Well I’m finally getting around to the report on my family’s June trip to London.

The trip was the high-school graduation present for our 18 year-old twin girls. We had visited London in 2008, and there were many places the girls wanted to revisit, plus we added some new experiences for all of us.

To catch our flight we had a 4-hour drive from our home near Pittsburgh to Dulles airport in Virginia. I found a great deal at the Embassy Suites North –we would stay at the hotel overnight on our way back home for $99/night, plus we could park our car at the hotel for the entire 9 days of our trip for free! The hotel’s free shuttle provided round trip transportation to and from the airport.

We had an 11:10 PM Virgin Atlantic flight out of Dulles. I chose the later flight time because we would land in London around lunchtime the next day and by the time we arrived at our hotel we could immediately check in to our rooms. One of the worst things about most flights to Europe is that you arrive very early in the morning and then have to force your jet-lagged body to stay in motion until check-in time in the late afternoon.

Well my plan worked perfectly. We had a pleasant flight and everything was on time. I had pre-ordered Oyster cards for our trip from the airport, so we hopped on the Underground and arrived at Earl’s Court station in around 45 minutes. We were staying at the NH Kensington Hotel on Cromwell Road, just a few blocks from the station. Our rooms were ready when we arrived, so we unpacked and rested for a few hours.

After our nap we decided to walk from to the Victoria & Albert Museum (about a 25 minute walk from the hotel). It was a Friday evening and many sections of the museum are open until 10:00 PM. My daughters really enjoyed the Fashion Collection and the Medieval Rooms. The V&A is still one of my favorite museums!

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a little Italian restaurant called La Pergola on Cromwell Road. We shared an excellent appetizer of fried calamari and everyone enjoyed their entrees of pizza or pasta.

The next morning my dear husband got up early and walked down Earl’s Court Road in search of breakfast for us all. I loved staying in this area – Earl’s Court is full of nice inexpensive restaurants, bakeries and shops. We did not purchase the hotel’s breakfast because it was 17 pound per person – and we are just coffee and a roll kind of people.

On Saturday morning we decided to do the Old City. We took he Underground to Temple to tour the Inns of Court and the Temple Church. The area is really beautiful and so historic. We then walked to St. Paul’s. The girls decided to climb to the top of the dome, but my husband and I had done it in our younger days and let them go on alone. After touring the Cathedral we walked around the old city for a while and then decided to go to Leicester Square to see which theater tickets were available at the TKS booth . We didn’t find a show to go to that night, but decided to head to Belgo Centraal for dinner. Belgo is a really neat Belgian restaurant near Covent Garden. We were seated in the basement beer cellar and enjoyed our lunch of mussels and fries (and great Belgian beer!). We were still feeling the effects of jet lag, so we called it an early night and had a good long night’s sleep.

On Sunday morning we visited the Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace, which was a new experience for all of us. The mews are the stables for the queen’s horses and also contain the royal coaches, including the Glass Coach that Diana Spencer rode in to her wedding at St. Paul’s. We strolled through St. James Park and then had lunch at the Red Lion Pub in Whitehall. The Red Lion is a classic 19th century pub with great atmosphere and reliably good pub grub.

After lunch we went around the corner to the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms. We had enjoyed our visit to this museum so much on our last trip that our daughters wanted to return. The Cabinet War Rooms were the underground headquarters of the British High Command served as the nerve center of Britain's war effort during World War II. They were simply abandoned at the end of the war and many of the rooms appear exactly as they looked in June 1945. They are a unique experience of the war.

We returned to the hotel, freshened up and headed to Earl’s Court Road and dinner at Masala Zone, a very good and inexpensive Indian restaurant. We then set off for the Tower of London for the Ceremony of the Keys. It was one of the highlights of our trip. The ancient custom of the Ceremony of The Keys, which involves the formal locking of the gates of the Tower of London, has been carried out continuously every night at seven minutes to ten PM, without fail, for more than 600 years since 1340. Only a few dozen people are admitted to the ceremony each evening and you must apply for the free tickets weeks or months ahead of time. It is a really awesome feeling to witness this solemn ceremony in the dark at the Tower.

Monday morning started off with a trip to Westminster Abbey. Since we had all been to the Abbey before, we decided to take the London Walks guided tour to see if it would give us a new perspective. We met the London Walks guides at Westminster Station where we were separated into two tour groups. We were permitted to enter the abbey via the back entrance, thus bypassing the line out front. The tour guide was quite good, and we enjoyed her insights.

After the Abbey we went for a lunch of fish and chips at the Laughing Halibut at 38 Strutton Ground. It was by far the best fish and chips I have ever had in London. Everything was prepared to order and nothing was greasy. I had the cod, but I wish I had ordered the plaice like my husband.

The rest of the day was devoted to Shakepeare. We visited the Globe Theater Exhibition and took the tour of the complex. For dinner we just picked up some Cornish Pasties at Earl’s Court Station, and then went to see “As You Like It” at the Globe. It was a great production in spite of the pouring rain – we were so glad we had sheltered seats and that we were not one of the groundlings!

