We began this trip on Thursday afternoon, Aug. 19 with an approximate 9 hour, overnight flight from Houston, TX to London Heathrow Airport. Our departure was delayed by 2 hours because of the late arrival of the flight from London to Houston. Thus, we arrived at London Heathrow at about 11 a.m. on Friday morning, August 20th. We had pre-booked transportation from the airport to our hotel, The Rubens At the Palace, in London and our driver was waiting for us as we emerged from the luggage claim area. After a 30-45 minute ride into London we arrived at The Rubens and found that we could not check-in prior to about mid-afternoon. However, the hotel did provide storage for our luggage and facilities for us to freshen up. Once those details were attended to we walked out of the hotel and crossed the street to Buckingham Palace. We had pre-purchased tickets for the 1 p.m. tour of the palace staterooms. (The stateroom tour of Buckingham Palace is only available during the month of August when The Queen is away at Balmoral Castle in Scotland). Some of the rooms looked similar to those we saw in the palaces of St. Petersburg, Russia. Even though we have pictures from the Russian visit, pictures are not allowed to be taken inside of Buckingham Palace so we could only try and remember the rooms after we departed.
Returning to the hotel about 2 p.m. we checked in and got settled in our room. Our room was very plush but much like the hotels we have seen in New York City—extremely compact and expensive (almost $300 per night). We had an early dining reservation of 5 p.m. in the hotel restaurant, “The Old Masters Carvery”. After a very nice meal we prepared for our evening at the Adelphi Theatre in the West End of London where we had tickets to see Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Love Never Dies”. It appeared that the theater was only a short distance away but since we didn’t know the way we decided it was best to take a cab to the theater. Our cab was one of those typical London cabs--always black--that are usually seen on television or in movies from the London area.
The performance of “Love Never Dies” is the continuing story of “The Phantom of the Opera”. Since we had seen “The Phantom of the Opera” 3 times in the Los Angeles area while living in Las Vegas we remembered it well. In this play the love affair is continued between the Phantom and Christine. Even though none of the music from “The Phantom of the Opera” is used in “Love Never Dies” it seemed to me that any one of the many pauses the “Phantom” music could easily have been appropriately inserted.
With our short naps on our overnight flight and the time in London being 6 hours ahead of our time in Texas we were beginning to feel the effects of the “jet lag”. At the Interval (intermission) we decided to step outside for some fresh air. As we started up the aisle toward the back of the theater a gentleman stepped out into the aisle from a row behind us. I immediately remarked to Sylvia that this gentleman looked like Malouf Abraham from Canadian, TX. I thought I would say the name “Malouf” and if he responded there would be no doubt that is was him. It was Malouf and he was as surprised to see us in a theater in London as we were to see him. We exchanged info about our plans (Malouf was en route to Paris and had just stopped overnight in London) and then exchanged a few words about the high school reunion that we had all attended in Canadian a couple of weeks earlier. After the intermission ended we did not see Malouf again.
After the performance ended a short cab ride through lots of theater traffic bought us back to the Rubens and a very-much-needed good night of sleep that interrupted at about midnight by a telephone call from the U.S. Our AT&T cell phone would not connect to service in England and I had communicated with technicians in the U.S. shortly after we checked into the hotel to get it working. Sadly, it never did work and we were without any phone service the entire trip.
The following morning, Saturday, we began our day early with breakfast in the hotel buffet and then at about 8 a.m. met a representative of the tour company at the Concierge Desk of our hotel for a 10-hour “Total London” tour of London. (At the end of the day I referred to the tour as “Total Exhaustion!”). Outside, we boarded a bus and traveled to a central area where we transferred to our individual tour group.
Our London tour took us down a street and past beautiful hanging baskets of flowers and our first stop at Westminster Abbey. In the area around Westminster Abbey were other beautiful government buildings and monuments.
This monument, Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square reminded me of similar statutes in St. Petersburg, Russia.
We next visited the Queen’s Household Cavalry Museum which included stables.
Here a young woman who is a member of The Queen’s Guard poses for a photograph.
At approximately 11 a.m. our bus took back to the area of Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard ceremony that was scheduled for 11:30 a.m.. It seemed that every tourist in London was there for the event. I heard estimates of the crowd being 30,000 people.
Here the guard group that is taking over duties marches toward the retiring guard group (not visible) on the right side of the picture. As we started toward the area where we were to meet our bus we moved through (or tried to move through) an area where we eventually were stopped for 5 minutes or so and couldn’t move at all with people pushing against us from all directions. It wasn’t a feeling I liked, but our eventually we were able to move on and finally reached our bus.
After a nice lunch in a British Pub where we shared a table with a
Our next stop was St. Paul’s Cathedral, designed by Sir Christopher Wren and built in the 17th century, this church is locate on Ludgate Hill, the highest point in the City of London. At 365 feet high (I couldn’t get “back” far enough to snap a picture of the tower) this church was the site of the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer. (Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed to be taken inside, so this is my only photo of this lovely church).
From here we traveled to the Tower of London where we viewed the tower buildings and the Crown Jewels.
It is behind a gate such as this where Anne Boleyn was imprisoned until her beheading.
The bloody history of the Tower of London dates back over 1,000 years.
Grassy area that was once the moat of the Tower.
From the Tower of London we could see this bridge over the Thames River. Leaving the Tower we boarded a boat (similar as one shown) on the river and traveled 15-25 minutes on the river viewing the shoreline of the city.
Looking across the River Thames at the many boats on the river and beyond to Westminster Bridge and behind it the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and other government buildings.
Whitehall Court and other buildings of the London skyline across the River Thames.
Our day ended with a taxi ride back to the Rubens at the Palace hotel.
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