Chapter 1
London
And Southampton
April 20 - 22
We’re starting in London
Saturday, April 20: London
First, a word of warning about this chapter. We were in London to do some “sight-seeing”, and we did see a lot of sights. This means that you are going to see a LOT of photos: more photos in this chapter than in the other chapters of this report. There will probably be some sections where there are nothing but photos with very few written words. But then, I guess that might be a good thing.
Arrival
As mentioned previously, we got to our hotel (Hilton Tower Bridge hotel) about 8:30AM. By the time we got checked in and settled into our room, it was a little after 9:00 and our “breakfast” on the flight was wearing out, so we headed downstairs to the (complimentary) breakfast in the hotel restaurant. The restaurant was almost empty and some of the serving stations were rather sparse also. By the time we got a few things to eat, some of the staff were picking up the leftovers and putting things away. With satisfied stomachs, we went back to our room, set an alarm for about noon, and took a quick nap to compensate for the sleep missed on the flight.
At noon, we got up, got organized, and headed for the Shard.
The Shard
The Shard is a new, rather interesting, and somewhat controversial building. Not entirely by accident, it was also very close to our hotel. For our purposes, the primary thing of interest about the Shard is the observation deck on the top floor. One of our good friends had told us that the Shard provided a much better and more relaxed view of the entire London area than the popular “London Eye” ferris wheel. I thought that a trip to the top of the Shard would provide a good introduction to London and help us orient ourselves.
The Shard
I had made reservations and got tickets to visit the Shard at 1:15PM. I was afraid that it might be crowded on a Saturday and had chosen the somewhat odd time to hopefully avoid a crush of people. It turned out that this was not a problem at all, as it was “busy”, but certainly not overly crowded. It was only a 10 minute walk from our hotel with the most direct route taking us through a large train station, which was somewhat interesting in itself. We actually got to the Shard a little before 1:00 but the people working at the Shard just herded us in the right direction, and away we went. Accessing the observation decks was much like other tall buildings, such as the Empire State Building. You take one elevator up part-way (33 floors, I believe) then change to another elevator which takes you the rest of the way to the 68th floor and the decks.
The view was rather spactular!
The view westward across the Thames
The day was mostly cloudy with some haze and only occasional appearance of the sun, so the photos are not as bright as colorful as I’d like, but you should get the idea.
Close-up view of the Tower Bridge
We were close to the Thames river and all the major parts of London were laid out before us. Of special note was the Tower Bridge, which was very close. You will see several photos of the Tower Bridge here because it was relatively colorful and just made a good photo subject.
Tower Bridge and further to the east
The river was busy with quite a bit of boat traffic, most of the boats small enough to go under the various bridges. At one point, however, was an announcement of a somewhat special event: the Tower Bridge was going to open to allow a slightly large boat to pass through/under. It was apparently a unusual occasion for the Tower Bridge to open and did record it on video. You can see a number of views from the Shard and the opening/closing (edited in the interest of your time) of the bridge in this video from the Shard.
When booking the tickets to the Shard, I had the option of including a glass of Champagne for each of us, so of course I had to do this.
Susan enjoying some champagne
After looking around a while and enjoying our Champagne, we noticed some steps, apparently leading up to another level. We climbed two flights of steps to a higher observation deck that was open-air. There were still glass panels all around, but the ceiling was open to the sky. You would not want to be here in wet weather!
The London Eye is easy to spot: can you find Big Ben?
We looked around a while longer from this better vantage point from which we had a good view of the London Eye. In the photo above, the London Eye is easy to spot, but can you find Big Ben? Hint: it is just a little to the left of the London Eye.
You can see our hotel from here!
The photo just above is unique in that you can see the hotel we were staying in. At the very bottom of the photo, slightly to the right of center, is a cream colored building that is the Hilton Tower Bridge. You can see why it has that name.
