Brighton to Bakewell, and London In Between.
 

As we sat on the curb at Borough Market sharing a bottle of cider and eating a toasted cheese sandwich hot from the grill, a sense of profound well-being came over me. Could there be a better sandwich, a better city or a better market anywhere? I doubted it.

Background: Blame it on the Janes.
For years, my older daughter MC and I had been talking about getting out into the English countryside. Lizzy Bennett jumping from a stile into the mud, Blandings Castle dreaming in the moonlight, and the greenness of it all; we’ve always wanted to walk those footpaths for ourselves. At her Christmas break from first year at college, snuggled up watching Jane Eyre, MC said once again that we really needed to go, and I once again replied that yes indeedy we most certainly did, someday.

The idea took hold, the pound wavered, British Air came through like champs. Kind Fodorites offered advice and encouragement. Family trip to Yellowstone would have to wait. The news would have to broken gently to my husband and younger daughter. They took it like good sports, and I began the planning process that brightened the late winter. Someday suddenly seemed possible, and we ran with it.

Getting There:
The decision tipping point was British Air’s most excellent sale on tickets. I had browsed kayak.com and asked them to keep an eye on London flights. They sent an email advising of BA sale. The days with the best fares narrowed down as we dithered, but fares stayed low for days allowing a two week window soon after her final exams. BA sweetened the pot with the offer of two free nights in London with our roundtrip airfare from ORD.

Amtrak got us from St. Louis to the Chicago Loop, and light rail to O'Hare.

British Air treated us very well at every step of the way. They are my new airline heroes.

Places to Stay: We Were Very Very Happy with them All
BA provided a list of hotels, and we chose to stay at the Fraser Place Queen’s Gate, near Cromwell Rd. tube stop on Picadilly Line, for our two free nights. http://london-queensgate.frasershospitality.com/
We’d never stayed in that part of town, we liked the idea of a kitchenette, the V&A is just down the street, and breakfast was included.

Fraser Place was over our austerity budget, and we like to stay in or near Bloomsbury, so we looked to move east after our two gratis days. My basic unit of hotel price is the NMS8, based on the basic Northfield MN Super 8 where we stay when visiting MC at college. The HI Regent’s Pk on Hotwire bid was a little less than one NMS8 unit. No breakfast, but --ahem-- in London. On Carburton St., handy to Regent’s Park, Great Portland, and Warren St. tube stops, and quite a few bus lines.
http://tinyurl.com/m8tamy


For our countryside segment, I pulled up a map of Great Britain, saw a green area in Derbyshire surrounding the a town of Bakewell. Quick internet search reveals that this town has restaurants, B&Bs, and some large country homes nearby. I posted a question and got encouraging Fodorite responses. I sent MC an email at college with links to Bakewell, Chatsworth, and Haddon Hall. Her response was a series of OMGs, with, if my memory serves, several exclamation points. Bakewell it is. We chose Everton B&B, across from a park a few minutes’ walk from the center of town. http://www.evertonbandb.co.uk/
The basic price for a few days’ stay is well less than one NMS8.

We needed one night in London before flying out. Why not see what Priceline could get us in the 5 star department? We bid 2 NMS8 units, and got Grosvenor House on Park Lane, newly refurbished and overflowing with creature comforts. Oh, the sheets. The sheets. http://tinyurl.com/6baa8k

How nice to know that I'm not the only person out there who cares deeply about sheets.

Carry on.

Cant wait for more!

Looking forward to more of this!

hi stoke,

I'm agog for more details of your trip.

soon, please!

ann

Wow, what a great start to your report! Waiting for more...

Lee Ann

Lovely start! ( I'll trade you one MC for 5 "ladies of a certain age" for my next trip :) )

Thank you, all!

MC and I share a lot of interests and some strong points (pretty good at directions for instance), but the poor dear has inherited some of my qualities that make us less than a dynamic duo at times. Flexible, yes, but on the indecisive side. A tendency to dawdle that can be unfortunate when trains run on time. That sort of thing.

