Tedgale trip report: One glorious week in London, February, 2015
 

This will be a long, fact-laden report. I've used sub-heads for ease of reading and I will post in instalments. Here's my first bit.
Opening text seems a bit leaden to me. I will try to speed it up and liven it up from here on:

We have just returned from a week-long trip to London (Feb 9-17, 2015) -- a very successful holiday and the renewal of a long dormant love affair with a city I last saw two decades ago.
As this city is so frequently written up, I will make my report selective. My reports tend to the dry and factual -- no gush about "to-die-for" desserts I ate or the cute puppy that licked my hand outside Harrods. I'll try to focus on information that may be useful to other travellers preparing a visit.
I'll start with the background:
We are an older Canadian married couple, ages 62 and 71 -- frequent travelers interested in history, art and eating, who appreciate quality but always scrutinize the value-for-money ratio.
We winter in Savannah GA but pried ourselves away from the 70 F weather for a compelling personal reason: To attend the memorial service for my late sister-in-law, who died in a domestic accident only a few months after she and my brother moved to London from NYC.
Though the trip had a sombre beginning, we were resolved to have some good times with family and we succeeded admirably.

Flight booking: We traveled using Aeroplan points accumulated on Air Canada. As United Airlines seems to be the sole US-based Star Alliance member, we were compelled to fly UA from Savannah to London, making connections at Dulles in Washington.
On the outbound journey, we chose the late-evening flight (10 PM) so that we would arrive at 10 AM. (The other option was to arrive around 5:45 AM which, given the time change, means a sleepless night and an arrival shortly after midnight, East-coast time.) Since flights from SAV to IAD are few, this meant a six-hour layover at IAD, which we used to grab dinner with my younger brother and his wife near their Vienna, VA home.
I had read enough reviews of UA in general and its Boeing 777 refit in particular to be prepared for crummy service and a less than comfortable ride. To mitigate this, we chose to fly Business class -- 90,000 points instead of 60,000. Considering the cash value of a Business class ticket is approximately 4X the price of an Economy ticket, this seems a bargain.
When you fly to and from the US, the additional taxes and fees for a Business class flight are about $400 Canadian (20% less in USD). If you fly transatlantic from Canada or even if you fly from the US but change planes in Canada, your fees skyrocket: they can go as high as $1500 for a Business class flight.
...Which is probably why we had such a huge balance of points to begin with. There is absolutely no way I'd fly from Canada to Europe on an economy ticket purchased with points. Buying a Canadian seat-sale ticket is almost as cheap as flying on points and it gives you far, far greater selection of flights and carriers.

Some more throat-clearing and air travel stuff:

Dulles airport: Dulles is not my favourite airport. It was quiet on the night of our late-evening departure but clogged on our return. Security is sometimes intrusive and unsmiling. Immigration and Customs went quickly on our return but there was a lot of confused milling about by travelers -- far more than I'm used to at Canadian airports.
Spaces in the airport are Gargantuan when they don't need to be (there is a lot of walking) but cramped where the crowds must congregate. The UA Club Lounges in C Terminal are every bit as crummy and poorly-supplied as the online reviews predicted. I've never seen such a Spartan lounge in any Canadian airport.

Flights: Our flight to London left promptly and arrived ahead of time. The aircraft for our return flight was late arriving, so we departed 50 minutes late but recouped some of that time en route.
In both directions, the actual flight was surprisingly pleasant and unstressful. The Business class interior has "shell" seats, fully reclinable to a lie-flat position. They are a bit narrow but otherwise very comfortable. They are arranged 2 -4 -2, so it could be unpleasant to be a solo traveler with an inside seat: you really do have to climb over your neighbour's legs, especially if his/her seat is extended. If you are considering flying this plane, SeatGuru has useful suggestions for seat selection.
Meals were good, as was the in-flight entertainment. Cabin crew varied a bit in skill and demeanour. We got none of the widely reported "attitude" from UA crew, who all were pleasant even when they were not terribly polished.

Heathrow Airport: We flew into and out of the new Terminal 2, used for all UA and AIr Canada flights. UA was the first occupant of the new terminal, with the result that their operations there, including the Lounges, are now fully broken-in.
Terminal 2 is vast and the distance from the arrival gate to the main terminal is inexplicably huge. Apart from that, I found the terminal a pleasure to use. It is sparkling in its newness. At 10 AM on arrival and departure days, I saw no bottlenecks anywhere. Check-in areas have abundant self-service machines.
I was most impressed that, when we entered the main terminal and were looking for the UA Arrivals Lounge, a uniformed airport "greeter" came up to ask what we were looking for. He then walked with us until he could point out the Lounge's entrance.
From the blurbs I had read online, the UA Arrivals Lounge sounded quite special. The Lounge, to which Air Canada passengers may also have access, is indeed a little haven of gentility for weary travelers. I mostly wanted a shower. Their private bathrooms are immaculate and are staffed by motherly Englishwomen who treat you very kindly. There is a hatch in the bathroom door where you can place clothes to be pressed while you occupy the bathroom. There was also a full breakfast buffet with a wide variety of food I was already too stuffed to sample.
The contrast with the Dulles lounges was like night and day.

