London
An unexpected detour en route to Greece.
"Mind the gap! Please, mind the gap!" The friendly overhead announcer urged us not to trip in the space between the
subway car and the deck. Many times. At every stop. So, here our vacation begins a bit earlier than expected.
The London subway, aka Underground, aka "Tube," efficiently connects Heathrow Airport to downtown, and it took about an hour
to get to our hotel on Bayswater which was a fairly ethnic neighborhood on the north side of Hyde Park.
Figuring, incorrectly, we only had a few hours in London and would be headed to Greece the next morning,
we made the best of our time here and headed out to see Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.
It was about midnight we began our nighttime tour. They keep Big Ben, and most other notable buildings in the area,
beautifully lit through the night, but Westminster Abbey is eerily left in the dark.
It had been awhile since we ate, and we were getting pretty hungry about now.
Despite what the hotel receptionist said, there was no sign of any open restaurants around here.
So from Big Ben we headed along St. James Park, along Cobblestone streets, toward Buckingham palace.
They don't light this one up either-- the Queen is getting her rest!
And no changing of the guard at this hour.
After I loudly pronounced, "man, it sure looks easy to sneak in there," we passed a couple cops tucked away
in the shadows on the other side of the fence.
All this walking was making us more hungry.
So we got some info from a passerby that by following Picadilly Street, from
the back side of Buckingham Palace, starting at Wellington Arch,
over to Picadilly Circus, there should be plenty of eating places still open.
London was pretty dead up to here; this is where Picadilly starts showing signs of life.
Picadilly Circus, in the wee hours of the morning. It's hard to see in this picture, since all nighttime
shots are limited by having to find a flat stable surface to place the camera, but there were TONS of people out partying.
Now in the states, I think of Burger King as a place I stop at on the way to Fresno when I can't find a Carl's Jr.
But in London's hip cultural elite it was the hottest ticket in town, so crowded
we couldn't buy a drink or burger to save our life.
So we found a nice little sandwich and pastry bistro around the corner with country-style bread, that had no lines.
North of Picadilly we headed up into the London's Soho district, where bars and nightclubs rage through the night.
Tired of walking... and the Tube is closed after midnight... it's time to catch a double-decker bus back to our hotel.
Whoa... speeding through London at night! Naturally we had to sit on the top.
It's kinda funky being way up here like that, and
I hate to think what the ride would have been like if they had a Muni driver at the wheel.
What are those two crazy yanks doing? They're taking pictures of everything!!
Here's our reflection in the front window of the bus, and we're heading back to our hotel sometime after
4:00 in the morning with dawn's light just beginning to show. What's worse, we were taking so many pictures we missed
our stop so had to backtrack a few blocks to Bayswater and Queensway. That means just an hour or two of sleep
before catching the Underground to Heathrow after daybreak...
...Mind the gap... mind the gap... mind the gap!!!
So are we finally in Greece? Not quite... this is London, day three [Monday, July 21]. We went to the British Airways office in Picadilly Circus,
and booked a flight for the next day.
By the time all was said and done, it was getting late in the day before we found ourselves with some free time.
So we grabbed
our cameras and headed out to the British Museum, arriving at 4:30 with an hour left to see the exhibits. Having
to budget our time carefully, we headed straight for Egypt.
While most museums happily display the odd trinket from a real Egyptian tomb, the British Museum seems hesitant
to put out anything not measured by the ton-- although they'll cut some slack for human remains.
Admission was free, although they may have been because they were
celebrating their 250th anniversary this year.
Plenty of large granite statues in mint condition. "Hey look everyone, I'm an Assyrian wall relief!"
The Rosetta Stone. How nice.
So after the museum we went back to the Airport and got a few snapshots of the Heathrow passengers still waiting in line.
Actually, this is two of many mummies they have on display, the first came from before recorded history and was
naturally mummified by the dry desert air, and the second was the result of a formal mummification ritual.
The Tower of London, where Anne Bollyn (among many other political prisoners) was beheaded,
and today where the crown jewels are on display. It was closed when we arrived, but still nice to walk around.
I swear I'm not going to change my clothes until British Airways lets us out of this stupid city.
I figured another day of walking around in this humid weather and British Immigration
will be deporting me on the very next flight!
Besides, I'm going to go postal if I hear "mind the gap!" one more time.
That's the Tower Bridge in the background, next to the Tower of London.
We decided to finish our day with a relaxing stroll through Hyde Park, which cuts a large green swath through the city of
London much the same way Golden Gate Park does in San Francisco.
Any resemblance ends there, as Hyde Park is almost entirely
flat and covered with lawns with isolated trees scattered about. It could also use a good rain. Here's an energetic
little guy, some kind of terrier, that came running up to us wanting to play.
An older British couple came to fetch
him, terribly apologetic for their pooch's bad behavior!
What's this? Walking from Hyde Park back to our hotel near Victoria Station, heading down Exhibition Road past
the Natural History Museum, we happened by this
"Earth from the Air" exhibit, which was a collection of photographs
taken around the world from an airplane. We were only able to hurry around for a little before they shooed us out at 10:00pm.
Big Ben, with the parliament building on the left, with traffic crossing the nearby bridge over the Thames.
It was a nice, warm, slightly muggy midsummer evening in London. It was around midnight when this picture was taken.
Spooky Westminster Abbey, not too far away from Big Ben. While Big Ben is lit up proudly, Westminster Abbey is
left in the dark at night.
The Soho district, just north of Picadilly Circus, is the hot spot of London at night.
The Tower Bridge, crossing the Thames, near the Tower of London.