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London (and the rest of the UK) Calling...

London (and the rest of the UK) Calling...

Old May 26th, 2015, 01:15 PM
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London (and the rest of the UK) Calling...

We (DH and I, a 60ish couple) have recently returned from three weeks in the UK. We spent the first two weeks on a Rick Steves "Best of England" tour, and then had a week in London on our own. I know some are interested in RS tours, so I will spend a bit of time describing that in the midst of an otherwise "normal" trip report. I spend a lot of time searching and reading this forum when planning a vacation, so hopefully this will provide some resource to others in the future.

We departed Chicago on British Air on Friday, April 24, arriving Heathrow late morning Saturday. We were to meet up with the RS tour group in Bath on Sunday night, and the extra day gave us a little time to acclimate. We planned to take the train from Paddington to Bath, so decided to spend the first night near there. We took the Heathrow Express to Paddington on Saturday (booked from home in Chicago – they send texts and emails with the tickets; got the DuoSaver rate, round trip for two for £50 -- https://www.heathrowexpress.com/duo-saver ) and booked the Indigo Hotel London - Paddington ( http://www.ihg.com/hotelindigo/hotel...in/hoteldetail ) for Saturday night. It proved to be a lovely boutique hotel, with small but well-appointed rooms, and only a couple of blocks from the train station. A ten minute walk gets you to Kensington Gardens, and St. Mary's Hospital (site of the royal birth) is right there, too. We had dinner just down the street from the hotel at The Victoria (http://victoriapaddington.co.uk/ ) which turned out to be a lovely pub; I had booked online and we got a reserved table in the library on the second level. We felt almost like locals, with fish and chips and our first minted mushy peas!

We were to meet the tour at 5 PM on Sunday, so we took the easy 90 minute train ride to Bath from Paddington at 1:30ish on Sunday. I had purchased the train tickets at home a few weeks before; the fares are cheaper if you book ahead, and they send the tickets via email. We stayed at the Brooks Guest House ( www.brooksguesthouse.com ) which was typical of the tour hotels -- pleasant, nice, clean, safe, perfectly acceptable -- but not luxurious. No concierge; no lift; no air conditioning (I don't think -- it was so cold while we were there we never checked!) but a pleasant and efficient staff. All of the hotels had wifi (some better than others), and most had in-room telephones. Located within walking distance of the main attractions, usually in the town/city center. All of the hotels provided breakfast, usually a buffet of juice, cold cereal, pastries and yogurt, and then a menu of hot breakfasts you could order from. Typical menu items were a full English breakfast (or, whatever parts you wanted), smoked salmon, Eggs Benedict, and sometimes French toast or pancakes or porridge. And always French press coffee and tea. We also had about half of our dinners and a couple of lunches provided through the tout in group meals.

Our tour group of 24 met in the breakfast room that first night and there was wine, cider, and some sorts of both savory and sweet biscuits (see how cleverly I picked up the British terminology?!) We met our guide and exchanged introductions. Group members included a university professor (me), a psychologist for the VA, a government lawyer, a guy who worked for the EPA, a journalist-turned-book author, a retired Air Force physician, a nurse, a couple of teachers ... All but four in the group were 60 or over (but were near 60, except for one young lady who had just graduated from med school and was taking the trip with her mother before starting her residency), but all of us were relatively fit and active (some days we walked nearly five miles; some days not much at all). Of the 24, about a third were singles who were either traveling entirely alone or who had a friend/co-worker in the group, and females outnumbered males two to one. I’m not saying that this is typical of RS tour groups – but that was ours. It was a congenial crowd, and over the course of the two weeks some of the tour members formed loose groups who did things together, but most just floated.

The main rules of the RS tours are: you always carry your own luggage; you can never smoke in the group unless you're on fire; the tour never waits on stragglers because one inconsiderate person can waste hours of everyone else's aggregate time (but you do select a "buddy" from the get-go, someone you aren't traveling with, and we always did a "buddy check" before setting off so in case someone is in trouble s/he isn't abandoned); tour activities and times are posted at the hotel's reception each day and it is your responsibility to read these and know the plan. No grumps -- if something doesn't meet your expectations, then change your expectations. (But there really wasn't much to grump about in any case, and any problems were addressed almost immediately.) In essence, you're expected to be responsible and act like an adult. But the tour guide also gives you his or her cell phone number at the beginning in case you get stuck somewhere and need help – even after the tour is over – so you’re never stuck.