Looking forward to reading about your week!

Travel to London -- Getting our Oyster cards: With assistance from experienced Fodors travelers, I worked through all the intricacies of PAYG (and daily zonal capping) versus travel cards. I concluded what thousands have apparently concluded before me:

1. Do not buy a Visitor Oyster card before departure.

2. Do not buy a paper travel pass from British Rail unless you are really, really committed to the idea of 2-for-1 museum entries (The very greatest museums are free anyway).

3. If you are staying 4 days or more, load your Oyster card with a one-week Zone 1 and 2 travel pass at time of purchase.

4. Calculate in advance -- if you can -- what you'll need for travel outside Zones 1 and 2 and add some PAYG cash to your card to cover that. You can select any desired amount at time of purchase -- thereafter, you can only make purchases in units of 5 GBP. If you are traveling by Tube from LHR to the centre, you will need to add 1.50 GBP for a ride in off-peak hours, 2.80 GBP for peak-hour travel e.g. prior to 9:30 AM, if you arrive on an early morning flight.

We needed one off-peak and one peak-hour Heathrow trip plus an off-peak return to Hampton Court on SW Rail (priced separately from Underground fares -- it was 2.40 GBP each way).

The agent at Heathrow station was rather disgusted with us for wanting to load exactly 9.10 GBP on each card. He wanted to sell us 12 GBP, telling us that any leftover cash would be remitted to us when we surrendered our cards on departure. A fair point -- but I wasn't sure we'd get round to surrendering our cards and collecting our money.

An oddity: When we took the train from Waterloo to Hampton Court, we failed to "tap" our cards on exiting the train station at our destination. (It was obscurely placed and I forgot.) When we made our return journey, the balance shown when we "tapped" on entry and then on exiting Waterloo suggested that the outbound trip simply hadn't registered at all. Our credit balance was 2.40 GBP higher than it should have been.

On our last day, we travelled back to LHR by Tube -- off-peak, not during peak hours as planned and paid for. The machine at the station exit said our card was "almost exhausted" or some such phrase, when I expected a balance of at least 2.40 GBP (and probably more, given that we'd traveled off-peak to LHR).

Whatever.... The pass was both convenient and cost-effective; the travel experience -- even to and from Heathrow -- was painless in the (relatively) quiet off-peak hours; and with only carry-on luggage, the stairs in our arrival and departure stations (Embankment and S Kensington) were not an insuperable problem.

Thanks to janisj for suggesting changing trains at Hammersmith station on our inbound trip from LHR to Embankment station -- that worked brilliantly.

I am sorry to hear that those officials at Dulles were intrusive and did not have happy faces on.

but I am pleased that LHR terminal 2 shone in comparison!

loving the details, Tegale - keep it coming.

I will describe our accommodation next.

Accommodation: After experiencing sticker shock from our initial research into central London hotels, we decided to look into Air BnB. I quickly became a big fan. They have a wide array of properties, some quite lavish. They can denominate the prices in any currency. Yes, they add about 2.5% above the market rate when they make the conversion -- but my credit card provider charges just as much if I make a purchase in a foreign currency.

Most properties have a good number of verified reviews. You can also find out quite a bit about the owner from his/her online profile. It is far more personal and far less anonymous than VRBO or a rental agency. That is a plus for some, a minus for others, I suppose.

The "map search" function on the Air BnB website also makes searching tremendously simple if -- as I did -- you know the city and know exactly where you want to stay.

In sum, Air BnB seemed to me on all points superior (provided you find a good owner) to agencies I've used on past holidays. And we qualified for a time-limited online Travelzoo offer of a discount to first-time Canadian users of Air BnB: It ended up saving us about $50/day on our two bookings.

We chose a two-centred holiday:

1. Three nights in a one-bedroom flat in Craven Street, just off the Strand near Trafalgar Square -- for access to the National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Courtauld Gallery, Sir John Soane Museum and places east of there.

2. Three nights in a studio flat (with Murphy bed -- an innovation I greatly approve of, as I like a firm bed) in Egerton Gardens, Knightsbridge, to be close to family: my brother's office at Imperial College, his Kensington flat and my sister and BiL's hotel at Gloucester Road tube station. It was 2 minutes from the Victoria and Albert museum and 15-20 minutes' walk from Kensington Palace. Harrods, a Mecca for many tourists (though not for me), was visible in the distance when you emerged from the flat onto the main road.