We got up early Tuesday morning for an excursion that turned out to be everyone’s favorite day of the trip – we were off to Hever Castle in Kent, the childhood home of Anne Boleyn! We took the train from Victoria Station to Hever, transferring at East Croydon. Hever station is unmanned and there are no taxis to the castle, so we set off on one of the most hilarious walks of our lives. According to Frommer’s Day Trips from London, to get to the castle one need just “follow the well marked path to the castle!” Well, let me tell you, the path is not all that well marked, and we went through brambles, bushes and fields, around cow plops and over fences!! We were laughing hysterically. My daughter got a great video of the whole experience on her phone, and it was a rural journey we will never forget!

We finally arrived in the village of Hever which consists of a pub, a church and the castle. We had lunch in the lovely garden of the Henry VIII pub and then headed around the corner to the castle. The castle and gardens are absolutely breathtaking. The castle was purchased at the beginning of the 20th century by William Waldorf Astor, a wealthy American. He totally restored the then crumbling castle and developed 30 acres of incredible gardens and dug a 30-acre lake. I could have stayed in the gardens forever. My daughter Janna was in heaven because she loves Tudor history. We were sorry to have to leave. We trekked back to the station via the “well marked path” and set off back to London.

Well, I will have to finish up later…

Glad you enjoyed yourselves and kept a sense of humour.

Sounds like fun! Keep it coming!

Congratulations on making the Hever day into a fun memory instead of turning on each other as the situation had the potential to do.

Great report full of interesting details. Keep it coming.

mnapoli, I thought you might enjoy the following excerpt from one of my earlier trip reports:

And then there was the day we went to Hever. The ticket agent at Victoria Station told us there was trouble on the line and we should change trains at East Clapham. We dutifully got off and asked the agent which train to get for Hever, and he pointed to the one we had just got off of which was then moving on, saying we should change at Oxted for Hever which was what the man at the departure point at Victoria had said. So we waited half an hour for another train to Oxted and then another half an hour for the train to Hever.

The station at Hever is not manned but does have a painted board with directions for walking the mile to the castle. However, a U.S. couple from CT got off, he waving a map and saying this way to the castle. I should have known better than to go with them because she was wearing jeans and (gasp) white walking shoes, but we followed along a pretty deserted road, eating wild blackberries and avoiding horse droppings along the way, while walking up a long and fairly steep hill. My daughter and I fell somewhat behind after more than enough time to have walked a mile and then saw the couple coming back with the news that they had seen a sign pointing to the castle back the way we had come.

Let me say here that Hever is a VERY small place with the castle, a church, the Henry VIII pub and a few houses scattered along those quiet roads. We had passed another pub on that wrong road, so the CT guy went in, asked directions, and was told to take the footpath just beside the pub which would take us directly to the castle.

Okay, we started out on a very narrow path lined with brambles and littered with sheep droppings, and then we came to the first stile. It was pretty rickety but climbable, so over we went only to find ourselves in a farmer’s field complete with cow droppings and a sign saying it was private property but could be used to connect to the footpath further along.

Did that, climbed another stile, back onto the footpath which then came to a dead end with stiles to the right and to the left. The Connecticut Yankee wanted to go right, which was back in the wrong direction from which we had just come. At that point even his wife protested, so we climbed left and saw more footpath that at last led to the village.

We did enjoy seeing the castle, learning some history, and seeing the beautiful Italian gardens and the rose garden that still had lots of bloom. It was a brisk sunny day for all our walking but did start to rain while we were in the gardens. When we turned to look back just as the rain ended, there was a beautiful rainbow just across the river that lies beyond the arches at the end of the gardens.

We got back to the train station following the correct road, got the train back to Oxted, changed trains properly, and then found that the trouble on the line was on the return portion to London. Instead of getting back to Victoria, we ended up at London Bridge station, got on a District Line tube—headed in the wrong direction! Well, that was pretty easy to correct, got off, changed sides, got on again, and didn’t get caught outside our tube pass zone.

The moral of this story is don’t follow strangers equipped with internet maps and look for the rainbows.

Looking forward to reading more.

I am planning a trip to London in late September. In all my previous trips, I never knew about the Ceremony of Keys in the Tower of London. I promptly sent off a letter today requesting tickets. Fingers crossed.

The trip continues...

After our return to London we decided to have dinner at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese just off Fleet Street. It is one of the oldest pubs in the city, being built in 1667just after the Great Fire of London. We did not have reservations so we couldn’t eat in the ground floor restaurant, so we went down to the cellar bar. Down the steps you come to the vaults, a fascinating series of tiny, stone rooms. These vaults were part of the original guest house's chapel. The steps continue into the cellar bar and dining area, where we enjoyed Samuel Smith ale on tap with a very good chicken and mushroom pie. After our long day at Hever we called it a day and relaxed for the evening.

On Wednesday morning we were off to the Tower of London, Janna’s favorite spot in the world. We arrived just as the Tower opened and immediately went to the back of the complex to see the Crown Jewels . The last time we visited the line to see the jewels was so long that we gave up, but early in the morning there is absolutely no line and you can linger as long as you like.