I'm glad we could make this trip before the kinds of entanglements that would make her unwilling to spend so much time with her old ma.

janisj, your trip leadership might make you eligible for sainthood. You might want to check..

Great report so far. Which Priceline category covered the Grosvenor House, please?

Tickets and Reservations

MC is a dancer and we both enjoy (most) opera, so we checked the Royal Opera House for whatever looked good. http://www.roh.org.uk/ They’ll send an email when the next season’s tickets go on sale, so we snagged the best cheap seats by jumping right on it. The website slows down a lot that day or two.

I had to wait until 12 weeks before our trip to book train tickets to Bakewell by http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/ . The process was a little mystifying in spots, since I had to go to the appropriate train companies’ websites to book and pay. The 1 hr 45 min trip there cost 69 GBP standard class, and 16 GBP to return first class by Virgin. When it seemed we had missed our train and I checked the machine at St.Pancras, last minute round trip standard class for the next train was even a little cheaper than that. A great bargain and part of a very well run public transport system.

CW helped me find the website for the Major General’s Review, a tech rehearsal for Trooping of the Colours. http://www.changing-the-guard.com/sched.htm
To attend the following week’s Colonel’s review, you send £10/ticket. The Trooping of the Colours, complete with royalty birthday person on June 13 this year, is £20. (Setting up the grandstands, paying guards to look at our tickets and direct us, sweeping up after the horses and so forth must add up.) If you miss tickets for the Horse Guards Parade, they all march and ride out towards the Mall for further parading. Payment must be by mail and on a cheque drawn on UK account in GBP. Luckily for us, the Major General’s Review is on the house; fill in a request and mail to The Brigade Major, HQ Household Division, Horse Guards, Whitehall, London SW1A 2AX in January or February. Very much worth it. Just addressing an envelope to such a person was worth it. I enclosed an international reply coupon but later realized that hadn’t been necessary.

(The elusive IRC, needed for Ceremony of the Keys: you stand in line at your local US Post Office, and the clerk tells you they haven’t any. Not much call for them, and they expire in a year, so not worth the trouble for postmaster. No way to call individual PO’s to inquire. Clerk suggests a more international-travellery part of town. You and your daughter ride your bicycle over there, wait in another line, are told that they USUALLY have them, but are clean out just then. Sympathetic clerk gives us secret phone # to a PO not too far out of our way home, we wait in another line, and voila.)

Otherwise we wanted to keep our commitments to a minimum so we could choose our Brighton day based on the weather. I wanted to see a West End show, preferably The 39 Steps, and Fodor’s sources correctly thought we’d be safe waiting to book.

Following another Fodor’s tip I made a reservation for Friday afternoon tea at the Cavendish Hotel, two for a bargain £20, but we ended up finding something better to do that evening, so I cancelled. Our final reservation was breakfast at the Wolseley for the last morning in town.

Hi, tuscan. Grosvenor House is in Mayfair/Soho on Priceline.

Off we go.

BREEZING THROUGH THE WINDY CITY

We only ever go through the Chicago Loop while changing trains, and in between I always forget what a vital city it is, dynamic and full of delightful vulgar public art.

One of the visual themes of our trip was Children Splashing in Fountains. Millennium Park just north of the Art Institute has Crown Fountain, two large monoliths covered with glass bricks. On the facing surfaces huge LED photos of different Chicagoans purse their lips every few min and spout water. Children screech and run under, then splash in the shallow pool in between. Just beyond is The Bean or huge silvered Cloud Gate: walk through, become funhouse reflected and disoriented.

The Art Institute has just opened a new Modern wing. http://tinyurl.com/lgw8vg
Beautiful soaring architecture. We were unwilling to spend the $18 apiece to walk in, though, (reasoning cheaply that Chicagoans could visit our free art museum compliments of local taxpayers and should be willing to reciprocate) admired it from the lobby.

UNFORESEEABLE

MC accused me this morning of meaning to start a Fodor’s thread about the film we watched on the flight home, "In the Loop." I indignantly denied any such intention, but will go ahead and mention it here to get it out of my system. I loved it. It’s full of amusing invective that I could possibly get away with here at home, depending upon my tone of voice, once I check the definitions online. (“Seaside donkey” for instance seems safe enough.)

