UK 2012 ISSUE 12

It's a new morning and it's London, wahoo!  What to do first?  Transit Pass, yes, London Pass for access to museums and other places of interest, yes.  It's a good six or seven years since I have been in London and probably more like 30 since I have properly done the sights . . . what are we waiting for.  Where do you go to make a major league impression on first time visitors to this city, take the tube to the Embankment station and make sure you come up on the river side of the street!

Off we jolly well go. A short walk and it's on to a train and the next thing you know we are headed out of the station to a walkway that runs along the River Thames.  As we exit, the London Eye, a giant Ferris wheel, can be seen across the river.  But the best surprise is yet to come.  Turn right and walk past a door labelled "City Loos", where a pee costs you 50 pence (75 cents American), and  up a short flight of stairs.    It pretty much hits you in the face

Another borrowed image

 . . . the Houses of Parliament, sometimes know as Westminster Palace and Big Ben, which is really the bell but more generally identified as the tower that houses it, no more than 50 yards away.  There are plenty of others tourists, just like us, standing there gawking . . . or to use a very British phrase "gob-smacked".  It's pretty impressive and also just a little depressing or at least disconcerting.  These iconic buildings, sitting in a sea of traffic, what might they have looked like in another era?  Admittedly, they were built/rebuilt in Victorian times but they feel ageless.  It's difficult to see them with fast food establishments, street vendors and some truly indifferent architecture surrounding them but this is the reality of most big cities where historic preservation has not been a priority.  We can also thank the Germans and the blitz for the modernisation of London, although I really don't know that there was any real damage in this part of the city.   Never mind, for all that, it is impressive.

We cannot get in to the buildings, much like the capitol buildings in DC everything is fenced and guarded.   A few pictures under the statue of Boadicea and her  horses and we make our way to Westminster Abbey.  Another opportunity for a history lesson, Boadicea was the warrior queen of a British tribe who led a revolt against the Romans circa 60 AD.  I tend to forget that Britain had a pre "royal" history, the royal one being the one most studied in school.  But lets just acknowledge Rome, Roman Baths in Bath, Hadrians Wall in the north, Watling Street stretching across the country, there 's a lot of their history here, as well.

The buildings are awe inspiring, but, the traffic is also impressive. When crossing streets I still look both ways about a dozen times, is it left, right, left or right, left, right and what about all those flashing lights and signals that talk to you . . . oh, hell, just watch out for the bloody cars and go!  The locals, as in any big city, pay little or no attention to traffic signals.  It is easy to follow their lead and find yourself scrambling for the other side of the street with a barrage of cars and taxis coming your way.

After several false starts we manage to make our way to the Abbey.  Really not a particularly remarkable building, on the exterior at least.
                                               
It's really a matter of, as an Aussie tourist told Carol, ABC.  Another bloody church, another bloody cathedral, another bloody castle.  They accept our London Pass and we're through in record time.  We even get a headset with a walking tour of the place.  I'm pleased to report that you may have to pay, which was not true in the past, but at least there are plenty of well informed and eager docents around to ask  questions of.  Things are labelled and explained, it is no longer a matter of walking about with your Green Guide reading a really dense description of the minutiae of the place.  The original building, of which there is little left, was started before 1000 A.D., while the building we are most familiar with was begun around 1245 by Henry III.  Every time I walk in to one of these enormous churches I have to remind myself that most were built before Henry VIII came to the throne and as a consequence were originally Roman Catholic.  It wasn't until the dissolution that they became Church of England.  Small wonder I feel like a young girl being dragged to mass by my devout Italian aunts, the building infrastructure follows the same architectural guidelines as the church in Asti. 

This is a building for notables and royalty.  It is where they are christened, married, crowned and buried.  Every coronation since 1066 has occurred in this building.  Most of the Kings and Queens are buried here as are innumerable others.  The area which gave me most pleasure was spending some time in Poets Corner.  So what did I learn from my guided tour about this little section of the Abbey?  Let's start with Geoffrey Chaucer, who "started" it all.  He is buried here not because he wrote  Canterbury Tales, but because he worked for Abbey in some capacity.  Later, one Edmund Spenser (The Faerie Queen, thank Ms Cuddyback for actually making me learn some English Literature in High School) was buried nearby.  It is said, it was these two tombs that began the tradition.  

There are oh so many others either buried or with monuments in the Abbey.  Lord Byron, has a memorial here, as does Shakespeare but neither was acknowledged until long after his death.  You have the Bronte sisters, as well as Jane Austin and in a much more contemporary vein Noel Coward and Margot Fonteyn, never mind T.S. Eliot and Oscar Wilde or for that matter Handel.  Oh so many notable artists in incredible number of varied artistic disciplines.

Westminster Arms

We make our escape, heads full people, places, events and dates and totally bewildered by the ornate super abundance of the place.  Time for some sustenance and perhaps a walk in a park.  Mick is our acting guide since he spent a great deal of time in London and can generally navigate without a map.   As the rain begins to fall we nip in to the Westminster Arms for lunch and an opportunity to get off our feet.  Stone floors and cobbled street can really do a number on your feet and ankles.  Our first opportunity to introduce our travelling companions to quintessentially British cuisine . . . pub grub!!  A couple of pints of Bitter and a half of cider gets things primed for Cottage Pie (ground meat, veggies and gravy covered in mashed potatoes) and a Ploughmans lunch (bread, butter, apple, cheese and pickled onions) and I'm can't quite remember what else. 

Revived and refreshed we determine to make our way via St. James Park to Buckingham Palace.   Already the Olympic Games are making navigating London an odyssey in creativity . . . No access to the Park, fences and barricades block our way and temporary buildings are sprouting up all over the place, paths exist where grass once grew and there are security guards everywhere. It will have to be the much less romantic walk down Birdcage Walk leading to the side of Buck House rather than the dramatic access down the Mall to the front gate. 

For Carolyn BookRep extraordinaire

An afternoon of sun and rain, wandering in and out of buildings and attractions.  Pastries and coffee, glimpses of shopping streets and government buildings.  Alley ways and avenues, covered arcades and street vendors, welcome to central London.  We pass Saville Row, once famous for the tailors and the bespoke (custom) suits and shirts available in this short block. 

 Loads of people ride bikes, maybe not quite like in Amsterdam but definitely it is not just for the delivery folk.  On the evening news you often see some minor cabinet official cycling away from Number 10 Downing Street.  Barclays Bank has stands of blue bicycles with their logo all over the city, where with a membership, you can pick up a bike and drop it at another drop point.

Piccadilly, Trafalgar, Regents Street, St. Matins in the Field and the National Gallery.  A touch of shopping a Littewhites, six levels of sports gear and it's time to call it a day.  One more obstacle to navigate . . . the Underground at rush hour!!