After we left the Shard, we didn’t have any activity scheduled for several hours, so we walked over toward the Tower Bridge. There are some modern buildings and a nice water front area which many people were taking advantage of on a decent Saturday.
A circus of animals, and one kid!
There was also a series of animal sculptures that were very interesting. The animals in this sculpture were posed as riding on a many-animal bike. One unique thing about this sculpture is that there is one empty seat on the bike which children can sit on and join the animals. In the photo above, you can see a kid in blue pants and jacket sitting on the bike seat with all the other animals. This sculpture, as well as several others in London and some in other cities, was the work of “Gillie and Marc”, British and Australian artists. Look them up: they have an interesting story.
Close-up of Tower Bridge
We continued our walk over to and across the Tower Bridge. There were quite a few people on the bridge, but certainly not the crush of people I was expecting. We could walk along the pedestrian walkways with only an occasional detour to dodge around other people. We made our way across and then back on the bridge and then back to our hotel. We got in one more quick rest before heading out on our next activity.
A Dinner Cruise
First, we got a little warning of a possible issue the next day. The hotel’s front desk stopped us and warned us that traffic throughout London, including close to the hotel, would be disrupted by the London Marathon. Many streets would be closed or severely limited, so we needed to plan ahead if we were planning on going anywhere, which we were. More about this later.
Our evening activity would be a dinner cruise on the Thames. We needed to be at a dock about 2.5 miles away at 7:45 and London taxis are famous for being expensive. On this trip we were giving Uber a good test: we had used the service to and from the Atlanta airport previously and now used it to get to the dock. I was not sure about Uber service in other countries, but it worked fine in London. I used the reservation option to insure we had a timely ride and we got to the dock with plenty of time to spare. I’ll jump ahead in the timeline a little and mention that the Uber service also worked very well getting back to the hotel at 11:00 PM.
We had to wait a few minutes for our boat to arrive and were then shown to our table (nice one by a window) for the evening.
In the distance, the London Eye: In the foreground, the dock where we start our dinner cruise.
The menu was very limited, as expected, but had reasonable options for such an environment. We settled in and ordered a bottle of wine (extra cost). The boat soon got under way, slowly cruising downriver toward the Tower Bridge.
Getting settled in for dinner
We did have live entertainment, a young lady singing to recorded music, that was pleasant and the music was appropriate for the occasion. It was nice cruising down the river, watching the evening get darker and the lights come on. It was also interesting seeing several of the same sights we had seen earlier, like the Shard.
The Shard from the river
Rather than try to describe all of the sights we saw, I’ll just point you to a composite video of some of the sights on the cruise. The boat went down river, past the Tower Bridge, for a total of about four miles before reversing and heading back. The dinner was actually pretty good for the environment and the singer provided nice background music. I had really planned this activity mainly as a way to keep us awake and active, rather than going to sleep too early, but it turned out to be a better experience than I had expected.
Sunday, April 21: London
A walking tour
We had selected an escorted walking tour of London as the activity for today for a good way to get to know the city and it would turn out to involve a bit more walking than we had planned on. Remember the comment about the London Marathon? Well, the marathon would effectively block the streets that a Uber or taxi would have to take to get to our meeting point, Trafalgar Square, about 2.8 miles from our hotel. We got our breakfast at the hotel and saw that we had about 90 minutes until our meeting time of 10:00. We decided to just walk to Trafalgar Square. I turned on Google Map, got an idea of where to go (and frequently checked our route) and we headed out. It was actually an interesting walk through areas that we would not have seen otherwise, mostly along the river, such as a rather fancy pedestrian bridge across the river.
A rather fancy pedestrian bridge over the Thames
In several places we had to cross the path of the marathon but since the race did not start until 9:30, it usually was not much of a problem. We did step over several barricades and lifted some lines to get where we needed to go, but none of the many volunteer course-workers seemed to get upset. We got to the assigned meeting point about 20 minutes early and soon identified our guide. Like some of the other tours we have done on our own, we assumed we would be part of a group, but we learned that Susan and I were the entirety of the group. Our guide was a pleasant and knowledgeable gentleman, not quite as old as us, who was originally from Crete… or was it Cyprus? Anyway, he did a very good job getting us around the city in spite of the complications of the marathon.
