Tag / UK

The day began with a chilly breeze and gray overcast skies. Sounds like late September in London, doesn’t it? Warm eggs and hot lattes quickly energized us for another long day of walking!

Good fortune gave us one more day during the Buckingham Palace summer opening AND our free return visit from our tickets yesterday. So, we plotted a fun course through Mayfair, happening by the Egyptian and Saudi Arabian embassies. We quickly crossed quiet Green Park, accompanied only by a few dog walkers and early-start tourists.

We snagged timed entry tickets (free…yay!) with just a short wait. The trick with these same day tickets was to arrive just after the ticket booth opened at 9:00am. While we waited, we walked next door to the Queen’s Gallery and secured tickets for the afternoon. Our day was set!

Buckingham Palace: Take Two. For this visit, we decided to forgo the audio guide and just take in the rooms visually. The architecture and detail is so beautiful. Designed to impress…and it surely does. Just staring at the carved ceilings could occupy the mind for hours…each carving is ornate, purposeful, and symbolic. We also spent extra time in the long central gallery of paintings. It’s a relatively small collection (compared with a museum), but each piece is carefully selected and cared for. Another chance for coffee and snacks on the garden terrace.

The Queen’s Gallery houses various temporary exhibits through the year, exploring elements from the Royal Collection. The current exhibit–“In Fine Style: The Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion”–examined the importance and evolution of clothing in court life. What made this exhibit so fascinating was its approach to describing portraits not for the scene or subject, but for the significance of the fashion elements displayed in the painting. Elements such as use of specific color, the extravagance of specific fabrics, and even the significance of hats. It was an inventive, immersive way to explore a set of paintings and we simply loved it.

For our evening walk, we returned to Hyde Park. We settled into canvas deck chairs at the sexy Serpentine Gin Bar…we had wine…healthy pours of Tempranillo and Nero reds. Six-or-so green parakeets zipped across the sky. Swans and geese set off slow ripples on the otherwise placid Serpentine, catching the brilliant orange sky. A Jack Russell terrier with ears perked looked longingly at the birds. With its last colorful gasps, the sun lit up lines of lacey clouds in brilliant orange against the darkening blue sky.

Hyde Park slipped quickly into night, its thick trees blocking out the light of the city, leaving only the occasional lamppost to light its pathways. Bikes and walkers continue to emerge from and disappear back into darkness. We pointed ourselves towards the far end of the park, and took a long, leisurely walk along the Serpentine and then into the quiet, moist grassy, lawns of Hyde Park. At the end of the Park, Kensington Palace sat dark; its manicured gardens slept free of visitors.

After attempting a foolish Friday night drop-in to a popular spot we had visited previously with Jeanne and Sarah, we found a warm table at the lively Prince of Wales pub in Kensington. A couple of rounds of fresh draughts and tasty fish and chips. Pittsburgh Steelers fans in their black and gold crowded in for a pint. A friendly couple from New Zealand told us stories of being on their way home from a three-month trip.

We took the long long walk back along the north side of the Park. Bayswater Road provided yet another glimpse of life in this wonderful city. We slept soundly, knowing that tomorrow we were off to the English countryside!

We awoke well-refreshed and ready to jump right into London starting with our all-time favorite London activity…visiting Buckingham Palace :). But the Queen wouldn’t start her day without breakfast, and neither should we. Big hotels are notoriously expensive when it comes to breakfast (which frankly runs counter to the entire European philosophy of “breakfast included”). But status has its benefit, and the Doubletree throws in free hot breakfast for its Diamond members. Whew. (This is precisely why we save these silly Hilton points for expensive cities!) Breakfast was quite good, most importantly including hot lattes. 🙂

On to Buckingham Palace and the annual Summer Opening of the State Rooms. We had purchased open-ended tickets for this visit (versus a set visit time/day), which let us get to the palace as early as we wished. What a great ticket…we by-passed the zoo of people standing and waiting for their set time and waltzed into the security screening area. Still a zoo…but a zoo at our own pace!

The state rooms at the palace never fail to impress, but what made this visit special was the temporary exhibit on the Queen’s coronation in 1953. Many of the rooms had special displays, and the audio guide had new content specifically highlighting events of the coronation 60 years prior. An impressive group photo at the palace was accompanied by a rough video of the scene before and after the shutter snapped; a rare glimpse of the informal banter that surrounded such a famous formal moment. We particularly enjoyed the displays of gowns, jewelry, and other “artifacts” from the festivities. Even the “most photographed woman in history” can still surprise you with touching details and intimate, behind-the-scenes moments.

