We decided to make an early start since we spent the best part of yesterday in bed. The plan was to go to Heralds Place (the airbnb where I'm staying in November) to check it out, then head in to do the Houses of Parliament tour. We successfully completed the first part of the plan, but that's where it stopped. We caught the correct number bus but it just went in the wrong direction so we stayed on it until it terminated at Camberwell Green where we climbed down (we were right up front up top), hopped off, and grabbed a coffee at Macca's.
The bus stop was very close to Westminster Abbey, so we thought we'd do a quick tour of it first. It's so big there's no such thing as a quick tour, but we enjoyed it anyway, apart from there being nowhere to sit down until we got to the Cloisters. More of a graveyard than a church, it was interesting to see the many famous people who've been interred there over the centuries. Poet's Corner was my favourite, also the tomb of the unknown soldier which holds pride of place in the centre of the Abbey. I'd learned about this at primary school, and finally got to visit almost 60 years later. The Abbey itself is beautiful, but as always, I thought too much money had been spent on ornamentation, and too much money was being charged just to see it. I have a deep-seated dislike of being charged to enter a church!
Next stop- Churchill War Rooms. This was the underground complex where Churchill and the top brass conducted military operations during the war. The floor had been reinforced with a concrete slab, and all the rooms furnished as they would have been during the war. It was like a rabbit warren and inevitably, I became completely lost, saw some rooms twice and I'm sure I missed others. They even had an interactive timeline which really helped me understand what was happening during the war, and a trivia corner about Winston Churchill himself where you could sit down (yay!) and answer questions on Winston Churchill before being told the answer. How tall was he? What colour eyes did he have? Where was he born? etc Of course I knew all of them! :-)
By this stage, we were both starting to get peckish (read this as starving) and set out in search of a good ol' British pub. We hopped on a bus to Covent Garden, but ended up at Trafalgar Square where we found The Chandos. It had a bar downstairs but upstairs was the Opera Room, where we managed to find a table in the corner and collapsed into comfy chairs. We ordered two different types of pies washed down with cider/ale. What a huge, scrumptious meal!
There was no way I was going to tackle the Houses of Parliament now. Across the road was a Flight Centre, so Ross thought he'd try to change our flight home to avoid Bali and the domestic route from Jakarta to Bali. Oh yes, it could be done- by cancelling our entire ticket and purchasing a one-way ticket with another airline at a minimum cost of $3200- ridiculous- so we have a 7 and half hour stopover at Bali-- we thought 4 hours was bad enough. Any suggestions? Don't say go to the beach-it's 7 and a half hours at night!
We headed home on the train after a long day. Ross hopped off at Richmond to visit Joe, and I managed to stay awake, well almost, till my stop at Whitton. Actually I fell asleep and woke up when we pulled into Twickenham, the station before Whitton, so I stood up for the rest of the trip. We needed some supplies at the supermarket so crossed over the High Street to Tesco's- one of my favourite supermarkets. I bought bread, ham, and cheese for toasted sandwiches, and raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, double cream and two tubs of Kelly's Cornish Clotted Cream Ice-cream (it was on special) for dessert. (They are all still in the fridge!) Also bought a bottle of Prosecco which is not, and some Radox to have a bath- it was buy one, get one free for 1.50. 75p each- bargain! I put those to good use immediately luxuriating in a hot bath sipping Prosecco. Naturally, after I managed to get out of the bath ( it's narrow- the English are not as fat as us Aussies), I lay down and fell asleep. Apart from semi-waking to let Ross in, I slept for the next 8 and a half hours. I was awake at 2.30am again, but at least I'd had a really good sleep.
The bus stop was very close to Westminster Abbey, so we thought we'd do a quick tour of it first. It's so big there's no such thing as a quick tour, but we enjoyed it anyway, apart from there being nowhere to sit down until we got to the Cloisters. More of a graveyard than a church, it was interesting to see the many famous people who've been interred there over the centuries. Poet's Corner was my favourite, also the tomb of the unknown soldier which holds pride of place in the centre of the Abbey. I'd learned about this at primary school, and finally got to visit almost 60 years later. The Abbey itself is beautiful, but as always, I thought too much money had been spent on ornamentation, and too much money was being charged just to see it. I have a deep-seated dislike of being charged to enter a church!
Next stop- Churchill War Rooms. This was the underground complex where Churchill and the top brass conducted military operations during the war. The floor had been reinforced with a concrete slab, and all the rooms furnished as they would have been during the war. It was like a rabbit warren and inevitably, I became completely lost, saw some rooms twice and I'm sure I missed others. They even had an interactive timeline which really helped me understand what was happening during the war, and a trivia corner about Winston Churchill himself where you could sit down (yay!) and answer questions on Winston Churchill before being told the answer. How tall was he? What colour eyes did he have? Where was he born? etc Of course I knew all of them! :-)
By this stage, we were both starting to get peckish (read this as starving) and set out in search of a good ol' British pub. We hopped on a bus to Covent Garden, but ended up at Trafalgar Square where we found The Chandos. It had a bar downstairs but upstairs was the Opera Room, where we managed to find a table in the corner and collapsed into comfy chairs. We ordered two different types of pies washed down with cider/ale. What a huge, scrumptious meal!
There was no way I was going to tackle the Houses of Parliament now. Across the road was a Flight Centre, so Ross thought he'd try to change our flight home to avoid Bali and the domestic route from Jakarta to Bali. Oh yes, it could be done- by cancelling our entire ticket and purchasing a one-way ticket with another airline at a minimum cost of $3200- ridiculous- so we have a 7 and half hour stopover at Bali-- we thought 4 hours was bad enough. Any suggestions? Don't say go to the beach-it's 7 and a half hours at night!
We headed home on the train after a long day. Ross hopped off at Richmond to visit Joe, and I managed to stay awake, well almost, till my stop at Whitton. Actually I fell asleep and woke up when we pulled into Twickenham, the station before Whitton, so I stood up for the rest of the trip. We needed some supplies at the supermarket so crossed over the High Street to Tesco's- one of my favourite supermarkets. I bought bread, ham, and cheese for toasted sandwiches, and raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, double cream and two tubs of Kelly's Cornish Clotted Cream Ice-cream (it was on special) for dessert. (They are all still in the fridge!) Also bought a bottle of Prosecco which is not, and some Radox to have a bath- it was buy one, get one free for 1.50. 75p each- bargain! I put those to good use immediately luxuriating in a hot bath sipping Prosecco. Naturally, after I managed to get out of the bath ( it's narrow- the English are not as fat as us Aussies), I lay down and fell asleep. Apart from semi-waking to let Ross in, I slept for the next 8 and a half hours. I was awake at 2.30am again, but at least I'd had a really good sleep.
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