The word “unforeseeable” figures in the plot, so I will probably be slipping it into conversations for the next week or so. One benefit of travel is the chance to form new favorites in various categories, and this is my new favorite profane political satire film. The trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT3z67v_22k

Unforeseeable for us was how interesting UK politics would become, and how interesting it might have been to slip into Parliament and listen in. Cabinet ministers resigning daily, new revelations of creative PM accounting, denials and partial admissions. I’m glad it was a money scandal and not the hanky panky kind, because I never can get that interested in the sex lives of others. Taxpayers’ outrage at paying for bogus mortgages I can grasp.

London especially is full of the written and spoken word. Walk down the streets and someone will put a tabloid in your hand. People stand outside pubs after work and talk to each other for hours. The daily papers are full of wit and intelligent analysis, mostly over our American heads. They care about words; maybe my new favorite thing about England.

"<i>London especially is full of the written and spoken word. Walk down the streets and someone will put a tabloid in your hand. People stand outside pubs after work and talk to each other for hours. The daily papers are full of wit and intelligent analysis, mostly over our American heads. They care about words; maybe my new favorite thing about England.</i>"

That's it - you've hit it on the head !

My little group preferred watching tape-delayed American Idol at night over heading to the pub to actually converse . . . .

Oh, dear. Well, I suppose they were a-weary from travelling.

I am really enjoying your report. Bakewell sounds like a place we should visit. For one of our countryside trips we enjoyed Cradley in the Malverns. Thank you so much for your effort to write your report!!!!

In the loop is a fillum version of The Thick of It a britsh TV comedy/satire. Youtube is your friend, but I will warn you that it is possibly the most sweary thing ever commited to video. And most of it in a scottish accent that will baffle you.

And it's reckoned to be pretty accurate...

The Crossest Man in Scotland was another great character. I love that accent.

BRITISH AIR IS MY NEW FAVORITE AIRLINE

Where have they been all my life? Apparently flying here and there taking good care of their customers.

The reason we were able to watch very sweary Scottish-accent videos that might not go over so well with the masses: each seat has a screen with a menu of classic and recent release films, TV shows, spoken word, music of all kinds.

Attendants walk through every half hr or so with trays of water and juices. The food was very good. Did I mention they gave us two nights in a lovely London hotel? (this offer may vary, according to global financial crises) I will use them in the future fates willing.

SOUTH KENSINGTON FROM OUR STUDIO ON CROMWELL RD.

Fraser Place Queen’s Gate is a short walk from the Gloucester Rd. tube stop, convenient to Heathrow. Our 1st floor studio apartment had 15 foot ceilings, a bay window onto a balcony overlooking Cromwell Rd, loft bedroom, and a basic closet style kitchenette. We were delighted with it. A very good continental breakfast was included, served in a large bright dining room on the ground floor.

Proximity to the Victoria and Albert allowed us a few short visits and minimal museum fatigue (A state characterized by diminishing degree of attention due to sensory overload, leading to physical exhaustion and decreased motivation and interest. Studies show that it generally sets in within 45 min).

Another antidote for that malady is the café set up in V&A's large central courtyard. More children splashing in the pool; we decide we would bring our children over often if we had any and lived nearby. If not, I’d come anyway, sit and watch. I am a sucker for a certain kind of looking counter man who asks with a French accent whether madame would like anything else with her tea, so I went for the asparagus tart. Lovely.

I’d just finished directing a group of teenagers in Antigone (very well received, thank you), and was feeling legitimately Theatrical. We looked through the new theatre exhibit and enjoyed it very much. (“Richard Burton wore that tabard!” a woman whispers to her husband.)
http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/the...ume/index.html

I don’t suppose in my day I had any more princess fantasies than the next little girl, and I don’t crave that sort of adornment, but I loved the Jewellery Gallery at the V&A. They keep it dark, with lighted cases to enhance the glittering of diadems and whatnot. http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/fas...ery/index.html
Why stand in line at the Tower to be whisked past the Crown Jewels, when you can stand with your nose pressed against the glass and admire bangles, rubies, sprays, stomachers. There’s a slide show with photos and paintings showing how they were worn.