I won't go through the RS itinerary in detail (you can get that on his website), but will provide highlights of the two weeks. After our initial group meeting in Bath we had a group dinner at a local pub (the Hop Pole) and since it was Sunday and we were at a pub, we had a traditional pub Sunday roast (beef and pork, Yorkshire pudding, potatoes, vegetables and choice of sticky toffee pudding, cheese tray, or crumble for dessert). This pub also brews so we had generous samples of its ales and ciders, but usually anything but tea, coffee or water were on your own dime (tour members often split bottles). This was a huge spread and you could have many (or as few) things as you liked; for all other group dinners we were given a menu with two or three choices for each course the day before and we could pick what we wanted. The following day we had a walking tour of Bath with our guide and a visit to the Baths (you could spend as much time there as you liked) and then the rest of the day was free. The tour never takes you to a shop or store, but the guide points the way to the shopping district and there is lots of free time, so if shopping is your thing, then you have ample opportunity.

We met our bus (a standard 60-passenger bus with the usual amenities, including wifi in towns) the next day and we took a day trip to Glastonbury (the resting place of King Arthur) and the guide provided a picnic of pasties, fruit, cheese, cider, and biscuits on the Abbey grounds. We then went to Wells and had a guided tour of the Cathedral there, and time to wander the town. The next day we headed for Stowe-on-the-Wold, stopping in Lacock Village (a National Trust site chock full of historic buildings – popular for filming period movies), Avebury (Stonehenge-like), and Blenheim Palace (birthplace of Winston Churchill – not quite Versailles, but close) on the way. Our hotel in Stowe was The Old Stocks Inn ( http://www.oldstocksinn.com/ ), right in the middle of town. We spent the next day touring Cotswolds villages and had a tour of Stanway House and its flour mill (our Chicago aristocracy live quite differently!) We had dinner as a group at the Bakers Arms, a cozy pub (with live music that night) in Chipping Campden.

More to come ...
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Old May 26th, 2015, 01:25 PM
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Very interesting - I'm so glad you are posting this.

Sounds fun so far.
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Old May 26th, 2015, 01:26 PM
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oh, nice start. I love reading about other people's travels in the UK - it's so nice to have a fresh perspective on my country and quite often they find things that I've not seen or thought about.

So please keep it coming!
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Old May 26th, 2015, 05:25 PM
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Hi PURDUEGRAD,

Thanks for posting. I have taken many escorted tours in Europe but never with Rick Steeves so I am quite interested in your experience.

I love London so am looking forward to your experience there.
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Old May 26th, 2015, 06:02 PM
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After Cotswolds we made our way to Wales, and had a lovely visit at the spectacular Bodnant Garden ( http://www.bodnantgarden.co.uk/ ) 80 acres of manicured flower beds, tree groves, and wildflower gardens and sloping towards the Snowdonia range. If you like gardens, then plan to spend at least half a day there. We spent the next two nights at the Castle Hotel Wales (http://www.castlewales.co.uk/ ) in Conwy, a resort town near the Irish Sea. One of the highlights of our visit to Wales was Caernarfon Castle, built by Edward I as a garrison to enforce English rule (and keep all of them rowdy Welsh at bay). It's also where the Prince of Wales is coronated (crowned? installed?) -- Prince Charles was the last to stand on the gray stone slab in 1969. It was gray and rainy and cold the day of our visit, but that made the imposing stone walls all the more impressive and foreboding. (We’ve learned during our years of travel that less-than-ideal weather makes for some of our more memorable days – like the time we visited Salem, Massachusetts during an October nor’easter, and the sea was wild. But I digress.) We stopped for lunch in a warm little cafe in Caernarfon, y gegin fach (The Little Kitchen), and as we were eating our soup and cheddar scones another traveler came in from the rainy cold and exclaimed, "I've been saved!" We heartily agreed!

