Friday, July 27

Our last full day in London and we tubed it back to the Blackfriars area where the Globe Theatre is located. Destination: Tate Modern Museum.






We walked across the Millenium Bridge,
taking us over the Thames River,






with these spectacular views
of the London skyline.





What an amazing collection of works by Picasso, Rodin, Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein, Rothko, and Giacometti sculptures.


I snapped this fun Lichtenstein over Michael's shoulder and later heard a guard tell
someone there was no photography allowed.




From there we walked over to the Museum of London to get a wonderful perspective of history, going back 250,000 years. Michael really wanted to see the exhibit on the Great Fire of 1666 and we were all amazed at the artifacts. Another free museum that you must see on your own trip to London.

Funny tidbits related to the Avonmore Hotel maid: Michael needed to get back in our room and I had the key so our English-challenged maid let him in. After getting what he needed, he said "Thank you," and she responded "Please."

We decided that our heavy load of British coins would make a nice tip for the maid so Grace looked up how to say Thank You in Polish on the Internet. We really hope we copied down "Dziękują" correctly on the note we left with the stacks of coins or at least we hope it didn't translate into some unintended insult.


We're home now and hope you enjoyed our London blog. It's been a trip we won't forget. Thanks for coming along!

Thursday, July 26th

It's starting to set in with us that the vacation is coming to a close. We're spending more time checking in at home and wondering what's up with family, friends & work.

Thursday's only plan was to make it to St. Paul's Cathedral. This is actually the fifth church on this site. It was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and received approval from King Charles II in 1675 after the Great Fire of London destroyed the previous cathedral. One amazing fact: it's the first English cathedral to be completed within the lifetime of its architect and it took only 35 years.





Some of the important events that took place here include the State funerals of Lord Nelson, Sir Winston Churchill and the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana. We sat and studied the splendid dome with paintings depicting scenes of St. Paul, mosaics of the Old Testament prophets and the four evangelists. No photos inside, sorry, but check out www.stpauls.co.uk

We walked the 163 steps (that's reported in the brochure; we didn't count them!) up to the inside Dome. Supposedly there's a Whispering Gallery, which means you can stand on oneside of the dome and whisper something that your companion can hear all the way across the Gallery, 32 metres. But it was pretty noisy up there and we didn't test the claim. It's another 119 steps up to the Stone Gallery and the final 152 steps to the Golden Gallery that provides a panoramic view of London. We didn't venture above the Dome, instead taking the stairs down to the Crypt to see tombs and memorials of historic figures, like Lord Nelson, Florence Nightingale and poet William Blake.

Our evening adventure was to the Covent Garden area to find a Greek restaurant called The Real Greek Souvlaki & Bar. Tiny place, maybe 10 tables in all so we waited for an open spot. It was definitely worth the wait with amazing hummus, soutzouki, souvlaki and ouzo.

Wednesday, July 25

Michael wanted to get in one last day of research at the British Library so Grace & Angela decided it was time to visit the Queen. We found our way through the tube lines to Buckingham and arrived just when the changing of the guards was about half over.


You can see the crowds are so thick and the traffic around the palace doesn't let up. We tried to get a few pictures between the buses of tourists who were trying to get a passing glimpse.


With all the rain and cooler temps the gardens around the Palace, and all of London, were lush and colorful.

We walked down the Mall passing war memorials and statues, getting a great long-shot of the palace.

And past this statue of the Duke of York, which I reminded Grace of the Nobel Duke of York song we used to sing to her when she was little.



We kept wondering if we would get back to a tube station when we realized we had walked right up to Piccadilly Circus! I've never been to Times Square but I imagine it must be bigger than Piccadilly. Grace was definitely unimpressed but the two of us had lunch at a place called Garfunkels and then spent about an hour in the Virgin Records Megastore.

Tuesday, July 24

We spent most of Monday, July 24th traveling back from Paris to London, and moved briefly to a VERY small room at Kensington West Motel. Too depressing to photograph or say much more about the motel. This area of London appears to be in urban renewal mode. There are entire blocks with scaffolding and workmen refurbishing the facades of buildings.

