All photos for this trip can be found in our
2022 England/Scotland Photo Album
Look for the "Week 1" tag for photos added this week.
2022 England/Scotland Photo Album
Look for the "Week 1" tag for photos added this week.
Given the recent,sort of post Covid-19, kerfluffle about air travel we were half expecting major hiccups getting from Comox to Vancouver to London. Not! Even though the Comox airport is small we still optied to get there at least a couple of hours before our scheduled flight. Bit of a wait but pretty easy getting through security. The only glitch being Brian's artificial knee which did garner some special attention resulting in additional hands on checking. In Vancouver we were able to stay behind security so just had to wait out the 3 hour layover.
Arriving in London we were able to use the E-Gate to seamlessly pass through immigration and our luggage, being priority (we flew Premium Economy) appeared on the conveyor belt only a few minutes after we got there. Time for a rest and latte at Caffe Nero, then out to the Underground connection point where we purchaed two tap-and-go "Oyster" cards for the London Transport System. We put £30 on each hoping that it would last until we were finished with London and off we went; one transfer and we made it to the Aldgate East station about a 5 minute walk from out hotel. Unfortunately Aldgate East is not a step free facility so there had to be some lugging of suitcases up stairs to get out of the station. We checked into The Gate Aparthotel and had a rest for about an hour to somewhat make up for the lack of sleep achieved on the long night/day behind us.
Early evening we hopped a bus for about a 50 minute ride south through numerous neighbourhoods, with well used green spaces, to Half Moon Lane where we found Ken's Fish Bar,..
Monday, after a couple of lattes at our local Starbucks on Whitechapel Road we started our tourist day with a stop at The Monument, a reminder of the Great Fire Of London 1666. It was a bit of an accidental start to the day as our bus stop was near here and we were heading toward the bridge when we came across The Monument. It is very tall and monumental but when you are walking down narrow streets with buildings you don't see that far away...
So, onto another bus to The Tate Britain, the first of the two large museums we decided to visit on this, our inaugural visit to London (have to save something for next time!). Our single aim for this museum was to see their collection of works by J M W Turner, one of the great English painters. The collection on display was wonderful with the only fault being that they only had three of his water colours on display. We asked one of the attendents if there were more displayed elsewhere but no, the others are safely tucked away in drawers somewhere (rotating collection display). After seeing the Turner collection we visited the gift store followed by the cafeteria where Kris had a most excellent sausage roll with salad and Brian had a tasty toasted ham and cheese sandwich. From there we got another bus to the Fortnum and Mason main store. What a fun place! We held back and came away with just a small number of tasty treats. After Fortnum and Mason we stopped for a couple of nice iced lattes. Since we were then less than a block from the Picadilly Circus metro station we jumped the "tube" home for a rest before our evening out on a Jack the Ripper tour. Since we are staying in the middle of Whitechapel, the tour starting point was only a block from our hotel. The tour was a lot of fun, informative, and well worth the £12.00 each. By the time the tour ended it was well after 9:00 PM so we just stopped in at Pizza Union Aldgate for a late night bite to eat - an excellent very thin crust pizza.