We really enjoyed Wales a great deal, and wished we could have spent more time there. It has a more mountainous and interesting terrain than we had seen thus far in the trip (not that the bucolic Cotswolds were anything but charming), and its castles are their history are just great. The people were wonderful -- friendly, accommodating, funny. And, of course, there’s the Welsh language, ancient and mysterious…

We left Wales and then it was on to Keswick, staying at the Crow Park Hotel ( http://crowpark.co.uk/ ) for a couple of nights. We spent a two days in the Lake District, visiting several villages (including William Wordsworth’s Grasmere – unfortunately the daffodils were already spent, but the gingerbread there is like nothing I’ve ever eaten before), hiking around Derwentwater, and boating on Lake Windermere. Our group meal here was fish and chips (with more mushy peas) and we enjoyed a couple of pints at the Bank Tavern -- the name tells you what the building was in a former life. And we had an unexpectedly good dinner of goulash (!) at the Dog and Gun Pub (dogs welcome; guns not so much). We also attended a performance by Ray Gelato and the Giants, (the "Godfather of Swing") at Keswick's Theatre by the Lake. It was just like being in Las Vegas in the 1950s with Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. It was great, and the facility was beautiful. From there we headed to York, and on the way we spent most of a day at what was to become a highlight of the trip for me – Hadrian’s Wall and Vindolanda.

Roman Britain is fascinating to me, and Vindolanda brings it to life. Emperor Hadrian commissioned his 73-mile long wall in AD 122, 20 feet high and six feet wide in places, made of stone with “milecastles” every, well, mile, and turrets in between with a fort about every five miles. It was the northern border of the Roman Empire, and it was easy to imagine the poor buggers who got sent up to the cold and barren north to build, maintain and guard the wall. Vindolanda is near Hadrian’s Wall, and is the site of five Roman timber forts or garrisons (each demolished and rebuilt on top of each other) and then several stone forts were built there and occupied until about 300 AD. Since the multiple iterations of timber and stone forts were built on top of each other, artifacts from each were buried in mucky soil, shielded from oxygen and remarkable preserved. The excavations that began in the 1930s go down nearly 20 feet and have uncovered amazing things – besides coins and pottery and the like, there are hundreds of nearly intact shoes, horse bridles, canvas and leather – even a wig! But the most fascinating to me are the Vindolanda Tablets, discovered in 1973, and are thin slabs of wood about the size of a postcard which were used as writing “paper” and are the oldest examples of handwriting in Britain. Some are military records, but some seem to be orders/receipts for goods and there’s even an invitation to a birthday party. Now housed in the British Museum in London (where we got to see them a week later) over 700 of these have been transcribed. Fascinating.

We spent two nights in York at the Churchill Hotel ( http://www.churchillhotel.com/ ) and had a group dinner at the Viceroy of India restaurant in York (couldn’t go to the UK with at least one Indian meal!) We had a guided tour of York Minster (which of course is just fabulous) and had the opportunity to attend evensong there one evening. Sitting in the ancient quire stalls next to the choir was a unique experience for us and if you have the chance, there or at another church, do it. As an added bonus, if you don’t care about all of the tombs and memorials and history of a Cathedral or Abbey or Minster, attending a church service (evensong is considered a service) is always free and you can see the inside without paying the admission fee. And you have the opportunity to worship God to boot.

Our final stop on the Rick Steves tour was London. We had been traveling by coach for since Bath, but we instead took the train from York back down to London. It was a quick ride, and we ended up at Kings Cross railway station late morning, where we were picked up by another coach and we were given a quick (well, as quick as central London traffic allows) driving tour of the City of London and Westminster. So, it was a bit like a double decker bus tour, but with only one deck … But it was nice to get an overview of some of London’s geography, and there were a couple of photo shots that our guide pointed out. Like, “Look to the left at the next intersection and you will see Big Ben framed by the London Eye – have your cameras ready” – and there it was. Cool. We got out at Westminster Abbey and since our RS guide was a Blue Badge Guide, she did the tour. We were there on May 7, right before the big VE (Victory in Europe) Day memorials, and it was very crowded with tourists and television people setting up cameras and catwalks for the services to be held that weekend (the Queen would lay a wreath at the tomb of the Unknown Warrior with a number of WWII veterans in attendance at a memorial service in the Abbey, after a parade on Sunday, May 10). But even crawling with tourists, Westminster is a sight not to be missed.

