Trip to UK
So, as most of you know, dh and I went to the UK from Aug 21-31. It was a great trip. I think both of us agreed that we liked Italy better, but to be fair, we had a LOT more down time in Italy, so that probably made some difference. Here is what we did:
(Wed) Flew to London. Did not sleep.
(Thurs) Got in at 7am. Checked into hotel by 9am. Went to room. Laid on bed, was made to get up and leave hotel. I told dh that I could not face being inside, so we went to alexeevaandjones (the BEST chocolate shop we’ve ever been to - seriously, Helen is amazing and the chocolates are equally as good:)). Had a lovely time chatting with Helen. She gave us her first restaurant recommendation around the corner and we ate lunch at ottolenghi. I had some chicken dish with two side salads (green beans and something else). DH had tuna that was seared and it was delicious. All the food there was good. Seating is incredibly tight. I think there are about 12 seats. After lunch we hit a couple more chocolate shops (one of which I sat down in and kept falling asleep) and then went over to Westminster Abbey for evensong. Mmm, that was gorgeous, but I was falling asleep there (standing up at one point), so I left and waited for dh outside. In the meantime I chatted up one of the people working the gate (Poppy:)) and got a recommendation for fish and chips. After the service, we went down the street for said fish and chips and got them to go in a bag. The fish was so hot, we burned our fingertips a little. Also, there were enough chips for an entire family and that was the small! Still, it satisfied my fish and chips craving, so it was an excellent end to the first day!
(Fri) Tower of London! We loved the Tower. The Beefeaters were phenomenal, with the amount of information they had and their willingness to share it. We talked with Pat, the only female Beefeater, for quite a few minutes about the Crown Jewels (dh insisted the velvet and fur could be 300 years old. I was right. It was not old). She also told us that they purposefully limit the amount of information they display because they get so many people going through. I was frustrated at the lack of info on the textiles (big surprise, right?:)) We also went on a guided tour of the Tower and the man was good, although most of the history was about who got their head chopped off, so it was hard to keep it all straight. We saw an adorable pendant in the gift shop, a little frog with a crown, but when we asked about the price (could have been between £160-550) it turned out to be £550 and we had to pass. *sob* It was cute, but not $825 worth of cute. We moved on. Went to Westminster Abbey and got there with about 1.5 hours before the Abbey closed. The tour book said it would take an hour to do the guided tour, but after 1.5 hours, they were ushering us out.
On the way out, I recognized Poppy and asked her if she had any other restaurant recommendations. She didn’t, but she suggested we ask one of the other guides and we were directed to the Blue Boar. We went over and ended up eating at the bar because the restaurant didn’t open until 6 and we had to be at the Globe for a 7:30 show. Food at the bar was ok. The salads were terrific, the meat was just fine.
Went to the Globe and we were seated a few minutes before the show started. It was Henry VI and by intermission, we were falling asleep, so we left and hit Tate Modern where I came to the realization that I don’t like dystopian surrealist modern art. Yeah. Went home and went to bed.
(Sat) We started at Portobello Market and after one block escaped. It was raining and we weren’t really inspired, although we saw an awesome glass spider (that was made by an American) and a scarab (that was made by an Italian:)). Went back to alexeevaandjones and got some more chocolate and another restaurant recommendation or two. Hid out from pouring rain too. Went over to a tapas restaurant near The Victoria and Albert museum. O. M. G. Everything we had there was amazing including the deep fried goat cheese with honey. Mmmmm.
Victoria and Albert Museum was great. DH took lots of pictures.
After that, it was on to more chocolate and dessert! We hit a nearby store for actual food and stealthily ate the chicken caesar salad after the first dessert course at William Curley. Five more courses later we were quite happy. I was also very happy that we shared it! (Pictures and descriptions to follow:))
(Sun) British Museum, British Library, Tea at Dean Street Townhouses, organ concert, yogurt for dinner I believe. We hung out with lewisian_gneiss for most of the day and that was a true delight and one of the highlights of my trip. I got to show her the treasures from Ur which I had seen umpty zillion years ago here in DC and going to tea with her and her husband was plain fun. Organ concert at Westminster Abbey was gorgeous, until the third piece with its very modern composition and dissonance. We saw a little girl stand up, put her hands over her ears, and walk out. Hee.
