Weekend in London

On Friday we left Crystal Serenity behind for a slightly more relaxed weekend in London before heading home. After a very comfortable and uneventful drive from Southampton, we arrived at the Hyatt Churchill before noon.

Being somewhat hungry (after all, we'd been cruise ship passengers for 12 days, and used to regular meals) our first stop after checking in was the hotel restaurant. The fish and chips were a little fancier than you might find in a pub, but just as good...

Larry's appetizer - A pork and apple 'pie' with crusty bread
and chutney

Anybody hungry?

Our afternoon stroll took us to one place we hadn't been before - the world renowned Fortnum & Mason's. When we were here last year, we were a little too late to go in and browse, so we thought that would be a good destination this time. It certainly is an impressive store, especially the food floors, for which Fortnum's is best known. They have a wine and spirits department that includes their own brands of Bordeaux wines and a selection of whiskies that could rival the LCBO; the chocolates, candy and biscuits seem to be everywhere, and of course the selection of teas is absolutely unrivalled. Rather than further description, we'll use a couple of photos:

Jam anybody? Yes, they have THAT many kinds!

More kinds of honey than you can count, even
actual honeycomb honey in those long blue boxes

The cake counter

Once we had wandered back up Bond Street and across Oxford Street (BTW for anyone who followed last year's London blog where Selfridge's was lit up in blue for Prince George, the regular lighting is, in fact, white) we were tuckered out and spent the evening with our books, getting that R&R we needed after a busy cruise.

Saturday morning we met our Buckingham Palace tour across the street from Big Ben, at the Westminster Tube station.

Our itinerary, according to tour guide Kieran, was to follow the history of the monarchy from the riverside to Buckingham Palace. He was an extremely knowledgeable and entertaining guide and, from a few years' experience, managed to show us things we would not have looked for in the changing of the guard ceremony. Such as:

Horse guard guarding the Horse Guards

Ready for the changing of the mounted guards

The band and off-guard portion of the on duty regiment coming
from St. James Palace

Marching up the Mall with the off-guard regiment

We stayed well back once we reached Buckingham Palace, but that was so we could get a really good view of the off-duty guards marching out.

The highlight of the day came up next - visiting the State Rooms of Buckingham Palace. The palace is opened to visitors from the end of July to the end of September every year when Her Majesty is in residence at Balmoral in Scotland or at Windsor Castle. Of course, there are no photos allowed inside of the palace, but the rooms are quite beautiful, not as opulent as the more historic palaces like Versailles in Paris or Schönbrunn in Vienna, but even though the walls are hung with silk and there are some priceless pieces on display, the rooms seem quite comfortable. It is easy to see Her Majesty and the extended family, even the little kids, enjoying living there. Even though these were for the most part the state rooms, there were photos of various members of the royal family using them as living space. There is one in particular of Prince Charles and Princess Anne as children, sitting on the floor in the Picture Gallery reading their books. The Picture Gallery holds some beautiful paintings by Rubens, Rembrandt and many others, and it was nice to see that the room and its contents are not just opened up for special occasions, but appreciated every day.

Well, the only different and interesting photos we were allowed to take were in the garden afterward. And it certainly is a lovely garden, complete with a large pond.

Buckingham Palace from the garden

The pond

A last view

And, finally, after all that walking, we were taken to the St. Ermin's Hotel for afternoon tea. As we got closer to it, we started to recognize the streets from our first trip to London in 1996. And it turned out that our tea was at the same hotel we stayed in for those few days. What goes around comes around???

Another leisurely stroll took us all the way back to the hotel - according to our Fitbits, we walked about 14,000 steps that day - and to our dinner.

We hadn't figured out what to do with our Sunday before we got there, but in the end decided to buy Hop On - Hop Off Bus tickets to check out parts of the city we hadn't seen before. It turned out to be a great idea. The weather, although a bit overcast, was perfect for sitting on top of a double-decker bus, and the grand tour took us all over the place.

Restaurant 'Le Gavroche', a French cuisine fixture
in London for many a year

Berkeley Square - far too early for the nightingales, though

There were even more flowers around the pub
on the ground floor!

Trafalgar Square with Nelson's Column

This shop has been here in the City of London since the late 1600s.
Much of what we now call London is actually the City of
Westminster

St. Paul's Cathedral

The Tower Bridge from another angle

The Tower of London with the ever-growing poppy installation.
Ultimately, there will be one poppy for each person killed
in World War I. This is only a part of what is already in place

The residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury

The garden at the Gardening Museum

Westminster Cathedral

Not having taken a hop-off break during the tour, we found one of the local pubs for a relatively small lunch on the way back to the hotel.

No,she didn't eat all that alone. It was a
sharing platter...good thing!!

To finish off our trip, we had made a reservation at Maze Gordon Ramsay, which was only a 10 minute walk from the hotel. Just so we would know where we were going, we walked down there after lunch. Grosvenor Square has something of a history from WW II, which is partly why there are statues of both Eisenhower and FD Roosevelt in the park. Not to mention that the US and Canadian embassies face each other across the green space.

Maze is in a pretty plain red brick building on the north side, and is actually two restaurants - one for modern cuisine and the other a grill. We ate at the grill and had excellent steak and interesting desserts.

Delicious!

Dessert -  Knickerbocker's Glory

As a final nod to London, to England, and to our hotel's namesake, Larry finally got his picture taken with Winston, sitting in the terrace of Churchill's Bar.

Another really interesting trip to some places we've never visited before. The obvious history all over Europe is such a foil for the newness of everything at home that we always enjoy and appreciate our visits. We will be back later in the year to visit the Rhine and Mosel valleys in Germany on a river cruise. See you then!