We spent our last nights on the tour at the Fielding Hotel in Covent Garden ( www.thefieldinghotel.co.uk ); after the group walking tour and orientation DH and I went to the theatre (free time on the tour is noted in the tour itinerary and they suggest ways to spend that time – like booking a play). We went to see American Buffalo at Wyndham’s Theater on Charing Cross Road; I chose that while looking around on the internet at home because it wasn’t too far from the hotel and was “hot” – in part because it was just opening and starred John Goodman. And we had a very good time. Our last full day of the tour was spent first with a Tube orientation – we each got a day pass and then got a lesson in Tube map/signage reading and Tube etiquette. We then made our way to the Tower of London and had a combination of our Blue Badge Guide tour and the amusing Yeoman Warden (Beefeater?) tour, followed by the Changing of the Guard (you can get up real close and personal at the Tower – there are only like five of them, and are within 10 feet of the rope keeping the tourists at bay) and the Crown Jewels. After the Tower we took a Thames “cruise” to Westminster, and then we had the rest of the afternoon to ourselves.

We chose to spend it at the Churchill War Rooms; DH is a big military buff and he had heard a lot about the bunker itself, as well as the museum. I mentioned earlier in this report that we were at Westminster on Thursday, May 7 – it was now Friday, May 8, the actual anniversary of VE Day. At 3:00 that afternoon there was to be two minutes of silence, followed by a service at the Cenotaph, the war memorial on Whitehall. The Churchill War Rooms are just a couple of blocks from the Cenotaph, and we made it just as they were closing off the streets and sidewalks in preparation for the service. The War Rooms are fascinating – not only do you see the actual rooms and equipment/furnishings that were used for those six years, but there is an extensive museum, obviously recently done with impressive multimedia presentations, artifacts, and interactive displays. There is a “timeline” of Churchill’s life – a touch screen tabletop perhaps 15 feet long with slots for years – touch a year and it expands to months, touch a month and it expands to days. Touch a day and a photograph, or a letter (both the digitized original and a transcribed, easy-to-read version), or a video pops up with explanatory text of the significance. I can only imagine the programming that that took to pull off.

Then at about 2:45 an announcement came – there would be two minutes of silence at 3:00. And, at 3:00 all of the multimedia was, indeed, turned off, and we and all of the other visitors observed VE Day in silence with the rest of London – in the Churchill War Rooms. It was a striking moment.

We spent perhaps three hours in total there, and we finally decided that we should make our way back to the hotel to rest up a bit before our final group dinner. The sidewalk path to the Westminster Tube station was still closed (after the memorial service) so we took Horse Guards Road, headed towards Trafalgar Square on the way back to our Covent Garden hotel. This route crosses the Mall, which was lined with Union Flags on both sides, from the Admiralty Arch to Buckingham Palace. So we stood there, looking down the flag-lined Mall towards the Victoria Memorial and Buckingham Palace -- now *that* was something to see. Our final group dinner was at Kettner’s in Soho and this time the wine (if you desired) was included, and our guide gave a small gift to every tour member suited to his/her interests or tastes – small soaps shaped like lambs for those enamored with the Costwolds and Lake District sheep; a skein of wool for the knitter; chocolates for those with a sweet tooth; bookmarks from Glastonbury or Wells for the readers. The tour was over after breakfast on Saturday morning, but some (like DH and I) stayed on in London (or went to Paris, or Amsterdam) for a few days after the tour.

Next, on our own!
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Old May 26th, 2015, 10:13 PM
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It's also where the Prince of Wales is coronated (crowned? installed?)>>

we called it his "investiture" at the time [sadly I'm old enough to remember it] so invested would be the right word I think.

Still enjoying your report - though you seem to have taken the country at quite a lick, you saw some interesting places. And as I have yet to make it to Bodnant or Carnarvon, I appreciate your descriptions of them.
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Old May 27th, 2015, 06:40 AM
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A very well written report and I loved the idea of the personalised gifts at the end.
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Old May 27th, 2015, 08:26 AM
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Yes, I was also impressed with the idea of personalized gifts. Makes it seem like more than just "a job" for them. Very nice.

One tour guide we had on a London Walks tour also worked as a guide for Rick Steves. He was very impressed with the organization so they must treat their guides well.
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Old May 27th, 2015, 01:15 PM
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So, my impressions of the RS tour? It, like life, is a compromise. It took me a lot of places that I wanted to see (and places that I wouldn't have perhaps known I wanted to see), without me having to plan or arrange anything (well, not too much) and without DH having to drive on the "wrong" side of the road. We had a local tour guide at many places (Wells Cathedral, York Minster, Caernarfon Castle, Vindolanda, Stanway House, Blenheim Palace) where other tourists either had only a paper brochure or were relying on the audio guide. We were delivered pretty much onsite to wherever, without having to worry about finding our way and then finding and/or paying for parking. But, we would have liked to spend more time at some places (Blenheim Palace especially for DH; Vindolanda for me; Bodnant Gardens for both of us) and not so much time in other places (the boat ride on Lake Windermere -- meh). We had built-in travel companions, but then, we had almost constant travel companions. But it was pleasant and somewhat relaxing to park my brain (mostly) for a couple of weeks and not have to plan or arrange or contact or ... And, in this case, it was the only way to see some of the things I wanted to see; trains and buses can take you lots of places, but not everywhere. It was cold and rainy much of the time, but Rick Steves didn't have anything to do with that (I don't think).

