusing, articulate way of describing her life with its ups and downs. The evening was over too quickly but she was off the next day to look at roses in France and needed to gather her wits together beforehand. We ‘tubed’ back to the Green Park station and wandered past the homeless people sleeping in doorways along Piccadilly before turning in for the night. May 29 - Thursday - London A rainy London day, which we spent meandering through shops… browsing, but not buying since everything was quite expensive. The one thing I noticed was how many coffee bars have opened. There is the ubiquitous Starbucks but competing with it is Nero, Pret à Manger, and Costa. What happened to tea? Don’t the British honor their tradition? And how can all these coffee houses make it. They are literally one next to the other. We also noticed that Tesco and Sainsbury have moved into local neighborhoods where they didn’t seem to be beforehand – especially around Mayfair. I’m not sure what causes this phenomenon. The small little shops, run often by Pakistani, seem to be incorporated into these larger chains which provide a consistency of product, but take away some of the charm of the hit and miss. Always up for a bit of live theater, we went to see The Jersey Boys, about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. ABSOLUTELY MAGNIFICENT!! The acting, the singing, the pace. And Bob who can usually spot a flaw in the technical aspects came away delighted that he spotted none. The way they used lighting, sound, and stage/prop movement was ‘spot on’. The entire audience, most in their 50’s or 60’s could hum along to every song which represented their youth, and were encouraged by the actors to clap at times and at others to stand up and dance. It was a tour de force and one understands why it’s gotten such rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic. It is one which I would gladly go back and see again to catch all the things I missed the first time. We bounced back to the hotel on a cloud of music playing in our brains and were remembering when and where we’d first heard some of the tunes. May 30th - Friday - London We can’t go to London without making a pilgrimage to the Imperial War Museum. It is a touch point for us on every visit. It is one of the best designed museums of its kind. It appeals to all ages, and on every floor there are both permanent and changing exhibits, any and all of which make one want to stop and explore. Because the newest of the James Bond novels (written by Sebastian Faulk) was out, they chose to have two different exhibits to celebrate 007. One, for which one had to pay an extra fee (the museum is otherwise free), was focused on the life of Ian Fleming…how his own life was the basis of his books, and his character of James Bond was based, not just a little on his own life. He was a bon vivant who loved the high life, and the world of the ladies, and was himself a spy in his majesty’s secret service. His works were written once a year from his home in the Caribbean where he lived with his wife. The books were written in order to support his life style and all the books, translated into all manner of languages, were on display. In addition there were many exhibits associated with the movies made over the past 45+ years - the actors, the gadgets, the vicious enemies and lots of posters. The next exhibit which was free, dealt with the real spies of England who have served in the secret service since the 1800’s. It showed the real gadgets used by spies, the real names of those who spied, and who were counter-spies and it gave lots of detail about the lives of those who dared to take on this very dangerous work. I was pleased to see that quite a few women served as spies, but that many unfortunately lost their lives as a result. It was a great exhibit, but incredibly dense with data and exhibits which were in a semi-darkened series of rooms which made it quite difficult to read or to see. Some of these same exhibits had been used when we were here eight years ago, but were freshened up to be tied into the James Bond mania. Many historians took exception that a serious museum such as this would ‘stoop’ to put on such a ‘glitzy’ un-historical and inappropriate Bond exhibit, but the effect has been magnificent. Young boys (and their parents) coming in to see the Bond exhibit must walk through other exhibits to get to their objective which may cause them to stop as they pass tanks, guns and equipment from real wars. And the museum store, where we always end our own visit, was absolutely chock-a-block with young people. It may not be obviously appropriate for a historical museum to cater to current whims, but it certainly is not hurting the bottom line of the museum which, after all, is as important as its mission. Who knows how many of these young people stepping into one of the other exhibit spaces doesn’t learn a bit more history than they knew when they walked in… and who knows how long it will be until they come back to this museum, which is a bit out of the way, located in a less commercial part of London. (The museum is located in the former insane asylum known as Bedlam…hence the origin of that common term). Having made our pilgrimage we returned to our hotel, had a quick change and were off to the Old Vic, to see Pygmalion by G.B. Shaw. The character of Higgins was played by Tim Pigot-Smith, who was the hideously nasty British colonel in the BBC-TV series Jewel In the Crown…and Bridey’s older brother in Brideshead Revisited. It took me a while to get that hideous Jewel in the Crown image out of my head, but once I did he made a magnificent Higgins – enthusiastic, sloppy, child-like, and arrogant – covering the whole stage with his lanky body. The new young actress who played Eliza had gotten rave reviews but we found her somewhat stiff and uncomfortable in the role, but then what do we know. It was great to see traditional old theater – no microphones, no electronic gadgets, just pure acting on a stage, done with consummate skill. In two nights we had seen two very different stage productions and both were a success. London theater never fails to delight us and while the costs keep getting higher, we will always go whenever there is a show that catches our fancy. May 31 – Saturday – London In a quest for Whittard’s Afternoon Blend tea, we headed out of the hotel on a sunny morning with