England

Thursday was an up-and-down day. I had been thinking it would be good to get some music-related stops in. Our passes offered free admission to the British Music Experience, which sounded a bit like a UK version of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The BME was located in something called “The Dome,” or O2 entertainment complex, which Jim Hendricks had mentioned, so I was a bit curious. And the Maritime Museum was just a short bus trip away.

So we were up early, had another fine breakfast, and took the tube to North Greenwich, arriving a few minutes before the 10 a.m. opening of the British Music Experience. An overheard bit of “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen seemed portentious.

It wasn’t.

Scenes from the O2

The O2 was like something out of Star Trek. It was big, expensive, garish — and deserted. We saw only a couple of workmen doing maintenance, plus some security folks and a random individual apparently late for work yet still in no hurry to get there. The same few songs kept looping on an animated display overhead. After about 15 minutes, we decided we would leave with the next loop.

And so we braved a double-decker bus for the first time and headed for the Maritime Museum. That was great.

  
The Maritime Museum

  
The Naval College across the street

You could easily have spent a lot of time there really taking in the displays and detail. The school tour groups were a bit of a hassle but they came and went quickly. And we realized that the observatory was just up the hill. Our guide book hadn’t mentioned that — probably because there is no offer made to London Pass holders — but we mentally added it to our list of must-see sites.

Some hours having passed, we decided to attempt the British Music Experience again. That’s a 15-pound admission. Our London Passes covered it, or I would have been a lot more perturbed about what happened next.

The venue was finally staffed and open, and we found ourselves amongst a small group of visitors. We quickly found that the hype was hollow. I sew, and could immediately spot problems with the “worn by” claims. Mark was finding questionable claims about gear. And, it seems, the big focus is on playing and recording — a “play time” studio experience. But Mark is a recording major and is already working with the real thing — a mock experience didn’t hold any appeal for him. Still, some of the displays were nicely presented, and we were just beginning to have a look around … when an alarm sounded, and we were instructed to leave by any exit we could find. It’s mostly rather dark, so that was a bit of an adventure, but eventually everyone exited and milled about in the outer walkway.

The staff themselves seemed flustered and could offer neither an explanation of what had happened, or a target time for readmission. So we waited a bit more. After about 15 minutes a staff member advised us that we might as well go get something to eat and come back later, as they still had no information to offer.

We’d already done the “go away and come back later” thing once, and decided to treat the mis-occurrence as time returned to us. There was still time for music! So we headed back into London, to the George Frideric Handel House.

The Handel House

Don’t let the lack of photos fool you. The Handel House was pretty darned cool. It’s still very much alive with activity and music. There were friendly hosts with informational hand-outs in various languages for each room, and a quartet of young folks in the front parlor practicing for a concert. There was even a wall with photos devoted to one-time neighbor Jimi Hendrix. It’s in an old, pretty neighborhood near Hanover Square — not a part of London we’d have been likely to explore, otherwise.

We’d hoped to see the HMS Belfast but arrived a bit too late for the final admission. We’d covered a lot of ground by then and wanted rest and food. Cait suggested fish and chips. (She eventually was to down a LOT of fish and chips, though once was enough for Mark and myself.) We’re in London, I thought — how hard can it be to find fish and chips? But nearly all of the “true” places are take-out — no tables — and we needed rest as well.

The quest took longer than we planned. Cait suggested The Anchor, a site we had spotted the day before near the Golden Hinde replica. And so we walked …

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The Belfast, the London and Tower Bridges, modern architecture

Unfortunately, the Anchor’s fish and chip shop was closed for a private party. So we set off again, and finally decided simply to hit the fish and chip shop near the Italian restaurant in Bermondsey that we had eaten at the night before. There was a nearby park area with benches, so even though it was a counter shop only, we could get off our feet.

And so we did. It was no doubt authentic (Mark noted that bugs kept landing in his open food paper), but we had found what we were looking for. Having consumed some fish and chips, we headed back to the Docklands for a good foot soak in a bathtub full of water, followed by sleep.

Day 1 having concluded with some setting of priorities on what to see, Day 2 started out with a site at the top of each of our lists — the backstage tour of the Globe Theatre reconstruction.

It made for a great start. The theatre is not far from London Bridge, and we not only improved our city navigation skills — we passed a number of interesting sites on the way there.

The Anchor — the site of a misadventure to be recounted later

The Rose Window — all that remains of the 80-acre Winchester Palace

  
Replica of Sir Francis Drake’s “The Golden Hinde”

Random sighting

Then, on to the Globe:

It was an excellent and informative tour. The guide explained that that side of the Thames was “party town” back in the day, free from the propriety and rules on the “civilized” side. It was, basically, the red light district, but where even the upper-class would go to cut loose and catch some theatre. Admission was a penny, with separate admissions charged for each level of seating higher or away from the “penny stinkards” standing shoulder-to-shoulder, swigging beer all day, unwashed, chewing raw garlic for health reasons, and with no restrooms available.

A lot of theatrical conventions remain unchanged (though the technology has; a message driven home later when we took the National Theatre’s backstage tour). For instance, people still descend from the “heavens” — but in Shakespeare’s day, the crew would use brightly colored ropes. The last thing they wanted, the guide explained, was for some tipsy bureaucrat to begin muttering about witchcraft.

You’ll note that the sun is shining brightly. We had no rain to speak of the entire trip. There was one overcast day in Salisbury, but the balance were either a mix of clouds and sun or full sun. The weather was cool at the start, even to a frost warning, but it was much warmer the second week. All in all, a lovely time to be in England. I think I’ll be saying “lovely” a lot in these posts.