After the tour was done on Saturday, we found our way to the flat we had rented for the next five days. In cities we like to stay in apartments/condos when possible as we have more space, more privacy, don't have to get up and be presentable to go to breakfast, and we can "live like a local" (or as much as one can in a week or so). I got a lot of advice from this forum while I was looking for an apartment last winter (I had no idea about where to stay or which Tube line was better to be near) and I ended up with a nice place in Kensington that I found on VRBO -- http://www.vrbo.com/65836 This was a great apartment -- the entire first (second for us Americans?) floor of the building, up about 17 steps in an interior hallway which opened up to about 1000 square feet with a terrace. It was clean, quiet, and everything worked as advertised. It was about four short blocks from the High Street Kensington Tube (Circle and District lines), there was a Waitrose grocery just around the corner, a Whole Foods on the far side of the Tube Station, and loads of restaurants. We loved it.

So now, after two weeks of being pretty happily hauled around, I had to turn my brain back on again. There was a London Walks walk, "Old Kensington -- London's Royal Village" starting at 2 PM that Saturday, leaving from the High Street Kensington Tube, so the owners of the apartment (er, flat) kindly let us arrive a bit earlier than advertised, at 11:30, so we could get settled (unpack, hit Waitrose, and have a bit of a sit down) and still make the walk. It turned out to be a large group (nearly 30) and Angela, the guide, wasn't the most personable that we'd ever seen. The information she gave at each stop was very good (we got a grip of some of the history of London -- why the West End was preferable and where the wealthy settled, and why the East End wasn't) and we stopped at good places (Kensington Palace, Churchill's house after he was ousted as Prime Minister, T.S. Eliot's home, the Prince Albert Memorial), but as we moved along she literally galloped ahead of the group, which inhibited any personal or ad hoc conversation, and while waiting for the group to assemble again around her she seemed impatient and was rather short. She perhaps was having a bad day, but for £20 I would have hoped for better. Later we had a delightful walk with Margaret on Free Tours by Foot, but that's another story for later.

Sunday morning we took a walking tour (on our own) of The City, walking Strand and Fleet Street passing the government buildings, Twinings Tea Shop, Dr. Johnson’s House, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese (where Dr. Johnson and Charles Dickens both drank, although not together …), Punch Tavern, and then winding down to Queen Victoria Street and up to Cheapside and its associated “goods” streets – Milk Street, Bread Street, Wood Street. Our eventual destination was St. Paul’s Cathedral for Sunday mass. We really did want to attend the service, but it also allowed us in for free, and the 90 minutes there was plenty to get a good view of the interior as well as enjoy the choir and all the rest. We once had a guide who called them “ABC” (Another Bloody Church/Cathedral), but we didn’t tire of seeing and marveling at these churches that are so unlike those we have at home in the States. Even the grandest ones, like the National Cathedral in DC, don’t quite compare. If nothing else, we are impressed with antiquity. In the afternoon we took the Tube to the Imperial War Museum (which is one of the Imperial War Museums -- the Churchill War Rooms is another), which is now housed in the former Bethlehem Royal Hospital (“Bedlam”) on Lambeth Road. A special WW I exhibit was going, and DH spent nearly four hours there, fascinated. We didn’t make it to any of the other levels. The displays were excellent, and even someone just marginally interested in wars and conflicts could spend a few hours there.