umbrellas in hand. London has given us glimmers of sunshine, but every day has ended in rain, and this one did not fail on that count. We walked through Hyde Park with all the other tourists, and Londoners, who had a day to enjoy the sun. By the Serpentine, people were eating ice creams, roller blading, bicycling, walking, jogging – a paean to spring. We walked over towards Lancaster Gate, my old neighborhood when I worked here in 2001/2, then we hopped on a bus to go down Oxford and Regent Streets to find the tea. The streets were jammed with shoppers, the traffic hardly moved, and by the time we had purchased the tea we were so exhausted we just crawled onto another bus going along Piccadilly and headed back to the hotel to rest before dinner. We have not had many fancy meals on this trip mainly because our erratic schedules and daily patterns often left us hungry at 3:00 p.m. but not hungry enough at 8:00 p.m. to sit down to a formal meal. In fact I’d say that on this trip mostly we’ve eaten two meals a day – breakfast and something in the mid-afternoon – call it lunch or dinner. But this night we wanted a lovely meal at our favorite French restaurant in Shepherds Market – Boudin Blanc. So we skipped lunch and saved ourselves for an 8:00 reservation in this very packed, but excellent restaurant. As always, the food and wine were perfect and we ended our evening with drinks in the lobby bar of our hotel where the drinks are excellent, the atmosphere very British, and the piano player isn’t bad either. June 1 – Sunday – London. Another day that started with sunshine. We hadn’t had a chance to examine the South Bank of London – the new trendy area of the city, so we hopped on a tube which took us to Westminster, and Big Ben; and from there we walked towards the new Globe Theater built not too far from the Tate Modern museum. This walk took us past a whole series of new tourist sites: – the Eye – the HUGE ferris wheel with its glass-enclosed pods holding twenty people per pod. It was built to honor the millennium and has become the new tourist attraction because on a clear day one can get magnificent views of the city from a height that is breath taking. – The Tate Modern Museum built on the site of an old factory where the out-door exhibits are almost as exciting as those inside. – The Millennium Bridge, which spans the Thames between the Tate Modern and the older part of the City. – The OXO tower with its trendy shops and restaurants which draws in the young yuppies of London – The new Globe Theater, built to be a replica of the old, where modern productions of Shakespeare are provided next to a new Swan Restaurant. – And the whole South Bank esplanade that runs along the river. Today the esplanade presented a human circus. As in Barcelona, there were frozen human statues painted in silver, gold, blue or green, who for a small coin put in their begging pot would suddenly come to life and perform some actions; there were people walking their dogs from the smallest rat-sized creature to full sized Great Danes. And weaving amidst this were thousands of virtuous people taking a Walk for Aids. All walkers had been provided a t-shirt and a whistle to identify them, but some had defied this traditional look and were dressed in all manner of costume. Mostly men in drag dressed as all characters from the Wizard of Oz; or dressed as prom queens; or simply as outrageous characters. We stopped for an authentic Greek lunch, and watched this parade of humanity for hours as we sipped Mythos beer, ate tzaziki, taramasalata, and kalamari… and alternated between having coats on to protect us from the wind off the river, to stripping down to shirt-sleeves as the sun broiled us. What a great way to end our time in London. This whole area which only a few years ago was a sad and un-reconstructed area has now become the hip place to be with new apartment complexes, museums, restaurants, theaters and parks. Bob said it was almost Disney-like, which was possibly a bit extreme, but compared to what we had seen over the last twenty years of visiting this city, it certainly is a welcome change. And so, the land portion of our trip has drawn to a close and we set sail tomorrow for New York. It’s been a grand trip filled with new discoveries, old familiar haunts, wonderful friends both old, and new, and enough train and boat journeys to satisfy our love of travel. But as we pack for the last time those same clothes we’ve been wearing over and over again, we are ready to go home. Personally I don’t care if I wear these clothes ever again. And, as for packing and unpacking suitcases - not for awhile, thank you very much. We’ve agreed that the next visit of this duration will probably have us settling into some location and using it as a base for multi-day trips. It could be southern France or northern Italy, or who knows where else, but I think two months of trains and multiple cities is not likely to be repeated. It wasn’t the duration which got to us both, it was the constant move from hotel to hotel, train to train, city to city; remembering where the bathroom was in relation to the bed; conquering the transport systems; finding the good restaurants; seeing the sites. When we planned this jaunt we thought we were being fairly leisurely, and compared to many, we were. But I now understand why the boys when they made the trip around the world had to be young. Even with all their comfort, their porters, their luxurious travel, it had to be wearing to keep moving from place to place …and not just physically wearing. It can be exhausting to keep one’s mind, never mind one’s body alert and ready for new experiences. To keep up that eager enthusiasm and anticipation for the next new place, to engage each new site with vigor and to absorb all the new data is both physically and mentally exhausting. There were days when all we wanted to do was read a book, have a meal and stare at the world, but when you know you only have a week in a city and there’s so much to see, how can one ‘waste’ a day. Finding the balance is the key. I think Bob and I did magnificently well, but both of us will be quite ready to curl up in Peacham for a few months with suitcases securely hidden in the basement and our brains turning happily to squash. But before that we have one more lovely adventure aboard “our” Queen Mary 2, and the last chapters of this Voyage of Discovery.