England 2018: The First 3 Days

Some people have a travel bucket list, but while there are many places I’d like to see, the one place I have longed to visit since I was a young girl was England. I often wondered if I would ever be able to go, but God knew, and His timing was perfect. I’m so thankful I could share a beautiful, memorable week with my daughter in celebration of her upcoming 16th birthday. 🙂

We took a direct overnight flight from Toronto to London (hubby and the boys spent the week with my parents). Despite taking Dramamine, I had horrible airsickness the whole time, and felt bad for the lady beside me. 🙁 The security line at Heathrow was very long, and by the time we finally got to our Airbnb flat in Battersea, it was almost time to leave for Hamlet at Shakespeare’s Globe. I ended up not eating anything until supper – not a fun way to start the trip.

One thing we found out that first day was that although London taxis are more expensive, they are the best way to get somewhere quickly. Our intrepid driver got us through a maze of back streets from Battersea to Southwark with time to spare before the play! All the actors and actresses did their parts very well, but the Globe has apparently taken the practice in Shakespeare’s day of men playing women’s parts to it’s logical conclusion, so Hamlet was played by a young woman in men’s clothing, and Ophelia by a masculine-looking young man in a very feminine dress. Laertes and Horatio were also played by women, as well as some minor characters. I found it a bit strange, but as I said, it was well-acted. I was also fighting sleep due to getting almost none the night before, which might have skewed my impressions of the play. 😛

After the play, we walked across the Millennium Bridge and found our way in a round-about manner to the Sky Garden.

It has wonderful views of free views of London (you do have to make reservations a few weeks before if you’re not eating there), but I found the way the building curves downwards in the front, just beyond where we were seated for dinner a bit much, especially as my stomach was still recovering from flying. 😉 Supper was good, although neither of us could finish it – we should have just stuck with the delicious chicken Caesar salad we shared for an appetizer instead of also getting burgers and (too-spicy) fries. We took a tube/taxi combo back to Battersea, as we were too tired to be patient enough for the bus.

Thankfully we both slept well Friday night, and the next morning we enjoyed hot chocolate and croissants at a café near our flat which was recommended by our hostess. They had delicious cream-stuffed doughnuts as well, as I discovered later in our stay – quite different from what we call doughnuts in North America.

Our first stop was the Tower of London, and we were thankful for our London Passes which allowed us to skip the long ticket lines and get in fairly quickly. If it was that crowded on a wet spring day, I’d hate to see it at the height of tourist season! We took a Beefeater tour, led by the first woman to become a Yeoman of the Guard at the Tower. She took us into the lovely chapel where under the altar are buried Anne Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey, and Catherine Howard (we were not allowed to take photos inside). We also toured the armory inside the White Tower, and climbed the narrow winding stairs of the Bloody Tower. We were told the Crown Jewels were a must-see, but arrived to late to avoid the line, had other things we wanted to do that day, and just didn’t want to stand in line for hours. I’m not really disappointed, though – I’ve never been into expensive jewelry. 😉

Some photos – I took the first one the following Thursday, when we were back in the area for our Thames boat ride.

The obligatory shot with Tower Bridge in the background. 😉

We bought lunch at a sandwich place just outside the Tower, and were entertained by the friendliest birds I’ve ever seen. Of course, they were after our crumbs – one little guy would come right up and cock his head on one side like a begging dog, and jump up when you dropped a bit of bread. 🙂

St. Paul’s was next, and again we were glad for our London Passes which allowed us to get through security and into the church much faster. No photography was allowed, but then no photo could convey the spaciousness and majesty of that beautiful place. It’s good to have photo-free places, or limit the amount of photos we take, so we can practice paying attention and storing memories in our mind’s eye. I think I had a panic attack on the long, winding stairs to the Whispering Gallery (Miss A was quite far ahead of me). Some people coming down seemed to notice my distress and were reassuring me it wasn’t too much longer. 😛 Once at the top, I felt rather light-headed and definitely wasn’t going up any further!

While we were looking around near the choir, someone started playing Venus, Bringer of Peace from Holst’s The Planets. It was rather mysterious, since we couldn’t even spot the organ, but very beautiful. But my favorite thing was when I found myself looking up at a toga-clad statue of Samuel Johnson, who seemed to be looking down at me benignly and with a touch of humor on his face. Miss A translated some of the Latin inscription for me, and now I want to read the copy of Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson that’s been sitting on my shelf. Funny how art can move you so much…

I took this photo when we were passing by the next day and there were fewer people around.

We also found a memorial for John Donne, who preached at the old St. Paul’s before the Great Fire, in the garden.

Then we took the Tube east for a bit to Upton Park, and looked around the Who Shop – something Miss A had requested to do. 🙂 One of the things I learned during our trip was that the London Underground isn’t always underground, at least not on the District Line west and east of the city center. Of course, some lines like the Northern are way underground, with long, steep escalators to ascend or descend – not my favorite. But although I was nervous of using the Tube, I found it wasn’t so bad after all, and even managed to be okay riding in it standing up holding on to the ceiling loop when it was too full to sit down.

We visited the London City Presbyterian Church on Sunday, which meets in a beautiful church near St. Paul’s Cathedral. The pastor was away, and one of the elders preached an excellent sermon on “The Sin of Silence.” After lunch we walked over the Millennium Bridge to Southwark and through a mostly empty Borough Market to the Shard, getting lost on the way. We didn’t have data on our phones while we were in England, so I would map out our destinations for the day on the Citymapper app and save them, but we still managed to get lost several times during the trip. All part of the adventure, I guess.

The “View from the Shard” was included in our London Passes, and Miss A really wanted to go up. I wasn’t sure I’d survive 😉 and stayed near the wall in the middle the whole time, but she was brave enough to go up further to the open-air view!

(I took the above photo from our Thames cruise later in the week.)

We took the longish bus ride back to Battersea, and our feet were grateful for the rest. Thanks to the recommendation of our hostess, we enjoyed a delicious Sunday roast at the Latchmere, which included the largest Yorkshire puddings I’d ever seen!

I’ve been reading G. K. Chesterton’s Tremendous Trifles and noticed he mentioned Battersea. When I did a little online research, I discovered that in the early 1900s he had lived in the Overstrand Mansions along the southern border of Battersea Park, very near where we were staying.