Monday was our day trip to Windsor Castle; easy 30 minute train ride from Paddington to Windsor with a transfer at Slough. I followed a tip I got from a previous post on this forum, and bought the Windsor Castle tickets at Paddington from the First Great Western ticket office -- http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/92346.aspx Not only are the tickets discounted (Windsor is not included in the 2for1 deals) but when you arrive you get to skip the regular serpentine line for tickets (which had about 50 people when we arrived) and go to the prepaid counter instead (which had two people ahead of us). We really enjoyed Windsor – the Queen was in residence (not that we saw her or anything), and the changing of the guard there had all of the bells and whistles, including the brass band, but the crowd was small enough to let you get right up to the front to watch. We took the guided tour of the grounds and then relied on the audio guide, which was good enough. After you finish with the Castle, Windsor is a good place to have tea; lots of places serve various levels of tea, with savory sandwiches and scones and cakes – and tea.

Tuesday was cold and rainy (again), so we headed to the British Museum. What can you say … Rosetta Stone. Lindow Man. Sutton Hoo. And the Vindolanda Tablets! Again, depending on level of interest, you could spend days and days there. We spent about three hours after seeing what we perceived to be the highlights. Tuesday evening was our night at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre -- The Merchant of Venice with Jonathan Pryce at Shylock. In some of our earlier wanderings we came across the Blackfriar Pub (“the only arts and crafts pub in London” -- http://www.nicholsonspubs.co.uk/theb...kfriarslondon/ ) just across from the Blackfriars Tube station and just a 10-15 minute walk from the Globe. DH had had fish and chips (and mushy peas) repeatedly during our stay, so he was dying for a hamburger. Which he happily got at the Blackfriar. Turns out he could have waited and gotten one at the Globe – lots of food stalls there, along with general festiveness. One hint – be sure to rent a cushion – those wooden benches get hard after three hours!

Our last day in London dawned fair and sunny, a wonderful change. While there were many, many more things to see and do in London, the last thing on the “must-see” list was Buckingham Palace. Rather than just wander about, I found a “Free Tours by Foot” ( http://www.freetoursbyfoot.com/london-tours/ ) walk of Westminster that Wednesday morning. The deal is as advertised – you make an online reservation and then meet your guide (we had Margaret) at the appointed spot and then at the end of the tour you pay what you think is deserved. The guide just passes a hat so there’s no real pressure. But Margaret was either just a great, natural guide, or she tried hard to earn her money, for this walk was vastly superior to the earlier London Walks one we did earlier. We met in Green Park, just next to Buckingham Palace, and set off from there. Margaret of course knows all of the “insider” timing, and rather than join the hoards in front of the gates at the Palace waiting for the Changing of the Guard, she led us down the Mall to wait for the “new” guards and their accompanying brass band to march down from St. James’ Palace, along with their police escorts on horseback. So, on cue, here they came, marching within feet of us. We didn’t see the tedious, lengthy changing ritual (but, we had already seen that twice, once at the Tower and once at Windsor) so this has a happy treat for us. The tour lasted for two and a half hours, with stops at Trafalgar Square, St. James Park, 10 Downing Street (as close as you can get – not very), Westminster Abbey, ending at Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Margaret recommended the Red Lion Pub, down the street from Westminster, for DH’s last fish and chips (both of which were extraordinarily crispy and crunchy there). It was filled with guys in suits who were talking politics (and sports)…

I made a last stop on the way back to Kensington – Fortnum & Mason on Piccadilly. I had heard of Fortnum’s years ago and had always wanted to go. It’s just like stepping back into 1950! Teas, biscuits, chutney, marmalade, tea towels, tea pots and cups. Hampers. Perfumes and liquor. Tea towels and aprons. I had thought once to have afternoon tea there, but the £40 tab (for each) put me off. But we did buy a cream scone and a pain au chocolat for the next morning’s breakfast. Then we took a stroll on neighboring Jermyn Street and gawked at all of the shops. Finally we had a last walk around “our neighborhood” (Opera Holland Park was just a couple of blocks from the flat and is most pleasant with its formal gardens and walking paths) and drank up the last of our wine on the terrace that evening. Then, sadly, packed and got ready to return to Chicago. The return on the Heathrow Express from Paddington was easy, and 10 hours later we were home. Hopefully we shall return one day. There is so much more to see and do!
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Old May 27th, 2015, 02:22 PM
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Loved it all! I have been somewhat hooked on London Walks (and yes, they do walk fast but not usually as fast as Angela did for you). But I may check out Free Tours by Foot and see what they have to offer.

Thanks so much.
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Old May 27th, 2015, 03:00 PM
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Nice to read your report, you may have seen more in your trip than I've managed in three months in London!

