stokebailey

Anticipating upcoming medical/surgical unpleasantness, my daughter Hannah and I decided to get away for a bit. When she suggested a trip, I hoped for maybe four nights in New York City. But how about London, our favorite city: YES! Bob had to stay home and bird.



United flights from STL were very reasonable at around $850 round trip, for either mid-April or over Coronation weekend. We had happened to be in London at the time of Queen Elizabeth's death, so April it was. Let someone else have our food and lodging.



We had a full, but not bad, flight to LHR. H discovered that UA chef must hate vegans, based on the truly bad meal and snack she was given. Arrivals, not bad. This time, H breezed through E-passport, while I got sent to an agent for the third out of three times so far entering the UK. I'm not sure what that's about. Do I not look enough like my passport photo?



We walked past signs saying “Trains to Central London” and on to the barely marked Underground entrance, not having been born yesterday. Piccadilly line takes us to Russell Square tube stop within an hour. We opted to use Google and Apple Pay instead keeping Oysters topped up. This worked beautifully, especially after Hannah realized she could use her Apple Watch.



First stop is always the Pret a Manger across from Russell Square tube stop. Pret loomed especially large this trip, since H and I bought the monthly subscription for five barista drinks/day, 30 min apart. Since we keep our phones on airplane mode almost the entire time to avoid exorbitant mobile charges, Pret is also very handy for Wi-Fi; Hannah has a keen eye for the maroon and white star sign.



It's a short block to our favorite hotel, a taut ship run by the wonderful Mrs. Marazzi. I got room 6 this time, 1st floor with high ceilings, French windows with internal shutters and a shower, wash basin. H was fine with top floor room 34, basic, loo across the hall and shower a half flight down. Always scrupulously clean. The top floor rooms with their steep staircases were I’m sure used for servants long passed away. My shutters kept street noise to a minimum, and we were both entirely comfortable in our rooms. Mine had a TV, hers didn't, but she never wanted to watch anyway.



Hannah did the cultural research this time, found Wednesday comedy night upstairs at a Soho pub. The Blue Post, easy walk. It was sold out, should have bought the £5 tickets online If we had known we would have the energy, so waited in the pub downstairs. Luckily, H persistent, just at the 8:00 PM start time we got in. Alternately, it would have been fun just sitting in the pub and watching the hipsters, nursing our half pints. In the first half, the MC and a comic from Barcelona were very funny. We were less amused by a woman who was said to be polishing her act for television. She kept referring to her cell phone to remind herself of her next bit. The crowd laughed a lot. We were fine with leaving after the first half, after having had only a bit of airplane seat sleep the previous 24 hours. I would go again.



Don't skip breakfast if you stay at our favorite hotel, because it's part of the experience. We liked the new young woman server in the breakfast room. Serious, businesslike. She brought tea or coffee on a tray as Hannah teleworked in the lobby some mornings before breakfast, anticipated our orders after a couple of days.



Another part of the experience is striking up conversations with fellow guests. Our first morning, there was an older woman sitting by herself across from us. Hannah sensed that I would nod and say hello, had seen the woman being rude to the server before I came down, did not want me to engage, but did not tell me that. I did nod and say good morning, unleashing a flow of too much information. (Why are the British so chatty with strangers? Kidding. Don’t yell at me.) She had come to town to see a dentist, because it was apparently impossible in Somerset where she lives. We heard a lot about her difficulty taking a bus to her favorite bookstore because of obstructing protests, and then her disappointment that the books about Sudan had not been updated since she was last there six years previously. Sudan was to figure prominently over the next week, both in our subsequent conversations and in world news. I found her interesting, after all.

bilboburgler

you are correct we love to chat to strangers, but normally about external things

stokebailey

So, not about teeth, then.

You, Bilbo, are a lot more tolerant of us outlanders than the average. I appreciate that about you.

bilboburgler

you do know the teeth thing went out in the 50s?
a bit like boiled cabbage

stokebailey

Not according to our breakfast room friend, who claimed that it's impossible to find an NHS dentist outside of London. She stayed there at least a week between dental visits.