In both cases, pre-arrival communications with the owners were swift, cordial and very helpful. Check in and departure were effortless. The properties were immaculately clean and abundantly stocked with essentials, including both food and toiletries.

Here are some photos of the two places we chose:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...1&l=112d292929

"Do not buy a paper travel pass from British Rail unless you are really, really committed to the idea of 2-for-1 museum entries"

I wouldn't be that dogmatic.

The price structure for Travelcards isn't quite the same as PAYG on Oysters. But the "travel only" prices on each work out more advantageous for some, and less advantageous for others: for most people, it's about precisely how many days you're going to use it.

But you pay no more for the Travelcard 2for1: I can't imagine many visitors don't see at least one paid-for attraction - and, though most visiting is to free attractions, our admission fees, when they apply, are often eye-wateringly high.

For almost everyone, just one visit to the Abbey or Tower will wipe out any saving their particular travel pattern would offer on Oyster PAYG - and for about half our visitors the Travecard will offer cheaper travel than PAYG.

General impressions of London: My partner and I both visited London a lot when young: my first solo visit was in 1970, at age 17. My partner was at school in London in the early '60s and we both developed an enduring fondness for the place.

The London I remembered from the '70s -- and even from the Thatcher years -- was often dirty and bleak, with a sharp divide between haves and have-nots. Returning after an absence of almost 20 years, we expected to see a lot of changes. We'd read about London prices (which may explain our two-decade absence)... about how dynamic and diverse London has become ....about Boris Johnson's determination to transform London into a global capital of brain-based capitalism (his press statement related to my brother's new job referred to "cementing London's position as the intellectual capital of the world")

I'm going to record a few of my impressions from this brief exposure, aware that I may be slammed for my presumption or insensitivity in airing unlettered views ...and ridiculed for misunderstanding a very ancient and very complex urban culture. I emphasize that these are impressions only -- and just one person's impressions at that.

The first thing that struck both of us was how clean everything was and how free of garbage and graffiti. No North American city I have visited comes anywhere close to this.
Maintenance is clearly a high priority, too: buildings, squares and parks seem buffed and manicured.

As a corollary, the state of public infrastructure, especially transport infrastructure, must impress any North American. I never saw, even when traveling far from the centre, the dilapidation that we Canadians all take for granted.

The amount of green space is staggering. Even in Central Park, the biggest city park I know, you cannot be as alone as you can be in central London. There are so many byways and backwaters, yards and alleys, that offer silence and the prospect of intimacy and repose.

I had forgotten the visual grandeur of London. It is not confined to the 19th century monuments from the heyday of Empire: Kensington Palace, Whitehall and Somerset House predate all that. Moreover, it is grandeur without the grandiosity that mars both Paris and Washington, to my eyes. Now that the grime of decades has at last been cleaned away, the effect of all this richness on the viewer is dazzling.

I remembered Londoners as surly, with the manner of a union shop-steward and a constant, whingeing air of grievance. But on this visit, we were both impressed by the high level of public civility and courtesy in our various transactions. Well-spoken strangers who stopped to ask if we needed directions, for example. Or the helpful staff that seemed to abound in museums and galleries. Or the smoothly deferential serving staff in restaurants (none of whom was British-born, however).

I was also struck by how racially homogeneous central London looks. I had expected a lot of diversity. There may be, in the areas I have not seen. And I realize that many of the people around me were not natives but recent arrivals from other corners of Europe.

My US winter home is a majority African-American city. The largest city in my home province of Ontario is now majority non-white ...and majority foreign-born. To me, London still looks the way my hometown looked when I was a kid. I had read about the UKIP and wondered: "Why? What are they on about?"

Much of the city's core residential areas -- which still seemed vital to me in the '80s -- now seem depopulated and devoid of life. The most extreme examples are Mayfair and St James's, which had pretty much ceased to be "neighbourhoods" even when I knew London first. But when we walked in Bloomsbury and my partner re-visited the streets he knew in his youth, he commented on how the place seemed "hollowed out". Even the shops don't seem to support a surrounding community but rather to cater to tourists and transients. The chemist's and the greengrocer's have been replaced by some anonymous electronics shop.

When you walk through the Upper East Side of Manhattan, you are immediately seized by the neighbourhood feel. The areas of central London that we walked through often didn't have that feeling. The pubs and restaurants were busy enough but something was missing. Or maybe we just weren't "getting it".

In our Craven Street building, I never saw or heard another occupant the whole time. When I looked out the windows of our flat in Egerton Gardens, almost all of the windows opposite us (other than the attic-storey flats) were dark at 9 PM. One morning, I walked along our side of that communal garden and saw, through dusty windows, that only one other ground-floor unit was inhabited: the others were all empty or under renovation.

When we walked home from dinner one evening around 9:30, we passed through a posh residential Kensington square where one entire side of the square was blacked out. Where are the people?

Interesting reading, tedgale.

