England Day 4: Arrival in London!
I’m in London.
After years of waiting to see this amazing city, I am finally here to stay for
a few days. We decided to spring for a very central hotel that is
walkable basically everywhere, and it has not let us down. We spent our day
touring the basic landmarks of the city, found London quite navigable, and then
settled down for a dinner of a complimentary wine, cheese, bread, and olive
spread. We are living a posh London lifestyle—if only for a few days!
Our train left
around the same time as our train to Bath, greeted by another sunny day in
Salisbury. But this time, the train was full, so we had to stand the whole hour
plus trip to into London. This would have been fine. However about halfway
through the ride, the conductor announced over the intercom that the train had
a light out, and would thus be terminating at Basingstoke—not Waterloo. I was
very worried that we would not get in to London with enough time to see what we
wanted to see, and then the whole schedule for the next three days would be
off. After some very confusing messages and misleading communication to
passengers by the staff, the train ended up going all the way through to
London, on time. But the resulting stress of uncertain arrival really got to
me. When we stepped off the train onto the Waterloo platform, I was very, very
thankful.
After the train
ride, we had to manage the Tube for the first time. We ended up having to buy
new Oyster cards and fill them up with what we thought we would need to get to
the Piccadilly Circus stop. Thankfully, this was only about four stops away on
the Piccadilly line, so it was an easy first trip. The station was exactly as I
pictured it, though the trains are a lot smaller than I expected. We got onto
our train immediately after descending into the platform and found seats in the
empty train. Crowded trains? I thought those people must be crazy. This was a
breeze.
We made it to
Piccadilly Circus in less than ten minutes. Impressive! I can see why the Tube
is often the preferred method of transportation in London. After some
navigating through the station and up the correct stairs, we found the street
for our hotel about three blocks from the entrance. Not too shabby at all.
After quickly
checking in and throwing our bags in our room, we tried to find the fastest way
to Buckingham Palace… this turned out not to be the fastest way whatsoever. We
even walked in front of one of the older palace buildings and thought it was
the “back side” of Buckingham. I look back now and realize how stupid I was for
thinking that, because even the back side of Buckingham is beautiful.
Anyway, we got a
little lost and disoriented in our frantic attempt to try to make it to see the
Changing of the Guard on time. Needless to say, once we finally found it, we
were way too late to see anything of importance. I was almost disgusted at the
amount of tourists lined up and pushing against each other to get a good shot
of the guards. I managed to get one really good photo of a soldier and his
Wolfhound, which I was quite proud of. Other than that, we got to see a mounted
marching band (complete with tubas, regular French horns, and even bass
drums!), another mounted guard, and a very tiny bit of the actual ceremony. We
decided that we would try again on Friday, and arrive so early we wouldn’t know
what to do with ourselves. But at least we would have a spot!
Once we
basically gave up on trying to see anything important at the palace, we walked
across the street to Green Park. There, we decided to let down a little and go
on a nice walk. The clouds covered the sun most of the time, so nothing was too
warm, but everything was a little muggy. Welcome to summer in the city, I
suppose. But the trees, grass, and walking paths were a welcome sight after
seeing so much concrete on our way over.
We basically
then just kept walking and finding things that looked important. However,
that’s the problem with London—everything looks important, even the buildings
that look beautiful but are really just a Tesco or a Hard Rock Café. Yes, that
happened a lot. But we found out that walking instead of taking the Tube is a
really great way to stumble upon things that are probably important, but people
might not see otherwise.
We basically
then just kept walking and finding things that looked important. However,
that’s the problem with London—everything looks important, even the buildings
that look beautiful but are really just a Tesco or a Hard Rock Café. Yes, that
happened a lot. But we found out that walking instead of taking the Tube is a
really great way to stumble upon things that are probably important, but people
might not see otherwise.
We then crossed
the insane street into Hyde Park. As a side note, crossing streets in London is
not nearly as easy as crossing them in Dublin. Things are much quicker, people
will run you over, and they will not care. Do not even try to j-walk unless
there is literally no one on the street—it’s for everyone’s safety. Anyway, we
entered the giant green space of Hyde Park and found some awesome artwork
displayed in various parts of the park. Then, we grabbed some quick lunch at
the food stand and ate it on a bench by the bike path. We actually saw a man
walk by with two giant blue parrots, one on each shoulder. That was
interesting. Other than that, we simply enjoyed the nature while we had a
chance, thankful to have some food and rest our feet.
Once we
finished, we wanted to walk back the way we came. But we ended up stumbling
upon a beautiful rose garden that, I found out later, is in fact called the
Hyde Park Rose Garden. There were so many beautiful rose trees, curved up
around arbors, making a surreal paradise for a flower lover like me. A fish
fountain sits at center of the small circle, enclosed by tall evergreen bushes.
All sorts of other flowers accompany the roses to make the garden a perfect
place to sit, watch people, and relax for a while. We did not do that, but we
had fun admiring all the pristine flowers. It was another accidental find that
was absolutely lovely.