(Monday) St Pauls. Museum of London. Tate Britain. Dinner at the Blue Boar restaurant. St Pauls was fine. I am wondering if I would have been more impressed had we climbed up into the dome (since that’s what I remember from 24 years ago), but at the time it felt like a macho thing to do with little payoff. Museum of London was great. Really good for kids. Scope is huge. Tate Britain was a little disappointing to me. We looked at a bunch of stuff but really went for the Turner’s and Blake’s. Turner’s stuff was fine, really. I mean, I like his stuff, but I’m not a devotee or anything. Blake, on the other hand, was a huge disappointment. I remember there being more and it was all behind glass and … as one of my profs said later, it was sort of like being in an aquarium. Well, that display is completely gone and the magic was gone for me too:( Oh well, can’t love everything. We had a lovely dinner at the Blue Boar after getting replacement post cards from the Westminster Abbey store. Our waiter was quite charming there:D
(Tues) We got up early to catch a train to York. Got to train station and discovered that we would be sitting around for quite a while since our train had been cancelled. Grr. Ok, got on the train and just started getting settled and they said we had to switch trains, so we all stampeded over to a different platform and soon we were on our way. York was great. We both loved Yorkminster. It’s beautiful and impressive and our guide there was full of juicy tidbits about the building, so that was a lot of fun. After that, I couldn’t take being inside any more, so we went on the walking tour provided by the town. DH wasn’t impressed, but I liked it. We found dinner and went back to the train station. Turned out that train was delayed due to someone crashing a gate downstream, so we got in to Edinburgh after 10pm. Hired a cab who delivered us to the front door of our B&B and we were getting settled. We had a laundry snafu (laundromat turned out to be closed), so Stephanie offered to do our laundry. Hurray! That was sooooo helpful.
(Wed) We walked into Edinburgh and up to the Castle. I loved Edinburgh. The castle was great. We saw those crown jewels, which at one point had been smuggled away to safety and then hidden for a hundred years or so. Walter Scott discovered them in the late 1800s! Also saw the Stone of Scone. And a guy did a demo on kilts which was fascinating. He had a length of tartan laid out on the floor and he pleated it and placed a belt under it. A volunteer came forward and Alistair showed us how versatile a kilt was. I was impressed with all the different ways you could arrange the fabric! Went for lunch at The Witchery which served fabulous food, but the service is apparently notoriously slow, so it took about 2 hours. Eeep. We did some shopping and visited St Giles Cathedral after. The Thistle chapel is great there. We recommend it. I think we had yogurt for dinner that night too:) We attempted to see live music, but the bars did not seem like places I wanted to hang out in and we punted.
(Thurs) We hit a chocolate shop that was not in the main part where all the touristy stuff is. I was disappointed, but we got a few things. Then we went to the National Museum of Scotland. It’s arranged in some bizarre non-logical way, so we were often confused, but there is a lot of interesting stuff and we spent a good three hours there. Top of the list: The Lewis Chessmen:) After that, we did a little more shopping and then went to collect our luggage and get back to the train station. Found a pasty booth for dinner (yum) and hit the train. We got settled and they started saying that anyone who didn’t need to travel should leave. I planted myself firmly and prayed that we would get back to London that evening. After several more announcements saying service would stop in York, they abruptly switched their tack and we got in an hour late. Shew. Our Friday plans were intact!
(Fri) SHOPPING DAY! We started at alexeevaandjones, moved on to Harrods where I met up with amphigoury , then Fortnum and Mason, and finally Liberty of London. By the time we were done there, there wasn’t time to go to Covent Garden and I was pretty done, so we headed over to The Globe to meet up with
kaberett and
silly_cleo and queue for tickets for Midsummer Night's Dream. We got groundling tickets at 7pm, show started at 7:30. We stood for the entirety of the play except the intermission when we sat for a little break. DH and I both really enjoyed the play. The men who played Puck and Oberon were stupendous and the mechanicals did an amazing job with their little play in the play. OMG, it was soooo funny. Also, the guy who played Bottom was so good.
We definitely ended the trip on a high note. We woke up a little late on Saturday, but it was still with plenty of time to get to the airport. Flight home was fine (except for the being cooped up at 30K feet for 8 hours:)). Oh, I watched Skyfall on the way out, Beautiful Creatures, Bernie, and ⅔ of Oblivion on the way back. Oblivion was kind of driving me crazy with the way it was treating the women. One second they were all bamfy and the next they were squeaking in the corner, clinging to a man. Ugh.
So, I’ve been home about 48 hours, I’ve been eating non-stop and kind of wandering around in a daze. Zzzzz. Love the jetlag. Girls go back to school tomorrow. It’s been one hell of a summer in a really amazing way.
This entry was originally posted at http://jelazakazone.dreamwidth.org/746146.html. Feel free to comment here or there.