We used the Travelcard 2-for-1 deals so successfully in 2011 that one of the Travelcards was paid for, cha-ching! We'll take advantage again when we return in July.

Looking forward to more...

Checking in to travel with you during your London week... very interesting!

Our sight-seeing shortlist: Knowing how limited our time was, we made one large list of things that interested us, then split it into an "A" list and a "B" list. I didn't expect to do everything on the "A" list and indeed it turned out to be a menu rather than a checklist.

I was not interested in shopping, so that activity does not figure here. I knew I wanted to do some solo wandering and indeed that proved to be one of the most enjoyable activities, when the weather cooperated.

We missed out on some things that had rigid times attached -- for example, theatre matinees, walking tours, choral church services -- because we ended up just slightly short of time.

For the use of other planners, I will provide our personal shortlist of major sites, with annotations. There are a very few names on here that will not be widely familiar but mostly we wanted to re-connect with the major institutions that we had known in the past:

"A" list

British Museum

National Gallery*

Victoria and Albert museum* (their current special exhibition is 200 years of wedding dresses -- not something I wanted to see)

Kensington Palace* (the show "Fashion Rules" is included in the price of admission and includes couture items worn by the young Queen Elizabeth, Princess Margaret and Diana)

National Portrait Gallery* - a major exhibition has just opened of portraits by John S. Sargent, mostly of friends and professional colleagues. We had hoped to be there one day when the Portrait Choir was performing in the rooms but we couldn't manage it)

Sir John Soane Museum* (the cherry on the icing on the cake of museology)

Geffrye Museum (period rooms assembled in an 18th century suite of almshouses near Hoxton station of the London Overground railway)

As well, my partner wanted to see a show of the very funky work of the celebrated Ghanaian/ Nigerian artist El Anatsui* at the October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, Bloomsbury

The asterisks mark the things that we actually got to see!

"B" list

Tate Britain / Tate Modern (the current big show is "Abstractionism and the Sublime")

Courtauld Gallery (a small, exquisite collection of paintings, mostly Impressionist and post-Impressionist, that was formerly at Home House and is now housed in Somerset House)

Leighton House (the home of Victorian academic painter Lord Leighton; there is a special exhibition of paintings acquired by a single offshore collector, under the title "Victorian Obsession")

Dennis Severs House, 18 Folgate Street, Spitalfields (home of a family of Huguenot silk-weavers from 1724 to about 1900. A meticulously recreated 18th century interior that you enter "as if you have passed through the surface of a painting")

Banqueting Hall, Whitehall (one of Inigo Jones' masterpieces of early 17th century classicism)

We also had a list of additional activities, of which we succeeded only in doing one -- our visit to the Temple church:

Churches - Temple Church and St. Paul's Cathedral

The Temple church*, where my in-laws used to worship, was begun in 1185 and extended in the 13th century. It was given into the care of the Knights Templar, monks who ministered to Crusaders. It was originally intended to be the site of royal burials but lost out to the Abbey -- there are no royals here. It is now the church of the legal fraternities of the Inner and Middle Temple, two of the four inns of the Inns of Court. On Wednesdays there's a 1 PM organ concert.

My sister and her husband attended the choral evensong at St Paul's (5 PM daily except Sunday) and were disappointed. The church is open to all at this time, whereas you normally must pay a stiff entry fee. Consequently there were many visitors who were not there to worship. The acoustics are such that their voices were magnified and it was actually hard to hear the music. They much preferred the comparable service at Westminster Abbey, where access is much more closely supervised; the atmosphere was superb

Neighbourhoods - Westminster*, Hampstead, Bloomsbury*, St. James's*, Belgravia*

Walking tours -
Jermyn Street Experience (we didn't make it to the tour I'd targeted - Friday at 4:00; the tour leader is an interesting sounding American ex-pat, Dr. Cindy Lawford)

London Walks (I thought of taking a walking tour of Westminster, a favourite neighbourhood that was once one of the direst slums in London, despite its wonderful Georgian buildings. It is now fully recovered, of course )

ted - did you know that you can take lunch in Middle Temple Hall? apart from being able to hobnob with all the lawyers having lunch, [if that's what floats your boat] it is the site of the first performance of Twelfth Night - perhaps next time.

https://www.middletemple.org.uk/venu...lunch-in-hall/

That's the sort of insider tip I relish and would like to try out -- thanks annhig

<<The UA Club Lounges in C Terminal are every bit as crummy and poorly-supplied as the online reviews predicted. I've never seen such a Spartan lounge in any Canadian airport.>>

It sounds like nothing has changed since the last time I was there, they were even wanting to charge $5 a beer in what is supposed to be a business class lounge

Yes, they do charge for alcohol. I'm teetotal nowadays, so it was not an issue for me -- but I felt vicarious outrage for the other patrons of the Lounge.

