Discussing someone else’s trip to Europe today, I realized I forgot to give my thoughts on what worked for me and what didn’t. I think the thread may be more useful to future travelers if I do. So here goes:
Trip of a lifetime. I love the UK so much that I understand why movie stars may want to move there. I love America, but I could live in the UK if I had a bazillion dollars (which is about 80 pounds right now; it was expensive, given the exchange rate).
MONDAY
So anyway, I get there at 8:00AM after flying all night. I didn’t sleep much and was very tired. I did not enjoy the first day. I was way too tired. Had I not been tired, I would have loved it. First, we used Hotelink.com for our transportation from Gatwick to our Hotel. Not only did we find that we did not need that service (just buy a ticket on the Gatwick express and then get a cab or use the tube if your luggage is light. About the same price), we had a negative experience with them on the pickup. I recommend that they not be used at all.
After we got checked in (Radisson Edwardian Vanderbilt on Cromwell in the Kensington area), we went to our tube stop (Gloucester Road, very close to the hotel and picks up all the most convenient lines).
We went and bought tickets to one of the bus companies to do a highlight tour of London. We went with “The Original Tour” bus. The better choice between it and The Big Bus (its main competitor) is the BB. I have taken BOTH (for reasons you will see in the Friday Report!). It was cold and rainy (our only bad weather day in London!), so we were huddled up and not getting very good views.
We hopped off and walked around Parliament Square. I enjoyed seeing the “out there” protesters by the Churchill statue.
We then hit Westminster Abbey. It was impressive, but I wish I had paid for the guided tour. I read the Dummies book on English History, but after a while it was just the tomb of another dead king. I probably would have enjoyed it more had I been less exhausted, but I don’t think it would have been in my top ten.
What really upset me was that I was too tired to enjoy the War Rooms. I love Churchill and really wanted to see it. But my wife, who is GREAT except when tired or stressed, was at the end of her rope. So we probably wasted money on that experience (I can’t really say I recommend it. It was cool BEING there, but I’d probably advise against it if it means cutting something else you want to do.)
We got something to eat and went to bed at 9:00PM (or 21:00 if you prefer).
TUESDAY-
Rested and refreshed, we headed to the Tower of London. It was my favorite thing on my entire trip. I loved the fact that I was where so many important events had taken place (the fatigue of the plane ride diminished that feeling while I was in Westminster Abbey). I watched several other groups come by and I believe that we REALLY got the best Yeoman Warder (“Beefeater”) in all of London giving our tour. In fact, he was even on a postcard I saw later in a gift shop. The place is SO gory and creepy. I loved it. We got there just as it opened and NEVER experienced a line anywhere. We could have gone through to see the crown jewels as often as we wanted. Bloody Tower was my favorite part.
Next, we went across town to the British Museum. We grabbed a sandwich (lot of interesting sandwiches in London. I loved the variety) and ate on the step of the Museum, which was really nice. That is such a beautiful building. After eating, we went inside and paid for the guided tour (after Monday, we decided we’d rather pay a little extra for some depth!). We didn’t see everything they had, it would be impossible to do in half a day, but we did see a broad range of history. With the tour, I got more out of the Brit. Museum than I would have with two days of just browsing. Afterwards, we walked to a few main areas that the tour didn’t cover.
Then we went to Madame Tussuad’s. I know…I know. I didn’t win the fight. But we were only there an hour and a half. I waited in ZERO LINES (May is the best time to go to London, I have decided. Not too cold, but not so early that the vacation crowds have arrived yet.) And it was a fun little experience. I could have lived my whole life not seeing it, but it was mildly amusing and I made the most of it. There was a GREAT picture of me and Hitler. He is in his famous pose with his fist clenched. I stood next to him and held my hand out like I was throwing “scissors.” It was my favorite picture ever. Alas, I didn’t know what FRIDAY would bring. (Don’t skip ahead!)
That night, we enjoyed a wonderful dinner near our hotel at Launceton Place. It was one of my favorite meals ever. Nice, but not formal. Pricey, but not crippling. And the food was wonderful. I let the manager order my whole meal, appetizer through dessert. He batted a thousand.
WEDNESDAY
Wednesday was our “Out of London” tour. It covered Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Bath. We went with Premium Tours and they get my highest recommendation. Our guide was excellent. The bus was comfortable and the pace was never rushed.
Windsor- It was cool to see. I got to see the changing of the guards (it never fit my schedule at Buckingham, and seemed so crowded). St. George’s Cathedral was cool. I thought it odd how Henry VIII and Charles I were buried. It seemed like a commentary on the men themselves, but the volunteer assured us it was not. I’m glad I went, but it was pretty low on my list of enjoyment. It DID give me an opportunity to pass through Runnymede. I thought that was cool.
