Britain 2015 - a few final thoughts

Mum and I are home now after our wonderful trip to Britain! Many of you have followed our adventures through this blog - we hope you enjoyed it along the way! If you have some time to catch up with our last few posts, here are a couple of things to note. I wrote 21 blog posts during this year's trip. For the most part, they were daily posts, with images and commentary which attempted to summarize the day. The posts are in reverse chronological order (that's just the way blogs work!), so if you start reading here and scroll down, you'll be reading about our trip from end to beginning! You can scroll way down and go the other way, but I'll leave that to you!
The images shared on the blog were ones taken on my phone (or a few from mum's iPad) since that's where I wrote the posts, often on the fly. Some of them maybe aren't the best photos, however, they were intended as a record. The 1146 photos on my camera are the real beauties and we will share many of these in a photo book again this year. I hope you'll get to see it!
We saw some incredible scenery and enjoyed extraordinary times with family and new friends. Thank you all for helping to make it so special for us! There were many highlights and dreams come true - as they say in Britain, it was smashing!

London Day 5 and Journey Home

We said good-bye to our temporary home in lovely Bloomsbury today. The Bedford turned out to be just what we needed for our 5 days in London. We were close to bus routes and tour buses, groceries and wine, restaurants and shopping. It really was terrific - not bad considering there was a bit of dumb luck involved in the choice!

Daily English breakfast was included with our room,

and you could choose to sit outside on this pretty patio.

We had no time for sight-seeing on the last day, unless you include views from the van on the way to Heathrow! The ride ended up being 2 hours so  we did see a few new parts of the city!

We flew out of Terminal 2 which seems new, slick and quite lovely.

We got there with plenty of time for some lunch and a little shopping, although most of the stores were a bit too rich for my tastes and wallet :)

Seriously? A spa?

Mum and I were able to make a seat change - hooray! Our back row pair of seats were quite fine and we were relieved to be sitting together this time. (Unlike the screw up on the flight over). It was a huge airplane once again, with 9 seats across (3x3) and about 60 rows.

Although the flight was quite smooth and easy, Toronto was a welcome sight! Spectacular holiday, but we're glad to be home!

London Day 4

Mum and I are both quite exhausted and overwhelmed after our second full day of London sight-seeing. We did the hop on, hop off thing again, but with a bit more purpose today after learning a little about how it all works yesterday. We set off this morning ready to go directly to Westminster Abbey. Have I mentioned how London is really just one big traffic jam? In some parts of the city, the journey from one landmark to another is less than scenic, unless you love to look at rows and rows of red double decker buses, travelling at snail's pace. So getting to the Abbey took a bit longer than we thought!

However, there is nothing that could take away from the experience in Westminster Abbey. As mum reflected, it is the true heart of London ... England ... the Commonwealth. It is a profoundly magnificent building and holds history dating back centuries. It's not only royalty buried there, but scientists, poets, musicians, officers, government leaders and other prominent people. Some of the tombs date back to the 1200s. We saw memorials to Newton, Darwin, Handel, Shakespeare, Churchill, Burns, Chaucer, Britten, and .... I really can't continue listing them for fear of suggesting a hieararchy of importance. We were awed by them all. We both had profoundly sentimental moments as we moved from room to amazing room. Many of our friends and relatives encouraged us not to miss Westminster Abbey and we now know why. It is a treasure. 

FYI, you can't take pictures inside, so we were limited to some outdoor photos. This is simply a record shot taken from the bus.

After our time in the Abbey, we took our time and walked down to Buckingham Palace, then down The Mall to Trafalgar Square. 

I could have stood there for hours ........

The picture above was taken from the steps of the National Gallery, which holds a place of prominence at the top of the Trafalgar Square. Like the Tate, the National Gallery is a free welcoming space and is filled with interested locals and tourists. 

Mum and I each found art that touched us deeply.

Ah, Vincent, yes, this was my favorite wall.

And mum loved seeing many beautiful Turners - a painter she loved as a student and young artist. Seeing so many in one beautiful space was truly a dream.

This was a very full day.

London has triggered many wonderful memories of past trips, and special  thoughts of loved ones. These really are the treasures we will bring home from this trip.

