A few days in London

London is an exciting, vibrant city with a history unmatched by most major cities of the world.  It is also very crowded and extremely busy, with a major traffic problem in almost every area we’ve been.  Whilst the tube is efficient and (mostly) on time, the buses are constrained by the congestion, although the bus routes are amazing, with hundreds of buses criss-crossing the city. I still can't figure out how the drivers manage to manoeuvre those double-decker buses through the tiny, crowded streets.  Today we took the bus from Westminster to Chelsea on the way home, a distance of only 20km or so, and it took us an hour or more. 

 

Yesterday we visited Churchill’s War Rooms, expecting to be in and out in an hour or so, but it was so absorbing  and interesting, that it took us 2 and a half hours to take it all in.  If visiting London, this is a must-visit site.  Along the way we’ve visited St. Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey (enough religion), the Eye, Changing of the Guard, and today we took a boat cruise down the river to Greenwich, where we visited the Observatory and the Maritime Museum.  The Royal Observatory is a most interesting place to visit as the site of the Greenwich Meridian and a fascinating look at the amazing minds of those who originally conceived and eventually proved, the theory of the round earth and the longitudes and how time is measured in various parts of the world.  Another day gone – three days in London is nowhere near enough and it’s fortunate that we’ve both been here before.

However, London is changing!  It’s busier, more crowded, more frenetic and much more expensive than is reasonable.  A 3 bedroom apartment in the Chelsea area costs between 10 and 15 MILLION pounds!!!!!!!!  Amazing!  And the cars – Aston Martins, Maseratis, Benzes, BMWs, Porsches are  de rigeur in this area and they seem to be very evident in most of central London.  There must be enormous amounts of money in the city.  I’ve seen more Aston Martins in one day here than in 12 months at home.  The plan is to visit the Aston Martin Museum near Wallingford (Oxfordshire) when we’re there for the second wedding on our schedule.

We were treated to a wonderful dinner in Mayfair on Thursday night, by our friends David & Gerry.  The restaurant – Wild Honey – was very elegant, service was impeccable and the food was amazing.  We’ve tried to eat as simply as possible so far, to try to maintain some semblance of a balanced diet, but the range of cuisine available is extensive and sometimes the prices are too.  But Wild Honey was something else – fantastic.

Friday morning we said goodbye to our hosts in Chelsea and caught a ride to Heathrow to pick up our hire car.  The rigmarole was complicated and time-consuming but we eventually drove out in a Vauxhall Mokka – a small diesel SUV.  Relatively simple but necessary to fit our bags in for the next four weeks in the UK, where we’ll cover quite a bit of territory.  Lunch with David and Gerry again, in Winchester this time, along with David’s mother Joan (an old friend of Julie’s) was really good and it was great to meet Joan after hearing so much about her.

So that brings us to Portsmouth, where we have a room in a lovely B&B in Southsea, quite near to the harbour.  The girls are having their hair done this afternoon for tomorrow’s wedding and I plan to walk down to the harbour to the D-Day Museum.  More about that later!