Stonehenge- Only limited tours allow you the opportunity to walk amongst the stones these days. Mine was not one of those. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it. I had always wanted to see it. It was a little more worn than I imagined but still cool. (My personal theory on the debate about whether SH was an astrological calendar, a temple or something else altogether? I posit that it was built by people who worshiped nature, and thus made their temple into an astrological calendar. There was also something altogether different about it.) I had spent too much time reading about the Beaker People (if you have a punk band, please name it the Beaker People!), and got back to the bus about a minute until it was scheduled to leave. We had an incident back at Windsor were someone was late and our guide was very upset. He said it was some nerve to make a whole group wait so YOU can enjoy YOURself. Well, I had to pee. I stood between the bus and the loo, wondering if I could make it in time. The guide saw me weighing the options and said, “Dear Lord, Man. Go to the LOO! We’ll gladly wait for that!” Almost laughed my ass off.
Lunch at George’s Inn- Awesome place. Good food. History surrounded you. Cool buildings. Interesting observation: though the Inn is seven hundred years old, and acted as HQ for the bastard Duke of Glouchester’s coup attempt, they STILL have a condom machine in the restroom.
Bath- I enjoyed the drive between SH and Bath immensely. It was beautiful. Bath itself was a wonderful town. I found the Roman Bath house interesting, but the area was reason enough to go to Bath. I live in a Master Plan Community. This was a Master Plan CITY! Wonderful. If I were rich enough to have a “summer home” it would be in Bath.
THURSDAY-
Enter the French.
My wife and I booked a tour through Golden Tours. It included first class train fare (1st class is not necessary, but when you factor in that you may buy breakfast and dinner on the train, plus a drink or two, it makes 1st class worth the extra bucks), a bus tour, tickets to the second level of the Eiffel Tower, a Seine River Cruise, and transportation back to the train station. I didn’t like Golden Tours. They were rushed, didn’t really seem to know the city as well as I would have liked and overall everything they did could have been arranged by a little internet leg work. About an hour and a half of time was wasted because we were with a group.
I loved the River Cruise and the view from the Eiffel is wonderful. But the best part of the day was during our free time. After the d’Orsey (my wife chose that over the Louvre), we walked across the Seine, over to the Bastille and up the Champs Elyss toward the Arc de Triumph. Wonderful. Until we realized that we had to meet our tour group back at the checkpoint to take the bus back to the train station (whereas, had we been on our own, we could have just taken the metro back to the station).
Before we left, I was able to buy some wonderful art on the banks of the Seine near the D’Orsay. I was happy about that.
So, after getting up at 4:30AM, we roll into London near midnight. Tired and ready to pack up the next day and head for Scotland, we got off the train. But something was missing. Which brings us to the dreaded……
FRIDAY
Friday sucks in this story. We wake, ready to pack up, checkout of our hotel, leave our bags with the bellhop and see a few more things in London before boarding a plane to Scotland. Things are going great. My wife and I had not had any major quarrels since Monday (and those were minor; fueled by fatigue), we were on our first major trip alone since our first anniversary, and we had been having a blast.
I was taking a shower that morning when my wife bursts in the bathroom. We left our freaking digital camera on the train! It was bad enough that we lost a high-end camera. Those you can replace. But before the trip my wife had bought a big memory stick. Just for the trip. Because all of her other memory sticks were too small. And we needed it, too. We had taken over 600 pictures. My wife was talking about making a scrapbook just for this trip. It was getting close to two volumes! Gone. Gone were our pictures in the Tower of London. Gone were our photos in the British Museum. Gone were the photos in Paris. Gone was my picture of playing paper/rocks/scissors with De Furher. Everything. Eggs….Basket….meet the Watsons.
So from this point on, the trip is kind of down hill. On the one hand, it is best that all of the main parts of the trip were over. At least we enjoyed them, even if we couldn’t prove it. But on the downside, we obviously had no pictures of the best stuff.
So I spent a large part of the morning consoling the wife (fortunately for me, she knew the losing of the camera was her fault or the trip would have turned ugly for me), and going to Eurostar lost and found; to no avail. It was not turned into the L&F. [ugly American]No doubt a Frenchman took it![/ugly American] We regroup. I buy a ton of crappy disposable and buy a ticket on the OTHER London bus company. A much better tour, but really, it was all about getting SOME pictures of London (even of low quality). This tour took the place of getting to see the British Library. I really wanted to see the Magna Carta, but this took priority. Our afternoon would have been great (I found a nice pencil drawing of the Tower Bridge at Covent Garden), but you know the doldrums were setting in.