We found our way
back exactly the way we had come from, and arrived back at Buckingham Palace to
find it slightly less packed. Even so, there were still hundreds of people
surrounding it. I was still fed up with trying to get nice pictures, but I
trued my best. The sun was showing its face by now, so some of them turned out
quite nicely. The gold accents and the perfect façade are really stunning
symbols of the Royal Family. Everything is perfectly in place. I loved it.
Next, we wanted
to see Big Ben, Palace of Westminster, and Westminster Abbey. We took the
Birdcage Walk straight down to the Thames, where we saw the Royal Barracks—complete
with a garrison marching down the sidewalk toward us in a very intimidating
way—lots of expensive apartments, and the Imperial War Museum along the way.
And then, all of the sudden, Big Ben came into our view. (Fun Fact: the
colloquial name “Big Ben” is actually the name of the largest bell in the clock
tower, not the name of the tower
itself. That name comes from two of the greatest monarchs ever to grace
England—the Elizabeth Tower.) I was stunned into silence. I had waited so long
to see this stupid giant clock, and I could not really believe I was seeing it.
I honestly still
can’t really believe it. I just remember walking along Palace of Westminster
and thinking, “How is everything so tall? And big? And beautiful?” Big it
certainly is—there are a total of 1,100 rooms in the entire complex. The
glorious Gothic Revival architecture looks so incredibly detailed, even from
down on the ground. No detail was spared, even in 1840. The Clock Tower was
completed in 1859, thus completing one of the most famous geographical
identifiers in the world. It was a completely existential experience for me. I
am so incredibly happy I got to live part of my dream and see one of the most
iconic symbols in the world.
Once we had both
taken an unnecessary amount of photos of Big Ben and everything surrounding
him, we moved on to try to find the entrance to Westminster Abbey. Because we
had walked the length of Palace of Westminster, we ended up walking all the way
down Millbank Street and cutting through the maze of little streets filled with
brick buildings and lots of alleyways. We cut through on Tufton Street to what
we thought would lead straight through to the Abbey. We were not wrong about
that. However, it involved possibly/probably accidentally trespassing onto the
Dean’s Yard of the Westminster School, where we witnessed lots of the smartest
boys in England playing football, blasting rap from their centuries old dorm
rooms, and speaking with their teachers like thirty year olds instead of the
more accurate thirteen year olds. It was crazy. One boy actually scared Diana
and I with how proper he was. I suppose this is just part of the culture, and
it was cool to witness. But it was still pretty strange, and definitely awkward!
Successfully
navigating the school, we thankfully exited through to the Westminster Abbey
courtyard and made a spin through the gift shop. I did not need to see the
inside, but the outside was gorgeous. The current building was constructed in
1245, but the original site has been used as far back as 1080—just after the
Norman Invasion. It is the new monarchs after the invasion that started the
tradition of coronating monarchs in the Abbey. Because of this tradition, the
Queen’s 90th birthday brought a lot of pomp and circumstance to the
entire place. There were people everywhere, trying to get a view of where she
was crowned and buy her special commemorative china. In fact, the Abbey is not
even a functioning cathedral anymore—it is simply a “Royal Peculiar”, which
means the monarch, rather than the diocese, rules it.
Pretty much done
with tourism for the day, we walked back to the hotel via Horse Guards Road.
This route had a slight diversion into St. James’s Park because of the marching
and military band competition that would be going on a few days later. Corps
were already on the field, rehearsing in uniform and preparing their music.
When listening to bands like this, I never know why they need rehearsal.
Everything sounds perfect already. We marched back to the hotel through the
park, looking at the birds and flowers and listening to the music of the bands.
Eventually, we
made it back to our hotel. By this time, we had walked around enough to know
the general lay of the land, which was not too hard to manage. London might
sound scary, but walking isn’t too hard if you know which roads are safe.
Getting around is actually quite easy regardless of method. I was quite pleased
with that. Even so, we had had a long day of being on our feet and were happy
to collapse on our beds for a bit.
But then we
started getting hungry. We decided to head to the closest Tesco (basically a
five minute walk) and grab some fruit, biscuits (I got vanilla cream this time,
as there were no oaties), and Belvita for breakfast. Though we got a great view
of Piccadilly at sunset, it turned out that we really didn’t need any snacks.
What we thought would simply be complimentary cheese and wine was actually a
whole spread of bread, crackers, grapes, olives, five different types of cheese
with paired chocolate chunks, croissants, hummus, chutneys, ice cream, and
coffee or hot chocolate.
Really, we just
called it “free dinner”. We certainly paid enough to stay in that hotel, so it
was nice to have something ready for us that we didn’t actually have to pay
for. It was a great cushion and a delicious meal, all three nights we were
there. And the wine actually is endless—they will keep asking you if you want
more, even if you are sure you don’t want any. Amazing. I have never felt so
posh in my entire life. Again, I highly
recommend this hotel!
Stuffed, we
climbed back up the stairs and relaxed in the room. Yes, the room was small,
and the bathroom didn’t have real walls… which could be weird at times. But the
space was done well considering how little space there really was. Everything
was clean, the wifi worked, and I had no overall complaints settling in there
after a long but exciting day. I can’t wait to see what more London has to
offer us in the next three days!
♥
photo credit Diana Cleveland
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