I like that you had a 'list that turned out to be a menu rather than a checklist'. And now, you have what's remaining for your next trip! Well done!

Looking forward to more!

nice report . . . several of your impressions definitely resonate w/ me.

Hi TEDGALE,

"I had forgotten the visual grandeur of London. It is not confined to the 19th century monuments from the heyday of Empire: Kensington Palace, Whitehall and Somerset House predate all that. Moreover, it is grandeur without the grandiosity that mars both Paris and Washington, to my eyes. Now that the grime of decades has at last been cleaned away, the effect of all this richness on the viewer is dazzling."

Wow, you underestimate your powers of expression. That is a beautiful description. Boris would love your report. :) Looking forward to more...

Thanks to you, latedaytraveler, and to the others who are reading and commenting. I appreciate the feedback.

Before I get into a day-by-day snapshot of what we did and saw, I want to list the places we ate.

Restaurants: We didn't have any meals that I would qualify as truly great. Mostly we were eating with family members; those venues were chosen as a setting for conviviality, rather than for culinary excellence.

Moreover, we chose restaurants for proximity -- either to Craven Street or to our South Kensington family hub.

We thought we might try the well-priced prix-fixe lunch (2 courses, 22 GBP, 3 courses, 27 GBP) at Outlaw's at the Capital, a one-star Michelin restaurant in a posh hotel in Basil Street, Knightsbridge. In the end, our schedule just didn't allow it.

Tuesday: Terroirs, King William IV Street, Soho.

Hip, two-level wine bar between Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square. Lots of selection in this area. We considered Les Deux Salons just down the block for its well-priced pre-theatre menu but chose this for its more imaginative food.

Prices are high in this part of town. That is, I considered 15 GBP rather high for a smallish dish of blood pudding with a few root vegetables. It was a very well done dish, however.

Friendly if rather off-hand service and a lively, youthful vibe.

Like some other restaurants we sampled, this one includes an "Optional Service Charge" on your bill. Unaware N American diners may not notice this and may tip as usual without realizing they have already paid for service. I have no idea whether most people accept the charge, remove it or vary it.

Wednesday: Duke of Clarence gastropub, 148 Old Brompton Road.

We debated several restaurant options -- La Bouchee, Bumpkin (S Kensington) on Old Brompton Road, La Brasserie on Brompton Road-- but finally chose a pub option at my urging.

It's a large, noisy, lively space. It was our first family dinner and I don't really remember much about the food we ate. Several people had fish and chips, which I sampled and greatly liked. I had a bowl of rather shrivelled mussels, which came to the table warm, not hot. My brother was pleased with his duck leg confit over white beans.

As in other places we tried, the food was competently prepared and served but the menu was not hugely exciting or imaginative.

Thursday: Cadogan Arms, 298 King's Road, Chelsea and Med Kitchen, 25-35 Gloucester Road.

After my sister in law's memorial service at Chelsea Old Church -- which was lovely but which I will not describe -- the participants repaired to the nearby Cadogan Arms, where my brother had arranged for drinks and food for all. We returned for a meal here later in the week.

The Cadogan Arms and Med Kitchen are each a member of a chain. (Actually, just about every restaurant we researched turns out to be part of a chain.)

Med Kitchen describes itself as a contemporary Mediterranean brasserie. It is a large, glass-fronted modern space, quite empty at 7 pm when our party of 12 diehards arrived for an unscheduled dinner.

It's the sort of place where you order grilled salmon because there's nothing more exciting on the menu that a non-meat-eater can eat. So I ordered grilled salmon, which came with the usual unseasonal accompaniment of asparagus -- adequate, nothing special.

Friday: V&A Cafe, at the rear of the V&A museum, Cromwell Road.

My sister and her husband had spent the day doing genealogical research out at Kew, whereas we had spent the afternoon slogging through museums, as I shall describe later. We both wanted a cheap, simple, restorative meal with zero fuss at the minimum distance from our respective digs.

Parts of the V&A stay open on Friday evenings and that includes the museum cafe, which serves until 9:30 PM. The cafe is very extensive and comprises one very large, very modern hall, off which there are three exquisitely decorated period dining rooms.

These are museum-worthy in their own right and represent three distinct strands in late-Victorian decoration. The respective designers are William Morris and James Webb; James Gamble; and Sir Edward Poynter -- titans of the British art and design world in those decades.

The Morris/Webb room is a homely Arts and Crafts "snug" -- you expect Jane Morris or Lizzie Siddal or some other pre-Raphaelite wraith to float through the space.

The other two are much glitzier: Gamble's grandly columned room entirely clad in Renaissance-style glazed terracotta, reminiscent of Florence; and Poynter's Grill Room, dressed in fashionable "Dutch" blue and white tiles, emblematic of the contemporary love affair with the era of Queen Anne.

Food is served from a number of different stations. Our appetites were modest and I was longing for a vegetarian meal after the constant red-meat bombardment of restaurant menus.