Don’t miss the amazing cast rooms, either. Or the British galleries, or or…..

Next door to the V&A, the Brompton Oratory is well worth a visit. There was a service in a side chapel, so we were extra quiet. I particularly admired the carved wood confessionals labelled with the various priests’ names, wondered if there was any competition among them for the particularly fine ones.

I thought the Bakewell station was closed. Has it re-opened?

Hmmm. No, it's quite defunct, tracks pulled up and the railbed made into the Monsal Trail. We detrained at Chesterfield and were picked up by B&B host, then took excellent bus back on our return.

stokebailey, I know a rather rude story about a famous actress and "character" (now resting in another place) and Brompton Oratory, but it's not for this board (BTW, were we discussing draperies on a certain other messageboard - it's so hard to keep track).

Yes, I am lola over there. Send me an email with the rude story, please!

sorry to have missed you, stoke, how was the ballet?

ref the UK politics that you so enjoyed, you were lucky to be over here when there was so much ging on that might interest a non-Brit. it isn't always this fascinating.

I caught up with Sunday's Bremner Bird and fortune [Channel 4, 7pm] tonight. it is worth watching for the song finale alone - "Gordon Brown" performing Mica's "I could be brown, i could be blue". a real hoot if you can get it on the web, somehow.

regards, ann

Hi, Ann,

Sorry we missed you, too! Next time for sure.

One senses that Brown is not too beloved right now.

Looking for the Mika song- and getting angry doesn't solve anything -- stumbled on YouTube clip called "Gordon assesses the fallout from the Euro Elections." (in translation from the German, Brown depicted with small moustache discussing the aftermath of MEP elections with his staff.)

How much is just bad timing? I don't see how any one person could ruin an economy, for instance.

About getting angry: a few more weeks there and we'd be pronouncing the t's in the middles and ends of words.

stokebailey:

I just found your wonderful trip report.

I fly out of St. Louis and I am especially interested to hear a bit more detail about Amtrak to the Chicago Loop and light rail to O'Hare. How much time was involved and the cost vs. simply flying.

Thanks for taking the time to share.

Sandy

Hi, Sandy. We seem to travel many of the same roads. (I'm the fellow survivor of I-44 March snowstorm.)

We took the 0640 Amtrak Lincoln Service from STL, arriving in CHI 1220. This train originates in STL and therefore departs on time. It zipped through IL and even arrived as scheduled, but in the past we've taken the Texas Eagle and been several hours late boarding and arriving.

With a 7 hour buffer between scheduled arrival and the time we'd need to be at ORD for our 2200 flight, and a beautiful day to putter around the Loop, it worked out very well for us.

A quick check of www.amtrak.com shows the fare for at $42 later this month and $23 in September. We paid $21 each I think, a considerable saving for the two of us over airfare, plus the bonus adventure of the Loop. Trains didn't work out, so we flew ORD to SLT on return home.

For the truly frugal, there's also MegaBus.com and its fabled $1 seats, Union Station to Union Station. Probably more likely to be on time than TX Eagle.

The light rail to ORD is the Blue Line, from the Clinton two blocks south of Union Station. Part of the CTA. Departs every 10 min, and takes ~ an hour. As it happened, we travelled on a weekend when they were working on the line, had to shuttled by bus for quite a few miles through some interestingly funky neighborhoods. Still arrived in plenty of time since we decided to allow 1.5 hrs for that leg of the journey.

stokebailey:

Thank you for such marvelous detail - it is certainly another way to think about the journey if connecting thru O'Hare. Obviously you have done this more than once.

Yes we did survive the March I-44 snow storm, totaled the vehicle we were taking to our son in California. I was a bit sorry that I wasn't able to travel one time by road out to California. We did of course later fly out and that is our usual mode of travel.

Carry on with your delightful report.

