Day one.  Saturday.  We arrive in London

We finally arrived after a ten and a half hour trip at the busiest airport in the world, or so we were told.  There was no gate available for the plane so we had to park away from the normal terminal and then we were bused to the customs receiving gate.  There were interesting planes on the tarmac.

After going through customs and walking through the terminal to the "tube" we caught the underground train that would take us to our hotel.  The train stations are very much like our Bart train stations but are much older.  We were told that there are over 127 miles of track on this system.

We came up from the "tube" at Paddington, which is the borough of London we were going to stay in.  We walked down the street to the Paddington hotel and checked in to a really nice, but very small room.  We had a TV with DVD player, and "in suite facilities" or loo.  One thing we found out when we arrived at the hotel and were told that our room was on the first floor, is that the first floor is not really the first floor.  It is the first floor up from the ground floor.  We were glad that we were on the first floor because this hotel does not have a "lift" and we had to drag our luggage up the stairs.  No bell man at this hotel.

The hotel did offer continental breakfast every morning in the dinning room.  The dinning room was in the basement and was equally small but cute.

Day two.  Sunday.  We start to look around.

We spent a lot of time walking on this trip.  We only took a taxi a couple of times.  We usually took the tube where ever we wanted to go.  The public transportation in London is amazing.  You can get anywhere by bus or train.  This day we went to the Victoria and Albert museum.  This is a museum that is overwhelming with the artifacts inside.  We spent a couple of hours looking but could not even begin to see the bulk of it.  We spent most of the time in the areas that are dedicated to the Christian church and the Islamic culture.  There is also a great section of west Asian culture, most of it on India.

The Christian display has many beautiful artifacts, like stained glass, priest's robes, bibles, and various objects from homes and churches.  There are some great fabrics displayed also.

The Islamic room has many displays of plates, pottery, glass, and other types of serving ware.  There are also examples of Persian rugs and weapons.  Unfortunately, those pictures did not come out.

The west Asian hall has many examples of Buddha displayed in his various forms according to the region you are in.  The link just before this is of the Buddha Sakyamuni.  I found this very interesting in that I have in my collection almost the exact Buddha only a bit smaller.

Our goal was to visit "The British Museum", but we were directed to the Victoria and Albert first.  It was early so we walked back to the tube and asked for directions to our first destination.  We got on the train and arrived at our destination and started walking to the museum.  As we were walking down Museum Drive, we found this small street fair.  There were a couple of men on stilts in costume, some small shops to try your luck, and a fully restored Harrod's electric delivery truck from 1912.

We arrived at The British Museum and walked into the grounds.  The museum is huge.  It is laid out in several different buildings that cover different parts of the world.  Susan was most interested in looking at the Egyptian exhibit.  There are more artifacts to view than anyone could see if they spent an entire year inside.  The halls are long and filled with hundreds of things to see.  As we were walking down the long hall we saw a crowd of people around one specific exhibt.  That peaked our interest and here is what we found.  The actual Rosetta Stone.  We were so impressed!  We spent several hours inside looking at the exhibts.  They had a special display dedicated to the "Queen of Sheba" and who she might have been.  We purchased tickets to view this special display.  They would not allow photos to be taken in the room, but as it turned out, it did not matter.  We were so disappointed.  We spent almost $25 dollars to see this "special" exhibit and it should have been FREE!

We left the musuem and headed out to the street.  The building across the street is interesting in its construction.  We were very hungry by this time.  It was getting late in the day, so we went to one of the local Pub's in the area.  It was very typical and had great food.

It was getting on in the day and we were getting tired.  We headed back down into the tube and decided that if we did not go to Harrods Department Store on this day, we probably would not get there.  We "spent" entirely too much time in Harrods.  This is one store that the average person should not enter.  We wanted to just get a couple of things that were "signature" for the grandkids and some other special people.  We thought perhaps a T-shirt or two.  A T-shirt with the Harrods logo or mention on it was 25 to 40 english pounds.  This translates to 38 to 61 dollars.  Now we know why the owner is so rich.

We took a walk in the neighborhood of Harrod's and found some really neat residential streets and homes.  I really liked the design and charm of the buildings and landscaping.  Because London is so populated and space is limited, homes were designed as row homes with zero lot lines.  Some of the homes were built on the hillsides and they are very interesting also.

Day three.  Monday.  Looking around some more.

Today, we wanted to see the Queen.  Unfortunatly, she was busy with someone else and was not available to see us on this day and the next appointment was for Thursday and we had an appointment with Prince Charles in Edinburgh, so we had to cancel our visit.  We were able to walk around Buckingham Castle for a while and saw the grounds and parks nearby.  We also were able to go into the Castle for a tour and that was very impressive.  We saw the different reception areas and the official Throne room.  The entire place is magnificantly dressed out.  There are millions of dollars of art work on display from some major and minor masters.  The sad part of this tour was that they would not allow any pictures to be taken anywhere in or on the grounds.  The Castle is completely surrounded with high walls and sturdy iron gates.  Susan tried to enter but it was locked.  There is an elegant fountain and collection of statuary in front of the Castle.  The main figure displayed is Queen Victoria.  Security is really tight in and around the Castle.  The only entrance that was available to visitors was staffed with 3 armed bobbies and was access controlled by a barracade that would lower into the ground.

We had to wait until afternoon to enter the Castle on tour, so walked back to the bus and train station for repast and a place to sit down.

The neighborhood around Buckingham Palace is a mixture of old and new buildings.  There is reconstruction going on everywhere because of the age of the buildings.  It is common to see buildings that have been in place for hundreds of years.  It was getting late in the day, so we took a taxi back to our hotel to catch our wind and talk about what to do later that evening.  On the way back, we passed the river Thames and many pubs and shops.

We are really tired at this point, but it would be a long time before we would be able to come back to this part of the world.  We had heard about the Picadilly Circus area and we wanted to see what it was all about.  The lights and sounds at night are something to see and hear.  You can get a taste of what we saw and heard by clicking on this little movie file.  If you are not able to view this avi, you will need a special codex for your viewer.  Please get it here and click to open it when you are asked.  It will automatically install into your computer.  It is safe and will only take a few seconds to install.  Then you can go back and view any of the movie files I have on this site.  

Picadilly Circus is very famous as the theatre district and is right next to one of the largest China Towns in the world.  We had dinner in the restaurant with the yellow front in the previous picture.  The food was fantastic, the service was stellar and it was a wonderful meal.  We spent some time talking to the owner's wife and found out that they own another restaurant in New York and she spends about 6 months a year in each city.  The name of the resturant is Kitty's Aroma Chinese Restaurant and it is located at 11 Gerrard Street.  London W1D 5PP.  There phone number is 020 7439 2720 in case you want to make a reservation.

It is time to go back to the link page to see what we did next.