We hit the vegetarian station. For 8.50 GBP we got a sampler plate of five (utterly delectable) vegetarian meze that was so huge it took two of us to consume it.

Saturday: Aubaine, 260-262 Brompton Road, Knightsbridge.

It was Valentine's Day and we knew all the most popular restaurants would be booked. On a rainy night, we refused to go far -- but we did have to go out.

In the immediate vicinity of Egerton Gardens at Brompton Cross, there are plenty of restaurants. There are even more in the streets grouped around the S Kensington tube station.

They mostly get mixed reviews online. The ones on the route leading to Harrods looked raffish, with (as it seemed to my illiberal, elderly eye) lots of young, rich, swaggering middle eastern males talking on iPhones.

Nearest to us and the nicest in appearance, with a very French menu and reasonable prices, was Aubaine, part of a succesful all-day brasserie chain. At 7 PM on Valentine's Day, it was not full.

The large, darkened room, decorated in country French motif, looked suitably romantic. Many tables were reserved but they could seat us at the "sharing table", which seats a dozen or more and was less than half-full.

Our neighbours were a lively party of British and American twenty-somethings. We and they said hello but did not speak further. Later in the meal, some places at the end of the table were taken by a trio of young middle-eastern males who noisily sat down, ordered coffee, texted and talked awhile on their iPhones and then left.

Dinner was a hearty meal. I started with an entree: goujonettes of fish. I didn't like any of the non-meat main courses, so I swallowed my principles along with their excellent and super-tender lamb shoulder over a delicately flavoured but robust polenta.

As with all the restaurants we sampled, the staff that served us here was all foreign-born: a young Italian guy at the front of house, a delightful young French woman who served and a friendly Sicilian busboy. The bill, with its now-familiar "Optional Service Charge", was reasonable for what we ate and for this chic address.

Enjoying your report.

In the fall of 1971 I rented a "short-term let" flat in Edgerton Gardens. My roommates and I got a good deal -- not bad digs for students. I remember the neighborhood fondly. Also The Hourglass Pub, where I spent time that might have been better spent studying.

I returned to London for work in the late Eighties, and several more times since. Like you, I was struck by the signs of economic recovery. Every time I visit, the city seems even more prosperous.

Looking forward to reading the rest!

TEDGALE,

I enjoyed your description of the interesting dining options at the V & A. Personally, I find the whole place overwhelming. I guess it has to be broken down into its component parts.

Well done! I will look forward to the rest of the installments. I loved your "impressions," and your insights and details have reminded me again why I am so glad and blessed to be headed back for 6th visit in June. I'll be re-reading more carefully, too, to glean some ideas for that trip. Carry on!

The Hourglass is still there and still serving a student population, from the look of it.

Agree about the V&A. Even though I was determined to be very selective, I quickly found myself wandering about in a daze.

Just chiming in:

I had a similar time break in visiting London (for me 26 years) and couldn't believe the difference last year.

1988. Filthy, dog poo everywhere, historic buildings soot covered, most of the tube and rail stations and cars decrepit with things like squealing wooden escalators standard. Hideous modern architecture without a single redeeming exception, Sampson House a good example https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/r...x480-81599.jpg

2014. Total change! clean everything, no poo whatsoever, tube vastly upgraded, beautiful and exciting modern buildings, dynamic vibe, wonderous riverfront mile after mile.

As to where you were staying, London has rediscovered the Thames and being near it I think makes a better stay, and more lively.

great write up, the VA is my favorite museum and I like your comments.

Hi tedgale, so sorry to read of your SIL’s death. A friend of mine had the same complaint about the UA lounge in Philly—apparently they closed the nicer one with the merger. Thanks for all the great info and the link to the Craven St. flat. So many reasons to return!

Sunday: Cadogan Arms, 298 King's Road, Chelsea; and Brasserie Zedel, 20 Sherwood Street, Soho.

For a final family event, we met again at the Cadogan Arms. Sunday lunch is a popular time for a large and leisurely meal en famille and we -- arriving just as they opened -- were lucky to be seated.

The pub, richly paneled in wood, is large and airy but looks a bit worn now. However, service is deft and attentive and the dishes, if rather heavy, are abundant and delicious.

As they should be, given the prices here: for example, 85 GBP for a shoulder of lamb that serves "three or more".

We shared potted shrimps on toast to start. My brother and niece had their roast chicken for two, served with vegetables. Several of us had a salmon fishcake, served over wilted spinach.

My brother-in-law's pork belly came crowned with a huge Yorkshire pudding that I sampled and pronounced excellent. In the end, we all ate rather more than we planned.

Some of our party followed their usual practise of out-eating, out-drinking and out-ordering everyone else at the table. I saw a couple of irritated, almost stricken looks from others when the usual suspects ordered desserts. The correct gesture to mollify the discontented and ensure family peace was for my partner and me to pick up the bill for the entire table. Which we did.