I'm not someone who notices teeth usually.

stokebailey

The Blue Post, Soho. Hannah went upstairs to check every 10 minutes. Finally we got in to the small room upstairs for the comedy show. I like the combination of funky independent pub and royalty image plates.

stokebailey

Breakfast room from our favorite table. Fresh flowers, full English.

stokebailey

Oh, wait. I'm supposed to be reducing these aren't I?

stokebailey

We had been checking in the weather, of course, deciding what to pack, and up until the last the forecast promised sunny, upper 40s to upper 60s. By the time we landed, it had been revised to rain almost every day and high only in the upper 50s, chillier than average.

Hannah spent an undergrad semester at Regents College, then got her masters at King's College London. She knows her way around the charity shops when an extra layer is indicated. Thursday morning we headed over to Gloucester Road and a few blocks north of Cromwell Road, hit the charity shops on that block.

stokebailey

Success. She found a simple black wool and cashmere coat, like the ones she had seen the hipsters wearing the previous night at the pub. I sat out in the sun while she shopped, watched a very casually dressed young man walking back and forth on the sidewalk, doing high level business deals on his phone.

If it weren't too early for lunch, I'd have wanted to go to Da Mario's Kensington on the corner down from the Oxfam shop. Apparently Princess Diana used to pop down there with William and Harry to enjoy pizza. It gets good reviews.

Purchases made, we walked a few blocks north to Kensington Park. Spring was in full bloom , a few weeks behind home. The Diana Garden east of the Palace was beautiful, with tulips everywhere. Gardeners buzzed around mowing, sprucing up, getting ready for the coronation. A CR III monogram was scratched into the lawn, possibly ready for flowers.

​​​​​​ The first time we took our girls to London, we had tea at the Orangery by the palace. It's been replaced by a modern pavilion with posh looking table settings. We still weren't quite ready for refreshment, so we walked over to the Serpentine Gallery. We didn't have a reservation, and I wasn't so interested in the exhibition, so I lay on the grass under a tree and soaked up the sunshine.

stokebailey

Someone remind me how to make photos smaller?

KarenWoo

I like large photos!
London seems to be a favorite destination this spring. Greece, too!
Enjoying your report and photos!

millie2112

really enjoying your report and I love the large photos.

Melnq8

Enjoying your report!

The only time I've reduced photos to post was when using a 35mm camera, as they wouldn't post otherwise (files too big).

Now that I use a phone, I just download to my computer and upload to Fodor's no reduction necessary (and no idea if it's even possible, but perhaps there's a way on your phone)? When I crop photos on my phone, the photos are still huge when I post.

I like the big photos too, and I'm viewing them on a massive monitor.

stokebailey

Aw, thank you, Karen, Millie and Mel!

janisj

They aren't massive -- just large-ish so I wouldn't worry about it. I don't usually post from my phone -- when I download photos from the phone to my laptop they are enormous files so I reduce them before posting but sometimes I've made them smaller than I wanted.

This will be a fun TR to follow along - seems like half of Fodors is in London this Spring. Me too - arrive at LHR next Thursday but won't be in London til Saturday afternoon

denisea

we were in London at the end of April and I saw news segment on one of the panel type news shows about the difficulties in finding a NHS dentist and severely lengthy waiting times to get into see a dentist…if ever.

KarenWoo

What is an NHS dentist? And why does it take so long to get an appointment?

janisj

1) National Health Service . . .

2) Too many patients and too few dentists

bilboburgler

Tis true the NHS dentist situation is bad, brought about by bad negotiation (i feel like I know all the details because of my dentist was in the negotiation for the country).

But this is well into pot and kettle calling countryside and I will not enter that debate

For those who are interested. Dentists in the UK are all private traders. They can take on National Health Service work or they can deal direct. Due to a negotiation where they were offered less than cost payments to do dental work. NHS work should be free at the point of use but unless you are a fantastic dentist, or you live in a high floride low sugar area (just run with my short hand here) you cannot make money as a NHS dentist. So it is not about getting an appointment, you cannot even get on a list to get an appointment in some areas.

As a result most people go private. But those who don't ... not good. Of course, once it gets bad the NHS still has to pick up the bill (the very real bill). But this negotiation is a realtively new thing, in the past 5 or 7 years. Looking at statistics before this "error" British teeth were generally healthier than most other western country's (if countries had teeth).