We got started with a short walk through Trafalgar Square, looking at the various statues and monuments. The square was created and most of its monuments created in celebration of England’s navel victory in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Since Admiral Horatio Nelson was the primary architect of that victory, he is recognized by the primary monument in the middle of the square. The equestrian statue next to Nelsons monument below represents Charles I.
Trafalgar Square and momuments
From Trafalgar Square, we made our way toward Buckingham Palace along a wide roadway and then through some gardens and by a quiet lake. There were many flowers blooming and most trees had come out in full greenery. However, the area in front of Buckingham Palace was the marathon finish line and distribution area for the runners after they finished the race and much of the area was more restricted than it normally is.
Some of the gardens in front of Buckingham Palace
The flowers were colorful, and we saw a small duck that was almost as colorful as the flowers. There was also a unusual Pelican, a white Pelican. All the Pelicans we normally see are Brown Pelicans, but this one was white, almost pink. It looked cold also: it kept covering its head and bill with its wings and seemed to be shivering the whole time. We felt rather sorry for the pelican as the pelicans we know are warm weather birds and this one did not seem happy with the rather cool weather.
Colorful duck and cold Pelican
Our tour would normally have gone up to and, sometimes, into Buckingham Palace, but the security for the marathon had closed it off by fences quite a ways from the palace and we could not get very close.
The closest we could get to Buckingham Palace
Leaving the Buckingham Palace area, we started walking around some of the other famous streets and places of London. We checked out Downing Street where the English equivalent of our White House, Number 10 Downing Street, was located. The guards did not seem inclined to allow us in to say hello to the Prime Minister. We also passed by places like the “War Rooms” at the Ministry of War, where much of World War II was planned and fought. The war rooms have been left just as they were at the end of WW-II with the maps and “toy” tanks and planes in position.
Downing street: number 10 is down there somewhere.
A little further along we got to the plaza around the English House of Parliament and Big Ben. This is where we encountered more of the marathon crowds as they cheered on the very first participants to approach the finish line, the wheelchair riders. Anyone wanting to cross the path of the marathon had to queue up within marked areas and, when there were no race participants close, we would be allowed to quickly cross the path. As more and more of the participants got to the area, the time available to cross got shorter and shorter.
Big Ben, House of Parliament and marathon crowd
Across the street from the House of Parliament were a series of statues of English Prime Ministers, including, of course, Winston Churchill. He was dressed appropriately for typical London weather and in a stance that suggested he was on the way across the street to address Parliament.
Winston Churchill has not lost any weight.
Right around the corner was Westminster Abbey. Although it would have been nice to go inside some of the buildings we saw, such as the Abby, there was no way we could spend the time they would deserve and still get through our tour. A more detailed visit will have to come on another trip.
Can you guess what church this is?
At this point we took the opportunity to check out and make use of another London landmark, the “Tube”, or subway. Our next points of interest were about two miles to the east, so, rather than take the time and energy to walk, we were introduced to using the subway. It was nice in that you can now use a “chipped” credit card to get access and pay for your ride: no special card, ticket, or change required. You do have to know where you are going and how to get there, but our guide took care of that.
“Royal Court of Justice”: the highest civil court in England
One impressive complex that we passed was the Royal Court of Justice, the highest civil court in England and major civil issues, such as suits between corporations, are heard and settled here. By now it was a little after noon and, with a lot of walking behind us, we were getting a little hungry. Our guide took us to the pre-arranged meal stop in a pub that was located in a former large bank building.
Used to be a major bank: now a very nice Pub
From what I could see, this was not the typical London pub. It was much larger, brighter, more ornate, and cleaner than the other pubs we saw. Our guide said that this pub did offer a very good traditional “Fish and Chips”, so we had to give it a try.