London Day 3

Today we hopped on the 'Big Bus' tour close to our hotel and enjoyed a full day of London sights! This is what we had both been anticipating - old historic magnificent London!

Our first 'hop off' was at the Tower of London and we spent quite a bit of time there. The guided tour by #toweryeoman was amazing! You may have seen my tweets or Facebook comments. Somehow it seems a bit odd to be tweeting with a beefeater, but that's how the business has changed! This picture was actually taken from the Thames River boat cruise that we did right after our time at the tower. It was also amazing! (as you might tell from our selfie smiles)

:)

This is The Elizabeth tower which holds the famous Big Ben bell.

And Westminster Abbey - which we enjoyed from outside today, but will head back to tomorrow for a tour.

This is a view from our room as we sat with wine and feet up before dinner. 

London Day 2

Certainly, the highlight of today was meeting up with Fiona and Chris for lunch! We had such a lovely visit! Fiona chose a great location - we met up at The Drift, a funky modern restaurant a short bus ride from where we are staying (more about getting around London later). It was really wonderful to catch up with both of them and hear about teaching jobs getting underway, a new home in the near future, little sister's 30th in Edinburgh (HB Kirstie!) ...... and maybe a little family gossip :) We hope F&C will come to Canada soon!

After our great visit with Fiona and Chris, mum and I headed off to Tate Modern, a place that both of us have always longed to visit. To be honest, we both found it a bit underwhelming. Not the art (since I could never call any art underwhelming) but the venue itself. It's scheduled for a big upgrade in 2016, so maybe that explains why it looks so neglected at present. I love that the Tate promotes art for everyone by offering free admission to all. I really do love this, however, I felt like there were missed opportunities around every corner in terms of educating people about art in general, but particularly about modern art. So maybe I'll go work as a consultant to Tate Modern in my retirement, haha, or maybe not, but in the meantime, I thoroughly enjoyed viewing favorite Braques, Kandiskys, Picassos, and many others while we were there. Trish - look what I found!

OK, let's chat a little about getting around London. There are trains, buses, the tube, cabs, and foot travel. Yesterday we used a lot of cabs and spent way too much money in the name of convenience, so today, since we had more time and energy, we decided to try bus travel. Daily bus passes are very economical, but for London newbies, it is a bit of a challenge. We did well though, and got everywhere we need to be with minimal stress or error. Yay us! One bus driver actually said to me, " You've only been in London one day? You seem to understand the system pretty well!" Ha! Conquered!

I did a lot of screen captures of google maps - no data service en route is another whole conversation, and obstacle....but this solution helped a lot!

There is always way more foot travel than one expects, so we are enjoying a fairly lazy evening with feet up after a yummy Italian dinner just down the street.

Tomorrow, hop on hop off tour. Sounds simple. Yay!

London Day 1

We arrived by train to Paddington Station in London at 1:15 this afternoon. It was a pretty easy cab ride to the Bedford Hotel in Bloomsbury. We have a lovely room with plenty of space and everything we need. What a nice surprise!

We had a relaxing afternoon of unpacking, napping, and a short walk down the street to check out our bustling neighbourhood and pick up a few things at Sainsbury's.

Dinner was free tonight as part of a summer special deal we got at our hotel! Nice treat before the big event .............

ROYAL ALBERT HALL! An all Beethoven concert - the Emperor Piano Concerto followed by the 9th Symphony! Wow, what a thrilling night! The music was glorious, the hall gorgeous, the acoustics incredible, and the whole experience a dream come true!

Don't laugh - we had to do this!

Pub Life

Annette and Neil's pub is a thriving local establishment and has a loyal following of customers ....... Mum and me included! We felt like the whole staff was there catering to our every need! 

Every single item on the menu was scrumptious! One of our favorites was the fresh strawberries - grown next door - with cream and ice cream. Heavenly.

Also scrumptious were the broccoli bake and the Brie and beetroot tart. Yum.

Here is the beautiful bar, in the morning before the crowds arrived.

And here we are - Neil, Annette, mum and me.

Pub life was wonderful! We loved spending time with another branch of our big family! Thank you so much Annette and Neil for your most generous hospitality! I'm not kidding - I'll be back soon! Maybe I can have MY 60th at Rodney Stoke!!!!

xoxoxoxoxo Irene and Susan