Sandy

OPERA, BALLET, AND A WEST END PLAY: CULTURE HEAVEN FOR PROVINCIALS

We were still a little jetlagged when we arrived at Covent Garden for L’Elisir d’Amore. Buskers in the Piazza took cover from a light rain. We sat in the Lower Slips Left, where you lean forward onto a velvet railing and still can’t quite see all the stage. My favorites.

I can’t remember enjoying a performance more. The staging was inventive, the acting frisky and funny, and the whole tastefully and appropriately sexy. The curtain rises to a huge stack of hay bales, with Adina sunning herself halfway up, painting her toenails. I was all theirs from that moment on. Nemorino reminded me of John Belushi, very physical and a fine tenor. Loved his Una furtiva lagrima.

I admire the way ROH set designers keep us Lower Slippers in mind. The play was set around 1940 in rural Italy, with the open door of a trattoria back lavatory facing us. The poor emerging with toilet paper trailing from his foot.

Opera is my pricy art form of choice, though I have developed more of an eye for dance over the 15 years my daughters have been studying. At the ROH later in our visit we saw the combined ballets Les Sylphides, Sensorium, and the Firebird: respectively very nice, all right, and wonderful in my estimation. MC enjoyed Sensorium, a new piece by Marriott, and she would be a better judge than I. Our seats for the ballet were high but with unobstructed view, good for dance.

Were those coughing during the ballet all Americans? Thoughts of swine flu flit through the mind at such times. My first time at ROH was with ages ago with my mother, who whispered a question to me during the overture, then firmly shushed when I started to breathe an answer into her ear. Oh, for such shushing in the US, where some people think nothing of carrying on low conversations throughout concerts, oblivious to glares. I’ll save my comparative analysis of standing ovation inflation for another time.

I wavered back and forth about seeing The 39 Steps, with so many alternate entertainments available, though I’d long been interested in the production and really like the older English Hitchcock.

Then we saw that Jude Law would be playing Hamlet at the Wyndham, previews and then opening that week, and were tempted by that prospect. Because, umm, well, high minded literature, you know. More indecision. Our last evening in town we opening night and Hamlet sold out. So much the better. We popped over to Piccadilly Circus and the Criterion, got our tickets 10 min before curtain time. What a great theater, built 1870s. You descend to the highest balconies, and further to the dress circle and our excellent bargain seats.

39 Steps closely follows the Hitchcock version, with 3 actors playing the hundred-odd parts besides a consistent Hannay. Very clever, brisk, and funny. We laughed all the way through.

I mean to say that the poor people in pricy orchestra seats would miss gags like a man exiting with, okay maybe you had to be there, toilet paper dragging from shoe.

OUR ANSWER TO THE OYSTER vs PAPER TRAVELCARD QUESTION: YES

We’d be in London for a week or so, then in the country, then back in town, and many of the 2 for 1 offers looked attractive. So we decided to go with both Oyster and 7 day paper Travelcard. We put £20 each on Oystercards at terminal 5. Luckily we were just ahead of the group of ~25 sari’d travelers who queued behind us, so it only took a few minutes.

The “all you care to ride” Travelcard turned out to be just right for our personalities. No matter whether it was less expensive overall, we like being able jump off and on the underground and buses without concern for each fare. One less decision, one large No Agonizing Zone. Psychological, if you follow me: it feels financially prudent, whatever the reality may be.

We bought our Travelcards at the National Rail ticket counters in Victoria Station a few days after arrival. Quick, easy, and started using them right away.

The only 2 for 1 offer we ended up using was at the Courtauld, and saved £5. MC and I kept mentioning the Thames Clipper, but somehow never ended up at the correct pier at the right time. By the time we saw 39 Steps our Travelcard had expired, and anyway the box office gave us a last minute deal for good seats that otherwise would have been empty. The two mornings we’d considered for the Fat Tyre tour were wet and chilly, so we let that pass, too.

When we got back to town after Bakewell we used our Oysters, and had plenty of money left on them after underground ride back to Heathrow.

no luck I'm afraid in getting Channel 4's on demand service to work for me - you clearly need better IT skills than mine to access whole programmes.

