carolyn

My daughter and I are back from a week in London. We did a Priceline bid, flying Northwest Air through Detroit and staying at the Millennium Bailey?s Hotel in South Kensington. Our originating flight was an hour late coming in, and we arrived in Detroit to hear the final boarding call for London being made. That got us off to an exciting start. Needless to say, our luggage didn?t make it; but being savvy Fodorites, we naturally were prepared with the essentials in our carry ons.

The hotel is directly across the street from the Gloucester Road tube stop and was quite nice. They offered us a Club Room and full breakfast for an additional £35 a night, which we accepted. The room included a love seat and comfortable chair and quite a large bathroom. Eating breakfast at a window table the first morning while looking out at the familiar street and tube stop felt really welcoming.

We ate at a couple of new places, one in Chinatown, Gerrard Corner, suggested as a meeting place by Kavey. Since it was her choice, we made her order for us. We had dim sun, and her selections were excellent. It was a real pleasure to meet her; she is such fun. Another restaurant was Maggie Jones off Kensington High Street where they charged us a £1 cover charge each and added a 12.5% gratuity onto the bill. I never had that happen before with just two people.

Also did some new things this trip. One was to see the Dennis Severs house, this on a rainy Sunday afternoon when it was so dark with only candlelight that it really added to the atmosphere. Did my first London Walk, Legal and Illegal London, in Lincoln?s Inn Fields; went to the Sir John Soanes Museum, found the Murder One Bookstore at 70 Charing Cross Road and each bought a book not yet available in the U.S., and visited the National Portrait Gallery.

We saw two plays, Solid Gold Cadillac and Little Women. Patrick was right that it is better to call the theater for tickets. I had gotten the Solid Gold Cadillac tickets through See.com, and the seats were not very good. Fortunately, the manager was kind enough to change them for us at no charge to quite good seats. The theater was not full. Patricia Routledge was delightful, but the plot was pretty thin. We both enjoyed Little Women much more and heard plenty of sniffling throughout the theater when Beth died.

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 and 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. Lisa 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.

Kayb95

Sounds like you had a fun trip. We finally did Hever Castle last summer when we were staying in Kent and had a car. We were never brave enough to do it as a day trip from London.

I'm also considering the Priceline package with the Millenium Baileys. Do you know if they have rooms with twin beds?

nancy

Such a funny report on Hever; well, in hindsight, anyway. I visited Hever Castle but via car and thoroughly enjoyed. Glad you got there. My train misadventure was London to Hampton Court, getting off at the wrong stop to change trains, no "body" to talk to, only a "voice box," and then trying to figure out which side of the tracks to be - both looked the same; we needed a compass. But...we finally did it right but took much longer than a half-day trip Sounds like you had a fun time overall. Thx, Nancy

carolyn

kayb95, Our room had a queen-size bed. I don't know about twins, but you can e-mail the hotel at www.mill-cop.com. They were very nice and quite prompt with answering my request for confirmation of our reservation.

carolyn

Topping for PalQ.