After such a lunch, I didn't have a lot of appetite for a large dinner but it was our final London evening and we had already reserved at Brasserie Zedel in Soho.

Zedel is the former basement Grill Room of the old Regent Palace hotel, which I remember from the '70s as a rather dubious tourist hotel -- it finally closed in 2006.

The surrounding area pulses with life: the sidewalks throng with theatre crowds -- even on a Sunday evening -- and with groups of young tourists sampling the flesh pots of Soho.

The old Grill Room's huge volumes have been restored, its columns and trim re-gilded. It has been decorated with posters and memorabilia to resemble a grand but very traditional French brasserie of WW I vintage. The adjacent entrance hall, the nearby Bar Americain and the corridor leading to the restrooms have a more Art Deco vibe.

I didn't see anything I wanted among the main courses so I settled for a selection of entrees: a good Provencal fish soup with the usual fried slices of baguette and a garlicky rouille; a small beet salad topped with wonderful hot Fourme d'Ambert cheese; and pan-fried frogs' legs -- a tiny portion of four cuisses, heavily breaded and rather dry.

The first two were fine. The last was a disappointment -- and on reflection, a rather naive choice.

Overall: A lively place that handles crowds well and is well-suited for large parties -- there was one table that must have had close to 20 people at it. We were not amazed at the food but the atmosphere was lush and the service was good.

As they should be, given the prices here: for example, 85 GBP for a shoulder of lamb that serves "three or more">>

good grief - the meat probably cost them no more than £15 max. I hope it came with a whole pile of veg.

Come to Cornwall, Ted, I can show you some places that charge substantially less than that. and where the food is as good, if not better.

I'd love to see Cornwall again sometime, annhig.

I'll now conclude with a day-by-day summary of what we saw and did, focusing on the things we enjoyed most that I'd recommend to others.

Tuesday: We had a rendezvous at 12:30 PM with the flat owner's representative. As soon as we'd settled in and organized our things, we took off on foot through the neighbourhood of Covent Garden for the SIr John Soane museum at 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields.

My notes for the afternoon read:

"First stop was Sir John Soane's Museum, a brilliant and eccentric personal architectural and decorative statement by the greatest neo classical architect after the Adam brothers. Interior is unphotographable - and indescribable. Think: Thomas Jefferson on acid.

"Wandered Gray's Inn and New Yard to get to the Temple Church, built for crusading Knights Templar in 1185. A round church patterned on the Jerusalem tomb of Christ, it was meant for royal burials but the Royals went elsewhere. Now the church of the lawyers of the Inner and Middle Temples, 2 of the 4 Inns of Court. Famous for music"

After that, we wandered north to revisit some favourite spots in Bloomsbury, including the great Georgian and Regency squares: Bloomsbury, Tavistock, Gordon and Mecklenburg Squares; Coram Fields; and the bustling Russell Square, where we once spent six nights in the grand Victorian pile that is the Hotel Russell.

After dinner, we walked westward from Trafalgar Square into Clubland -- the monumental men's clubs along Pall Mall in St James's -- and as far as the Ritz, in Piccadilly. A strange, dead night-time landscape.

Sir John Soane Museum: Soane was a distinguished 18th and 19th C architect whose life continued almost to the dawn of the Victorian era. His commissions were many; I believe the largest was the Bank of England buildings, now mostly demolished and replaced.

As he prospered and his practise grew, he rebuilt a Georgian townhouse into a statement of his own quirky aesthetic. He eventually bought the two flanking townhouses to house his ever-growing collection of classical sculpture, architectural fragments and paintings.

Many of these are housed in enclosed, glass-roofed multi-storey courtyards. His purpose was in part didactic: he brought in students and apprentices to study or draw his classical treasures.

He needed to cram an immense amount of material into some fairly confined spaces. His solutions are sometimes breathtaking in their audacity. Entire walls open up to reveal folding shutters on which are hung, front and back, some priceless paintings -- most notably, Hogarth's famous sequence of The Rake's Progress, which Soane purchased at auction for 500 pounds.

Soane was disappointed in life. His beloved wife died, as did a disappointing wastrel son. His remaining son betrayed his father, publishing articles that ridiculed his architectural achievements. Soane decided to disinherit his son, bequeathing his home as a place for students and connoisseurs to study his collection and contemplate his achievements.