However, I did manage to access these clips, which should give you a flavour of mr. brown's level of popularity:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/b...s-16/episode-1

regards, ann

Thanks, Ann. Channel 4.com tells me I'm in "the wrong country" to watch them, though; how do computers know these things?

Wow, L'Elisir d'Amore @ the ROH, what a treat, even if it's Lower Slips! :)) I used to sit there long time ago, but I didn't like how I had to crank my neck for the whole time. (I also paid my dues at the Upper Slips... those are brutal!)

And you missed Jude Law??? OMG. Even if the show was sold out, I would have just waited at the stage door for him so I could salivate. =P~

Hamlet's the longest Shakespeare play, though. Lots of soliloquies and bloodshed before he'd have emerged.

A few years ago I saw Hamlet at RSC in Stratford w/ Sam West (maybe even more breath taking the Jude Law)

I had dashed to the box office and hadn't even noted who was in the the title role. Was sitting in the 2nd row w/ my shoulder touching the bit of stage the protruded out from the proscenium. A cast member came out and sort of crouched down in the darkness about 6 inches from me. The soliloquies and such took place and then it was Hamlet's turn and the spotlight shown on this dark figure (and my shoulder) and he turned and said his opening lines and I about fainted :)

Jude Law would have had about the same effect . . . .

PUBS AND FOOTBALL

Our behavior all along was pretty much beyond reproach, except for taking up with a London man and having him show us some pubs. You know how it is: you model virtuous bourgeois womanhood all those years, and then you demonstrate what not to do. Shamelessly picking up men, I mean. He was charming and knowledgeable, didn’t seem too very dangerous, and was probably more fun to talk to than Jude Law would have been anyway. Plus MC and I were there to chaperone each other.

Our Holiday Inn was a stone’s throw from Fitzroy Square and the prime pub territory in Fitzrovia. First stop was The Hope on Tottenham Rd behind Goodge St. tube stop; on this fine evening the sidewalks were crowded with people chatting and having a pint. I didn’t have time to notice the décor, but the Landlord’s ale was very good. MC downed a pint of cider, legally. Good atmosphere, and everyday authentic, so just what we wanted.

We moved a couple of blocks southwest to The Newman Arms, and formed part of the sidewalk scene with a glass of London Pride -- the only beer brewed in London nowadays. We never ventured into the pie serving area upstairs. I really admire their pub culture, an unfilled gap in our country's soul, and enjoyed that evening very much.

Another evening MC and I went to the Fish Bone, a nearby chippie on Cleveland St. http://www.timeout.com/london/restau...atures/28.html
The fish was crisp and tasty, and each portion comes with a family sized mound of chips. We dawdled there and so arrived later than we intended at The Lukin on Conway St. just off Fitzroy Sq.
www.fullpint.com/showpub.php?pubid=1089
We were in it for the European football final between Manchester United and Barcelona, and the place was packed. We checked the upstairs room, seemingly full of men. As we stood there considering our options, two women over by the wall waved us towards a chair near them, so grabbed another and squeezed in. Very Kind!

I resolved to back whoever the friendly women were rooting for, since I didn’t have a dog in that fight, but warmed towards Barcelona as the game went on. A group of eight or so French and Spanish speakers sat to one side of us, cheering Barcelona, and the rest of the room was for Man U. Messi’s lovely headed second goal took the remaining wind out of Man U’s sails, and the entire room applauded the winners at the end. Next day we read of less sportsmanlike reactions elsewhere in Europe.

We felt perfectly safe walking home from all of our late night adventures, in all three of our neighborhoods.

OMG, two american women go to pubs, get picked up and cavort with football fans.

this is extremely unfodorite behaviour Stoke. the "is it safe to go out at night" brigade will be fanning themselves and reasching for the smelling salts. AND you took a minor with you AND gave her alcoholic liquor.

Have you no SHAME, woman?

Walking on the Wild Side in Foreign Capitol: us.

All that was missing was you, ann. Next time!