We exited the palace onto the rear terrace, looking out over the expansive green lawn towards the private wooded park beyond. We escaped the sudden bright sun with coffee and snacks under a broad white tent. An ordinary scone with cream tastes magical during tea time at Buckingham Palace. The palace gift shop and restrooms had two things in common—#1 they were only located outside after the visit and #2 they were very popular…probably due to #1. 🙂

A winding path led us away from the palace, along the edge of the grounds, towards the exit. A few trees began to drop yellowing leaves, setting an example for others as autumn approached. Warm, late-afternoon sun lit up the forest and created bright, colorful scenes on tiny ponds. As we exited, we got our tickets stamped for a year of free return visits. Our new plan…let’s do this again tomorrow!!

The tour exit is at the far end of the palace grounds, so we made our way along the exterior wall back to the front of the palace. Morning, noon, and evening, there is always a colorful crowd posing and peering through the gold-highlighted gates. Stoic, crowd-pleasing guards prance back and forth. The gilded figure atop the Victoria Memorial gleamed brightly.

We plotted a long route back to the hotel, cutting through two parks. We cut diagonally across Green Park, skirting the edge of the Buckingham Palace grounds for a while. A recent addition, the Royal Air Force Bomber Command Memorial, sat simply and allowed for personal reflection on the heavy sacrifices of WWII. We walked beneath Wellington Arch on our exit from the park, across Knightsbridge into glorious Hyde Park.

Hyde Park was teeming with bicycle commuters and early-evening walkers, all carefully avoiding each other in an elaborate dance that is surely executed daily. Aware of the quickly setting sun, we made a beeline for the Serpentine. Good choice. The setting sun shone brightly on bobbing geese and swans and other waterfowl. Kids gleefully tossed out scraps of stale bread, only to be swarmed and shook-down for more. At the new Serpentine Gallery, we turned sharply back towards Marble Arch and our hotel.

For dinner, we strolled into Soho and looked for something new and tempting. So so many enticing choices. New mixed with old. Japanese seems to be the “hot new thing”…with long lines to prove it. We were lured into stylish Cây Tre for Vietnamese. A chalkboard out front sealed the deal with an enticing Vietnamese mojito 🙂 Twist our arm and force us to have one while we wait for a table! Crispy pork and mushroom spring rolls. A smoky “campfire” beef in a savory dark sauce. A yellow chicken curry with a spice that lingered! And a wonderful Vietnamese fried rice with a fried egg on top. All so fantastic. And yeah, those mojitos didn’t hurt!!

Full stomachs and tired legs didn’t stop us from wandering and exploring quiet streets as we made our way back to the hotel. Such a perfect day.

An on-time departure from SFO and favorable weather dropped us into London Heathrow before 7am. United 901 treated us very well. (We were happily surprised to get a last-minute business class upgrade literally as we were in line to board..yay!!) Gray, misty skies greeted us. We took the speedy Heathrow Express train from Heathrow directly into Paddington Station where we easily hopped a taxi to the Doubletree Marble Arch, near the northeast corner of Hyde Park. (The namesake Marble Arch formerly stood at the entrance to Buckingham Palace before it was relegated to this less grand location.) A new London hotel for us, but in a central location and a perfect way to take advantage of some Hilton points!

After settling in and washing away a day’s worth of travel grime, we put on fresh shoes and walked to Soho, passing our old-familiar Doubletree on Old Marlborough Rd.

We selected the National Portrait Gallery as an easy first-day stop. We entered as they opened their doors for the day at 10am. Yay…free admission. The gallery was a perfect way to jump into the days to come with a healthy dose of British history. The gallery is more of a who’s who of Britain then it is a study in fine portraiture. Kings and Queens to scientists and mathematicians to writers and philisophers to celebrities and politicians. Even a 3D hologram of Queen Elizabeth II!!

We had lunch on our return to the hotel. Burgers and fries at Byron on Wardour St. and a couple beers. Oh that hit the spot. Nap time…we caught 3 hours of much needed rest.

Refreshed and ready to walk more, we headed back to Soho and one of our favorite restaurants–Tapas Brindisa–from our last trip. Fantastic tapas accompanied by mojitos (one Elderberry mojito and one so-called Spanish mojito). Mashed potato-wrapped chorizo; manchego cheese; a fantastic tortilla. ¡Fantástico!

We shared a creamy dessert at our favorite drool worthy place on Wardour…a cheesecake-type thing with blueberry swirl on top. We walked slowly through Mayfair on way back to get a real nighttime rest.

Quite a busy first day!!