Lunch: Fish and Chips of course
I did have second thoughts about it though when our guide ordered something else. Fish and chips and some good English tea… we were really getting into the spirit of things.
We were on Fleet Street and noticed a sign above a small barber shop as “The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”. This is a bit complicated but ia an old story/legend of a barber (Sweeney Todd) who did not treat his customers very well. The story has been made into a play, a musical version of the play, and a film version (directed by Tim Burton and with Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd). Look it up: it makes for an interesting story.
Look up the story of “The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”.
One of the pubs we briefly visited was the “Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese” pub which proudly says that it was rebuilt (rebuilt, not built) in 1667. One of its signs lists all the kings and queens that have been in power while the pub has been in operation. Note the rather recent addition at the bottom of the list
Cheese shop was rebuilt in 1667.
A short walk further brought us to Paternoster Square where there were several government buildings and museums and St. Pauls Cathedral in one corner. Also in the square was another set of animal sculptures by “Gillie and Marc”.
Paternoster Square: St. Paul’s Cathedral on the other side
One interesting feature of this set of sculptures is that the artists included representations of themselves as a rabbit and a dog, as you can see in the photo below.
More of those animals: the rabbit and dog figures represent the sculptors.
We went out the other corner of the square to an area where we had a better view of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
St. Paul’s Cathedral from the other side
Another short walk took us to another square, although this was called a “yard”, specifically “Guidehall Yard”. There were more government buildings and an art gallery, the (surprise!) Guidehall art Gallery. Our guide said he wanted to take us into the art gallery to show us a feature that, in itself, had nothing to do with art.
The Guidehall yard (square) and art gallery.
We went in the art gallery, down an elevator and some stairs into the basement and into an actual old Roman coliseum. In the construction of the gallery, the ruins of a Roman coliseum were discovered and the historians would not allow the remains to be destroyed. The builders built the basement structure around the ruins and then created a room with special lighting which featured the remains and also showed what the historians thought the coliseum looked like two thousand years ago. It was a very effective display.
In the basement of the art gallery: a Roman amphitheater
After leaving the art gallery and Guidehall yard, we wanted to head toward the river to get to our next point of interest, but we ran into a “roadblock”. The marathon was still in progress and we could not cross the race route. We had to backtrack a little, around a building and got to a pedestrian bridge that crossed over the road where the marathon was being run. Now, this was at about 3:30 so most of the participants had been “running” for about 5 hours and, from this point, probably had another 4 or 5 miles to go. There were a lot of people still running (or walking). But, the amazing part to me was the number of spectators along the route continuously cheering them along! You can see the cheering people in the photo below and hear them in this video of the marathon.
The marathon is still in process, 5 hours after it started.
We passed over the race and got to the river front, almost directly across from the Shard. We had a good view of the Shard, but had a more interesting view of it as a reflection in the somewhat curved glass windows of an office building.
A rather different view of the shard
The final main sight on our tour/walk was the “Tower of London”. I had always thought that the Tower Of London was a significant actual tower, but that was wrong. It is actually a fortress: yes, it did have a couple of towers, but they were not very tall or impressive as I had expected. We would see, and climb, much higher towers on several excursions on our cruise. The fortress/tower was fairly impressive and of course it was well maintained and the grounds manicured. After all, the Royal Jewels reside here. As with the other important places we had seen, we did not have time to visit the Tower and, besides, by this time we were starting to run out of gas, especially with the finish line (the Tower Bridge) in sight.
The Tower of London (not really a “tower”)
We said good-by and thanks to our guide and headed across the Tower Bridge one more time. The bridge was actually part of the marathon route, but only a lane or two had been blocked off for the runners so pedestrians, but not vehicles, could use the bridge.