We decided to skip the Beefeater tour this time as instead leisurely explored the entire Tower. This year marks the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII’s coronation, and the Tower had a special exhibit in the White Tower entitled “Dressed to Kill” which showcased Henry VII’s armor and weapons over his lifetime. We also really enjoyed the recreation of the rooms from Edward I’s time in the Medieval Palace located above Traitor’s gate. We also had a nice lunch in the New Armouries Restaurant.

We had tickets to see “The Lion King” at the Lyceum Theater that evening, so we returned to the hotel, relaxed a bit and then went off to the West End. We had reservations for dinner at Porter’s Restaurant at 17 Henrietta Street in Covent Garden. We had eaten at Porter’s on our last trip and we really enjoyed it. The restaurant specializes in traditional English food such as pies and puddings.

We really enjoyed the play, and the Lyceum Theater is an experience all by itself. The theater is over 100 years old and is actually mentioned in a Sherlock Holmes story!

On Thursday we decided to spend the day at Hampton Court Palace, which is about a 30 minute direct train ride from Waterloo Station. The week we were in London was the week of the Royal Ascot races, and we enjoyed seeing all of the hats and fancy attire of the people headed toward Ascot from Waterloo Station.

As I mentioned above, 2009 is the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII’s coronation, and they had special events going on at Hampton Court in celebration. There were reenactors portraying Henry VIII and his court, including Catherine Parr his last wife. Our favorite part of the palace was the Tudor Kitchens and the massive fireplaces. We also loved the beautiful gardens surrounding the palace.

We spent most of day at Hampton Court and when we returned to the hotel we crashed for a couple of hours. We then walked down Earl’s Court Road to Hogarth Place to have dinner at the Little French Restaurant (yes, that is the name of the restaurant!). It is a charming small restaurant with a special 3-course menu for 10 pounds per person, excluding drinks. We all had excellent meals, and I would definitely go back to eat here again.

On Friday morning we visited the Borough Market in Southwark. This is one of my favorite places in London because of the incredible food! I’m always a little sad that I don’t have access to a kitchen when I come here, because the arrays of fresh ingredients are incredible!

We like to eat our way through the market, so first we shared roast pork and stuffing sandwiches from the ROAST stand. It is unbelievably good, with moist pork, great stuffing and applesauce. Then we went to find the greatest grilled cheese sandwich in the world - yes, I mean the world. At the back of the market by Southwark Cathedral is KAPPACASEIN, and they create wonders from cheese. They start with big, dense slices of bread from Poilâne, the revered French bakery that has an outpost in London. They add a mixture of grated Montgomery cheddar, Keen’s cheddar, and Ogleshield cheeses. On top of that stack of cheese, they finely chopped red onion, white onion, shallots, chives and scallions. It all goes into the sandwich press and out comes heaven! My daughter Marina wanted to figure out how to pack 6 or 7 sandwiches in here luggage to bring home!.

After roaming around the market for hours, we stopped to have a pint at the George, London's only remaining galleried coaching inn. The George was rebuilt in 1676, after a devastating fire swept Southwark.. It has a great atmosphere and is truly a historical treasure.

In the afternoon we decided to go to Smithfield to see the Church Saint Bartholomew the Great, one of London's oldest churches. It was founded in 1123 as an Augustinian Priory and has been in continuous use as a place of worship since at least 1143. It is the only medieval priory church to survive Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, although the main nave of the church was destroyed. It is really a wonderful place to sit and meditate.

(An aside: I have been reading an excellent series of mysteries by the author C.J. Sansom that are set at the time of Henry VIII. In the second book of the series, “Dark Fire”, St. Bartholomew’s church plays an important role.)

That evening we had tickets to see the new production of “Peter Pan” which is being presented in Kensington Gardens. We picked up some sandwiches to eat in the picnic area of the theater and went off to Kensington.

This new production of Peter Pan is taking place in a specially commissioned, state-of-the-art Kensington Gardens Theatre Pavilion. The production includes 360 degree projected scenery of London and Neverland. It was truly a unique experience- you feel like you are actually flying with the characters! I hope they continue with this production next year.

On Saturday our flight home was not until 6:00 PM, so we had some time for some last minute sightseeing. We walked from our hotel to Harrod’s and picked up some gifts for the family. We had lunch at the Bunch of Grapes pub near the department store, and on the way back to the hotel we stopped at the V&A museum to see the British Gallery which had not been open when we were there the previous Friday evening. We then picked up our luggage and took the Underground back to Heathrow for an uneventful trip home.

I really enjoyed this trip, and with two daughters starting college and an older daughter planning a wedding, I doubt we will be seeing Europe again in the next few years. But I will live vicariously through all of your trip reports! Bon Voyage.

Thanks so much for posting your most enjoyable report!

Lee Ann

Nice report, mnapoli. Sounds like such a fun trip.

Oh, for a branch of Kappacasein in my neighborhood, and five kinds of onions.

Wonderful report. Thanks!

What excellent choices you made! And I love the George and the Cheshire Cheese. Great pubs.