The complimentary breakfasts at the Hilton Docklands were so satisfying that we found ourselves rapidly falling into a pattern of skipping lunch and having breakfast and supper only. That worked out well, for the most part. It gave us more time to explore.

Lots of construction, with the Swiss Re Tower (also known as ‘The Gherkin’ and ‘The Towering Innuendo’) in the skyline

  
St. Paul’s Cathedral

  
Time for a stroll across the Millennium Bridge

The Tower Bridge in the distance

And so, after our time at the Globe, we decided to check out the nearby Tate Modern.

The Tate Modern lives up to its name. It has some stuff I loved and some stuff I could have done without. I feel a bit silly wielding a camera in a museum, even when it’s permitted, so I have only a few shots.

  

Scenes from the Tate Modern

Much as I love museums, the downside is that we are within a reasonable drive of some of the best in the world from right here at home, as both New York City and Washington, D.C. can be day trips. And we were there to see London and England. So, though I know the museums in London are amongst the best in the world, we found our enthusiasm for museums as destinations flagging. As for the Tate Modern, my son put it well in his own blog — “Needless to say, by the time I got to the self-mutilation videos, I felt that it was time to go.”

Given the long, chilly day and the somewhat threatening skies by the time we left the Tate Modern, we wanted to both head back to our hotel and to eat. But we knew there wasn’t much moderately-priced food available at the Docklands, so I had scouted ahead on the Internet and found Castello’s, an Italian place in Bermondsey, one tube stop before ours. After a good meal, we headed “home” for more itinerary planning and sleep.

We arrived before 7 a.m. at Heathrow Terminal 5, at a bit of a loss for sleep but otherwise well. With Oyster cards and British currency already in hand, we were ready to hit the City of London.

As Oyster cards aren’t good on the Heathrow Express, we decided to brave the Tube. May I just say this — I have come to love the Tube. This was to become our benchmark departure point for the next five days:

A couple of route changes and a short ferry ride later, we found ourselves at the Hilton Docklands.

A friend had cautioned me that I wouldn’t like the Hilton Docklands. The hotel is in the heart of an old, run-down industrial area being replaced by chrome and glass renewal. But I thought it was great. The shells of the old buildings have been kept, with new interiors and bridge walkways between, so the hotel literally spans a dry dock and a regular dock. It makes for a warren of a hotel with bridges and turns and tiny elevators at different points, but the overall effect is bright and welcoming, with lovely views of the river.

View from a walkway at night

    
Views from our balcony

It turned out that the ferry trip we’d used to arrive could have been avoided — the Hilton Docklands has its own courtesy shuttle that takes you to the nearest tube station, that being Canada Water. But it was still neat to think that we’d used car, plane, train, ferry, and foot to get there. Henceforth, though, we used the courtesy shuttle, as it was faster and free.

As timing would have it, we had arrived at the Hilton Docklands more than five hours before the check-in time of 3 p.m. I hadn’t given much thought to that, as it would have been pointless to book a room for the night before arrival, but neither had I considered how sleep-deprived and disoriented we would be. The staff was great — they assured us that we could have the room as soon as it was ready, and shooed us over to the restaurant area to have a soft drink in the meantime.

That resulted in a bit of confusion, as it wasn’t yet 10 a.m., and the staff there was just clearing breakfast and didn’t know what we were doing there. The host was our hero, though — once he realized the situation, he had the bar provide us with Cokes at no charge, and welcomed us to have a seat. Every morning afterward, it was a cheery “Good morning, Hennesseys!’ from that fellow.

We also needed to pick up some small supplies we’d forgotten, so we got directions to a nearby shopping area (our first use of the courtesy shuttle); ran our errands; and returned to a room fully ready for three, right down to an extended and made-up sofa bed. That was good, because we really needed sleep.

After a much-needed nap, I set up the internet and found a message from our friend Terry — “If you have time get over to Downing Street – history is in the making!” So we decided to launch in with both feet — checked the tube maps and headed to Downing Street, just in time to catch Gordon Brown’s departure.

Alas, the camera card was faulty and I lost my favorite photo, just before the one on the right, above. But the important thing was being there at a pivotal moment in British history. Thanks for the tip, Terry!

On the return we decided to stop at Waterloo Station, as we were getting a bit hungry. We had a lovely supper at The Fire Station, looked around a bit there, and decided to call it a night.

Our trip actually began on May 10th (Mark’s 20th birthday).   Cait and Mark both had returned from university (with their respective baggage and furniture) just days prior.  There were lots of things to trip over and many loose ends to tie up, and we had to deliver Sasha the cat into the capable hands of our friend Gerry and get the minivan to off-airport parking.  On the whole, everything went smoothly.

The flight itself was fine, as well, despite a detour to the north to avoid the worst of the volcanic ash.  That detour extended the flight by a bit but, more interestingly, kept it from ever getting quite dark.  It was as though we went from departure at dusk to arrival at dawn without ever seeing the sun set.   Mark has already written some lyrics about that phenomenon.

No squalling babies, a decent movie selection, and even good food.  The preferred chicken entree was snapped up before the crew got to us, at which time they apologized and provided vegetarian lasagna — which was delicious.   And the flight attendants were top-notch.  It left me favorably disposed to the folks at British Airways despite what happened on the return trip.

This blog is intended to capture our memories of our recent trip to England, both to hold onto them for ourselves and to share with others.