We had just enough time to get back to the hotel, have our rotten experience with Hotelink, and get to the airport for our flight to Scotland. There I had my first experience with British Airways. Let me say, that is a first rate airline. I had food in coach that rivaled first class on US airlines.
So we get there and take the 100 Line into town. It is about a mile to our hotel from the bus drop, so we walk it. We stopped SEVERAL times to admire the Castle. WOW! That thing is a beaut! We get to the hotel and my wife nearly passes out on the bed (when in Scotland, the APEX INTERNATIONAL on Grassmarket is INCREDIBLE!) I want to take a shower and relax. Before I take a shower, I need to…um….purge the English Pudding….and want to get the novel I am reading.
I look and can’t find my backpack. NOT…IN…THE…ROOM! Not in the lobby. Not in the elevator. NO WHERE. And not only does it have my wife’s WALLET in it, it had the freaking cameras we used that morning to replace the camera we had lost the day before!
Well, I figure we had left it sitting at one of the spots between the bus stop and the hotel where we had stopped to gawk at the Castle. So, I grab a cab and have him retrace our route. I tell you, that guy was concerned. He felt bad for us and seemed genuinely interested in whether we found our bag. In fact, let me pause the story to comment on the friendliness of the people of the United Kingdom. I met maybe three or four jerks in London. But the other hundreds of people I encountered made me feel like I was their special guest. British take almost a responsibility to make sure tourists have a good time. I had always had a view of Europeans as somewhat stuffy (I had only been to France). The UK proved me wrong. I consider the US South to be friendly, but the UK-ers surpassed even the South.
But in Scotland, there were no bad apples. I loved the people of Scotland. You do not meet strangers in Scotland. [sub]And while I am commenting on the people of Scotland, may I say that Scottish women are the chestiest women I have ever seen? Everyone there seems to be a C-Cup or better! WOW! I didn’t have to worry about getting caught by the wife, because everywhere I looked were enormous….well… this story is getting a bit juvenile. Let’s just say the hills and mountains of Scotland are impressive! D)[/sub]
Anyway, we get back to the room and the wife is crying again. We finally get through to the Bus Company (our last ditch effort was that we left it on the bus) and they HAD a bag that matched ours. We went to the station and got our bag back! I had left it on the luggage rack in front of me and forgot it when I claimed my large bags at the front of the bus!
So my wife is ready to hit the hay. Me? I needed a drink. I was planning on calling a ScotDoper that had given me some tips earlier in the evening, but was delayed by my family’s inability to hold onto their possessions. So, at 10PM (or 22:00), I tried to give him a call to see if he wanted a drink. A bit late, but I figured it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. But alas, said Doper was out and I left a message saying hi. Instead, I went into the hotel bar to have a quick drink before going back up to bed.
I grab a beer and sit down on a couch next to some other people. I really wanted to just listen to Scottish people talk. I wound up getting absolutely smashed, having an awesome time with this guy, his fiancée who he was marrying at the Apex next year, and his cousin. They got me drinking a beer called 80 Shilling. It was STRONG. I staggered back upstairs and went to bed. For some reason, the beds spin in Edinburgh.
SATURDAY
My wife felt better Saturday. I did not. I had a massive hangover. She was a bit upset because she thought my hangover would ruin the day. Hell, I was just worried about ruining the carpet! We went up to the restaurant at the top of the Apex Hotel for breakfast. It has an incredible view of the castle.
Once I got some food in me, I was good to go. We hopped on a bus tour of Edinburgh (the best way to get a good overview in a short time). The weather was great. They said it was the first good weekend they had had all year. We did the tour, we did the Castle (incredible), and we got some great souvenirs. I had wanted to see the Scotch Whiskey Museum, but for some reason felt it best to avoid alcohol for the rest of the trip!
But we had to get back to the airport for flight to London, so Edinburgh had us for less than 24 hours. We could have spent a week in Scotland.
We flew back to London, stayed at a hotel near the airport, walked to an English supermarket, and got a good night’s sleep.
SUNDAY
We got up Sunday and left at noon for Houston. I watched Coach Carter and Oceans 12. Couldn’t sleep much, though.
We got home in time to hug our kid, lay in bed and watch the Survivor finale. When it went off, it was 10PM local time. My body was telling me it was four in the morning! It took forever for me to get my system back in whack. It didn’t help that three days later, I went to the midnight showing of Episdoe III!