I must admit I'm always alienated by the kind of snobbery some people direct towards Rick Steves. I don't watch his show but on three occasions we've happened to use guides he has recommended, one in Prague, one in Buenos Aires and one in Bosnia. In all three cases we went on private walking tours and had a fabulous time, all three of them were excellent and one of them leads Rick Steves tours in Spain. Anyway, I'm pretty sure Rick Steves finds really great people to work with and that he knows his stuff.

I'm sure your honest and detailed assessment will be helpful to others.

If you rent in Kensington again do visit the Leighton House, I think you'd enjoy it.
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Old May 27th, 2015, 03:34 PM
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Well done!

I leave for my 6th visit to the UK (and London) this weekend, and as I have been to most but not all of the places you went, I enjoyed going back with you. Some of my trips have been with a student group which got me to many places for a brief look, somewhat like your group experience--a great thing. And some of my travels have been with DH driving us around or with DH on trains--also great thing! There are perks to either way and it sounds like you brought the "right" attitude to the group section, and you also had success on your own--best of both!

I fell in love with the Hadrian's Wall area, too, but around Housesteads--haven't made it to Vinolanda--yet!

Next week we will go to the Globe to see Merchant, too--might opt for cushions this time, as I'm 7 years older than on my first visit!

So thanks for the TR--nicely and clearly written. And yes, much left for your next visit. When a man is tired....
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Old May 27th, 2015, 05:05 PM
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Oh, my, I love Grasmere gingerbread. I even bought a little cookbook that had a recipe for it in town, only to find out later that no one has the real one. The one in my book sure was a long way from the original.

I thoroughly enjoyed your report. Britain is my favorite destination and London my favorite city.
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Old May 28th, 2015, 07:38 AM
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Thanks for the kind words. I use these forums a lot when planning a trip, so figure I should pay it forward and hopefully help someone else with their plans.

carolyn -- I, too, looked for recipes for the gingerbread and haven't had time to try any of them yet. But this one looks promising: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/gr...gerbread_30141

DH is all hot for me to try sticky toffee pudding, but there are about 50 different recipes for that. So will have to just pick one and go with it to see!
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Old May 28th, 2015, 08:07 AM
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great report
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Old May 28th, 2015, 12:23 PM
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yes, thanks for sharing your trip with us.
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Old May 28th, 2015, 04:29 PM
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Purduegrad, Sheila Ritchie sent me the recipe for Sticky Toffee Pudding from the Udny Arms Hotel which claims to have invented it. I have made it, and it is really, really good. For your pleasure:

Pudding:
1/2 c. butter
2 c. confectioner's sugar
2 eggs
3 c. self-rising flour
8 oz. dates
1 tsp. baking soda
2 c. boiling water

Sauce:
1 c. butter
2-3/4 c. brown sugar
1 pint whipping cream

Heat oven to 350 degrees; grease and flour a 9x13" baking pan.

For the pudding, chop the dates very fine (I used my food processor). Put them in a bowl and sprinkle the soda over them. Pour the boiling water over and stir. Let sit while the water is absorbed.

Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy. Beat eggs in gradually. Fold in flour. Add date mixture, and cream together.

Pour into prepared dish and bake for 40 minutes.

For the sauce, mix all the ingredients in a pan with a heavy bottom, and bring to a boil. Cook a couple of minutes until it thickens a bit.

Poke holes in top of still warm cake and pour half the mixture over the top, allowing sauce to soak into the cake. Brown under the broiler before serving. (I skipped this step.)

Keep remaining sauce warm and spoon onto still warm pieces of cake to serve. Top with whipped cream, if desired.

Enjoy!
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Old May 28th, 2015, 06:21 PM
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Great report! I loved your writing style and all the detail. Sounds like you had a wonderful time!
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Old May 28th, 2015, 06:28 PM
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Thanks for posting your trip report, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and it's given me some new ideas for my upcoming trip as well!
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Old May 28th, 2015, 06:49 PM
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Thanks, carolyn! I will try it this weekend (weather to turn cold and rainy here in Chicago on Saturday, so won't seem so out of season).

Fishnlines, I alwyays find new ideas on this forum, and hope you have a great time!

Thanks, lovs2travel. We did have a good time. I sort of look at traveling like a job -- good trips don't just magically happen; you need to research and work at it to make the most of your limited time and money. (At least, we have limited time and money...) That's why these online groups are so great.
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