Tuesday, we caught the Tube to South Kensington station and found the nearby Cafe Nero coffee shop for a couple of lattes, a croissant and a pan au chocolat to start the day. Then we walked over to the Victoria And Albert Museum, the second of our chosen museums for this trip. Interesting but we were a bit disappointed of the lack of display for textiles and thought the furniture (i.e. woodworking) display could have included some work by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, a great Scottish furniture, among other things, designer. Leaving the museum we caught another bus to Harrod's for our glimpse into the world of "where the wealthy shop". We treated ourselves to a lunch in one of their many tiny bistros where Kris had an omelet (perhaps the smallest she has ever seen) and Brian had a decent croque monsieur. We each had a glass of water and,for desert, we shared a wee creme brulee. All for a measly £50.00 (about $80 CDN). After lunch we each went walk about in the store. I, Brian, went and wandered through the men's wear. A large floor broken into numerous designer named boutiques each as expensive as the next. I checked three item: a pair of sneakers: £1250; a light denim jacket: £1700; and a t-shirt: £800 but came away empty handed having somehow managed to resist the temptation to purchase a £74,000 watch. Kris treated herself to a couple of different brands of lipstick, each about £50 and each almost the same color. We saw that they had a fresh vegetable market in the store but didn't want to look at what a potato might cost at Harrod's :-)
After Harrod's we took a bus back to Fortnum And Mason for another shot at treating ourselves to more of their great treats. Then it was home for a rest before doing some packing to leave the next day. To finish the day we walked over to Brick Lane to an Indian restaurant, The Eastern Eye Balti House, a place we had noticed while on our Ripper Tour the night before. It was exellent. Afterwards we walked over to the Ten Bells pub, another place we stopped at on the Ripper Tour as several of the Ripper's victims had spent time there. Definitely a character pub. Nice actually.
And that was London!
Wednesday, we were up relatively early. Caught a taxi over to the Euston Station where we caught a train to Milton Keynes to pick up our rental car at Arnold Clark Car Hire, the same company we rented cars from on our previous trips to Scotland because they make it easy to drop off the vehicle in Aberdeen. Leaving the rental office we stopped at the next door Starbucks for lattes to go. Then it was onto the M1 followed by the M25 for a couple of hours before reaching our first stop for the day. While on the motorways, Brian noticed that the car tended to pull to the left and a number of times the car's lane departure safety feature beeped as it pulled too close to the lane edge. We thought maybe the wheels needed alignment so kept on going with the intent of having it checked later. Reaching Chatham we left the motorway onto smaller local roads. At one point the car pulled hard enough that we struck the curb with quite a bump. Whoa!... our first stop was a cemetery where Brian hoped to find a headstone for his Great Grandmother Eliza Ann Emmerson. We pulled into the cemetery and parked near the chapel. As we were getting our bearings in this very large cemetery, Kris happened to walk around the car and notice the front passenger side tire was nearly flat. SO THAT WAS THE PROBLEM. We think we dodged a bullet on that one being on the motorway for those couple of hours!
So, here's the good news for a lousy situation. When we rent a car, we always take the insurance option bo bring the deductible down to zero! In this case all we had to do was call the rental company emergency assistance number. They arranged for the AA to send someone out. Less than an hour wait. He put a temporary tire on the wheel and guided us to a tire repair shop. At the shop we found that the rental company had made a reservation for their service. About an hour later we were fixed and on our way.
While waiting for the AA driver to arrive we scoured the spots we thought that Eliza's grave plot might be but, unfortunately, came up empty handed. It is entirely possible that she was buried without a headstone as she was quite poor when she passed away. Worth the try.
We continued on to Maidstone via some very narrow country lane roads (our GPS thought it was the fastest and shortest route) during which we were sure there ended up being some scratches on the passenger side as passing oncoming cars on those roads forced us to brush along the hedge rows that border the roads. Arriving at our hotel, the Black Horse Inn, we verified the same. Again happy to have that insurance. By this time it was early evening and time to meet for the first time, Jennifer, Brian's new found sister-in-law. We drove to her house and had a really nice introductory meeting, sharing stories and photographs, before heading out to the George Inn Pub where we all had excellent dinners. Lamb shank for Jennifer and seafood pie for both Kris and Brian. After taking Jennifer home it was now well after dark and time for us to go back to our hotel. After that long day we needed a glass of wine (Kris) and a pint of Guiness (Brian) in the Black Horse Inn pub then off to a really good nights sleep.
Thursday, we picked up Jennifer and headed east throught the Kent countryside to Broadstairs on the coast. A very nice drive ending with beautiful coastal scenery.
The end of our first week.
| On to Week 2 |
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