One more view of the Tower Bridge
It is difficult to determine accurately just how far we walked that day, but including the 3 miles to get to the starting point, I’d guess that we walked somewhere around 8 or 9 miles. We did not cover nearly as much distance as the marathon participants, but we were about out of gas, so we took the easy route and had a simple dinner in the hotel restaurant and called it a day.
Monday, April 22: Transfer to Southampton
Departure from London
I had arranged a transfer from our hotel to the dock in Southampton, with a minor detour and stop at Stonehenge. The pickup for the transfer bus was done in stages: a small van picked us up at 7:00 AM, then collected about 6 other people and took us to a central point where we transferred to a large bus with people brought in on other small vans.
When our van driver picked us up at the hotel, he asked us where we were from and after explaining about Atlanta and such, we asked him where he was originally from, since he did not have a strong English accent. He said “I’m from paradise.” Of course, that just invited a further question of just where is this paradise and he replied “A small island in the Caribbean.” We told him that we were very familiar with the Caribbean, so which island, and he said “Bonaire”. Anyone that knows us knows that we love Bonaire and have been there many times so we had quite a conversation about his “paradise”. His family moved away from Bonaire when he was young, but he gets back when he can.
We have left London behind.
We finally got everyone on the large bus and headed to Stonehenge, about 90 minutes away and only a little out of the way, heading to Southampton.
Stonehenge
As the weather had been, and would continue to be, there was an occasional light rain when we arrived at the visitor center. The circle of stones was about a mile from the visitor center (and out of sight over a little hill) and shuttle busses brought people back and forth.
The Stonehenge Visitor Center
But, when we got to the line for the shuttle, it looked rather long so I asked one of the employees about how long a wait there would be for the bus and he said probably 20 – 30 minutes. This would have been out in the open (no shelter) with a light rain. We decided that we would rather be walking than standing, so we started walking toward the stones. We were not the only ones walking and the cows and sheep in the adjoining pastures kept us company.
Walking to the “Stones”… yes there were cows and sheep on the sides.
It was actually a nice walk and the rain soon mostly stopped, so we really didn’t get wet with our rain hats and jackets. As we walked up to the circle of stones, it was rather impressive. Considering that it was constructed around 5000 years ago, one wonders just how the stones were transported from the quarries, shaped, and then manipulated into position. The vertical stones and horizontal cap-stones have sort of an inter-locking post and socket structure carved into them to keep them in place.
It is an impressive sight: how did they do that?
To protect the stones and environment around them, there is now a rope “fence” that keeps people about 75 – 100 feet away from any of the main stones. I would have liked to get closer, but understand the need to protect the stones from the over 1 million annual visitors.
The “fence” kept people from getting close to the stones.
We walked around the circle, trying to imagine just how it was built. In the photo above, notice the size of the stones compared to the people around them and how heavy those stones must be. Five thousand years ago, wheels had not been invented yet, so the stones had to be dragged across the ground in one way or another for several miles. Here is a video showing a more close-up view of the stones.
One more view before we leave Stonehenge
After a good view of the stones, we noticed that there was no line for the shuttle and jumped on it for the ride back to the visitor center. We took a short tour of the gift shop, a short look around the visitor center (there were several other activities if we had the time), and got back on the bus. It would be about 40 minutes to the Southampton cruise terminal and dock.
Arrival in Southampton
We arrived in Southampton at about 2:00, went through the usual security processing, a few administrative details, got our key cards, and boarded the ship. We found our cabin (7075), dropped our hand luggage, and headed to lunch in the Terrace Café. By the time we finished lunch and got back to our cabin, our luggage had arrived, so we settled in.
Sirena at the dock (but not really Southampton)
Most of the rest of the day was spent getting familiar with the ship, especially where the restaurants and bars and lounges were. We had some wine in a lounge, dinner in the Grand Dining Room, and took in the last part of a welcome show in the main lounge before calling it a night.
Now, I suggest you read the fairly short overview of the Sirena, or you can just skip ahead to the third chapter of our trip.