Sir John Soane's Museum, 13 Lincolns Inn Fields
Admission free, open 10:00 - 5:00
Tube: Holborn- left exit to Kingsway, third left into Remnant Street
Tours: £10 - Tu & Fr - 11:30; We & Th - 3:30; Sa - 11:00

Temple Church - £5 (£3 seniors) Open: 10:00-16:00 except Wednesdays 14:00-16:00; closed on weekends except for worship.
Organ recital: Wednesdays. Choral mattins: Sunday at 11:15.
Tube: Temple via Middle Temple Lane; and Blackfriars via Temple Avenue and Tudor Street (both District and Circle)

Wednesday: I'd never seen Hampton Court Palace, so when I saw on the website that tickets purchased online for both this and Kensington Palace were half-price until Feb 13, I thought "Why not?"

As the London area's largest and most historic Tudor era complex that is accessible to the public, this place was a natural draw for me.

Even more enticing were the additions and renovations undertaken by William and Mary and the early Georges. As impressive as these are, one can only be grateful that lack of funds hampered William's early plans to demolish and rebuild most of the early 16th C Tudor palace.

From the flat in Craven Street, we walked down to the Embankment and across the Jubilee pedestrian bridge, to the Royal Festival Hall and Waterloo Station. The view of the London Eye and the newly scrubbed or newly built buildings up and down the river was spectacular, even on a gloomy, chilly day like this one.

Waterloo was easy to navigate. Google maps had shown us the fastest train connections but we realized the slower "local" from Waterloo to Hampton Court would save us a connection at Surbiton. Basically, we could start now on the slower train. Or we could wait for the later, faster train to Hampshire, let it overtake the slow local, wait 6 minutes at Surbiton station and then change to the local to complete our journey.

Why bother?

From the station at Hampton Court, the Palace is clearly visible on the far side of the bridge that spans the Thames. Our tickets were waiting for us. Outside the entrance to the first courtyard, we met the friendly and helpful uniformed staff who are strategically placed throughout the entire complex.

An audio guide offers three very thoughtful tours: the Tudor kitchens and food at the Tudor court; public spaces of the Tudor court; and the royal suite of William and Mary.

Printed texts guide you through the separate state apartments of the early Georges -- the German-speaking George I and his resentful, unhappy male heir. There is also a separate, unguided art gallery. Where the audio guide (included with the ticket) left some gap, the well-informed staff were generally able to fill it.

In the interests of brevity, I will not describe the palace in detail. There is an awful lot of it. After five hours and with a family dinner pending, we decided we'd had enough. I never did see the famous maze nor visit the beautiful early 18th C formal gardens that I had glimpsed from the state apartments.

My notes on our day read:

"Hampton Court Palace. Three distinct dynasties, each building for its own aggrandizement. It's not the mellow organic unity that old houses are supposed to be. It's more like a boarding house in which prickly rival lodgers have each staked out their territory and filled it with their favourite possessions."

From Waterloo Station we continued home by Tube, made a brief pit-stop and hastened to Chelsea for our family dinner.

Enjoying your report! I'm another fan of the V&A, it's my rainy day retreat in London. It's also where I get my scone and clotted cream fix unless the weather is really nice (in which case I visit the Orangery in Kensington Gardens). I was in London briefly in December (brrr) and did visit the wedding dress exhibit at the V&A, which I really enjoyed.

Definitely recommend the Geffrye and Denis Severs for next time.

enjoying your perspective on our capital, tedgale.

<<From the flat in Craven Street, we walked down to the Embankment and across the Jubilee pedestrian bridge, to the Royal Festival Hall and Waterloo Station.>>

In case you are unaware of this option, for your [and others] future reference, rather than walking down to Embankment and over the bridge, you could get the overground from Charing Cross to Waterloo east, and then walk over to the main Waterloo station to catch the Hampton Court train. There are a number of these overground links - e.g. Charing Cross to London Bridge via Waterloo East. London Bridge to Blackfriars, which are part of a network of overland/suburban train lines around London that few visitors are aware of.

I had seen the train link to Waterloo East on the tfl.com site. I didn't realize it was above ground rather than underground. I wanted the experience of crossing the river on foot and therefore left in sufficient time to do that.

I had. planned on taking an overground train to the Geffrye but that dropped from our list when I finally found I was museumed out

By the way, that tfl site is astonishingly good. I am used to using such sites in Paris and Rome but this site is faster and clearer than either the ratp or the atac site.

glad you were aware of the option, Ted - it doesn't really matter whether it's over or underground except of course you need to know where to get on the train. And I know what you mean about walking - sometimes it is the only way to travel!

What a great and helpful report. Also ate at V&A cafeteria and thought it was very good. Had an enormous meringue cookie that I still think of fondly. Will be returning end of March for a quick visit.

Really enjoying your report Ted, thanks. I love London, always have since my first visit in 1973, and reading your report makes me feel I've had a little trip there.

I also have enjoyed some good food in the V&A cafe, last time was in summer and we sat outside watching children splashing in the pond. Bliss.

Stayed in South Kensington last time so nice to read about familiar places.

Enjoying your report. Was in London this past Sept after 15 year hiatus but instantly remembered why it is my favorite city. Hope to be back in May.