Tuesday we moved to our last hotel, the Avonmore Bed & Breakfast, pronounced Eye-vanmore by one cabbie we had. The room was significantly bigger and our innkeeper Margaret was very nice and accomodating. Interestingly most of the staff seemed to be Polish which lead to some amusing language misunderstandings that we'll describe later.

We dropped our bags in the new digs and headed to Harrod's to see the establishment that causes so much excitement. It does take up an entire block. We caught sight of it from our passing taxi the night we headed home from the Globe Theatre and it was lit up with more lights than a airport landing strip.





Room after room of clothes, purses, jewelry, chocolates & sweets, coffee & tea and then when you get to the food hall it's like part butcher, fish market, produce, bakery, lunch counter all rolled into one. They even had Krispy Kreme donuts! The displays are so astouding we didn't even take pictures -- just too touristy-strange to be standing in a department store taking photos.

We did order up a couple of pizzas and sat at one of the lunch counters. Here's a shot of their pizza chefs and the wonderful oven.



After lunch Michael was off to the British Library for more research while Grace & Angela were anxious to do some shopping.

Sunday Night - Eiffel Tower

Sunday, July 22

We slept in for the most part but Michael did go for a jog. He actually ran through the Arc de Triomphe! We made it out onto the street for a 10:30 am petit dejuener anglais which was basically coffee, omelet, bread and juice. Manifique ! Then we were off to the Louvre.

The Louvre buildings dwarf even the Smithsonian and we thought it’s probably about the size of 10 Nelson Atkins. We all agreed that our main objective was to see paintings.



We joined the Sunday crowd queued up at the glass pyramid and headed through to the galleries. The ceilings are works of art in themselves.











As we wandered through Italian, French and Dutch paintings we kept seeing the directional signs for the Mona Lisa. When we finally arrived in that room the crowd was thick. Grace took this shot and zoomed in for the last one.





Four hours later we rested in the sculpture garden and knew our exhausted bodies needed rest again.





We headed back to the hotel to nap before we’ll head out for dinner tonight. Bon soir! Tomorrow we head back to London.

Saturday, July 21

The flat needed to be cleaned before we left so our morning began with a few loads of laundry, sanitizing the tub, emptying the fridge & hauling out trash & recyclables. I’m going to be glad when we get to a hotel :-)

Getting to the Eurostar train was very exciting. We left at 9:00 thinking we could take the tube (surely the lines were open now) and arrive well before the required 30 min. check-in for our 10:10 am departure. Our only tube choice was in the wrong direction so we took it, all the while dragging our luggage, and hoping we could pick up the correct line to Waterloo at the next station.

That plan worked but everything was slower than we anticipated and a little more tricky. Three line transfers later and running through the crowded Waterloo Station, we arrived at 10:02. We still needed to print out the tickets at a kiosk & get through security. We jumped on the first train car we saw and were told we needed to find our car, #15 which was 11 cars ahead! We made it but when I looked at the time it was 10:08.

Grace had the window seat so here’s what she saw:



Finally we could relax and enjoy the three hour trip. Not so! At the next stop a “field trip” of French students joined our car. You’ve never heard such a racket. Michael said he did see one of the chaperones conk one of the boys on the head trying to maintain some order. Didn't really help much.


Bon jour Paris! We love the hotel; went with a safe bet – the Best Western near the Arc de Triomphe. The room is small but at least the extra bed we requested for Grace isn’t just a cot – it’s an actual daybed.



Here's our view if you hang out the window a little. Look for the Eiffel Tour top peaking up and then I zoomed in a little:




About the only things we managed to accomplish was getting a sense of the Paris Metro, finding a place to get some dinner and getting back to the room for a little nap. A lovely fellow tourist offered to snap our photo in front of the Arc so here we are:



Later we went back out to sit at one of the street cafes to have a glass of wine, dessert and some café au lait. The coffee was perhaps the best we’ve ever had.