In June 2014, my wife and I visited London. On the 22nd, I attended a workshop, but the rest of the time, we played tourist. We had been before so we wanted to see some new things this time.
Delta now has three flights a day to London. Previously, you'd leave around 5pm and arrive at 6am, dead tired but too early to do anything and unable to get into your hotel room. This time, we took Delta's flight 84 at 9:00pm, which got us into Heathrow around 11am. There is a new international terminal at Hartsfield–Jackson, and we arrived early and had a pizza and some ice cream at Ecco. The flight itself had no delays, the expected cramped seats, screens on the seat-backs and access to plenty of movies.
We arrived at Terminal 4 at Heathrow, and it took us about 15 minutes to move through passport and custom control. In the terminal, we visited an ATM machine to obtain some British currency. None of the ATMs we used in London charged a fee, so we only had to deal with the modest fee our Atlanta bank charged.
We had decided to take a train from Heathrow to Paddington Station and a cab from there to our hotel. The alternative was to take the Tube all of the way. We decided against this route for two reasons. First, we didn't want to tote our luggage on the Tube. Second, we still hadn't exactly figured out which Tube payment option we were going to use, and we didn't want to figure it out when we were still tired from an over-night flight.
While still in Terminal 4, we found a ticket booth for the train, called the Heathrow Express, and purchased two one-way tickets at a cost of £21, each. We then took a train to Terminals 1/2, before switching to the London train. The trip to London took about 20 minutes and went without incident. From Paddington, we took a taxi to our hotel in Bloomsbury, near the British Museum. It cost us around £14.
It was too early to check into our room, but we did check our bags and took a walk around the area to familiarize ourselves with it. The hotel was the Montague on the Gardens on Montague Street, which served as the eastern periphery to the British Museum.
The first stop on our walk was the Starbucks across the street from the main entrance of the British Museum. Although we only had pastries, the meal served as our lunch. We are light eaters, and satisfied ourselves for around £10. Afterwards, we continued our walk clockwise around the periphery of the museum. We were just strolling with a background task of locating the site of my workshop at the University of London, just north of the Museum. We located the workshop site on Mallet Street, and in the process wandered by a live blacksmithing demonstration. Continuing clockwise, we came Russell Square, a nice, relatively quite sanctum from the bustle of adjacent Woburn Place.
The exit from Russell Square was back onto Montague Street, and we now were able to check in. The check in process included a tour of the hotel, which contained its own garden and patio area. Our room was nice, but smallish. Not as cramped as the one we stayed in on our previous trip, but not as roomy as a typical U.S. hotel. The cost was £264 per night, which included a full English breakfast.
After unpacking and resting a bit, we walked to the Thai Metro restaurant on Charlotte Street to the west of Museum. Enjoyed a nice meal in a quiet atmosphere for less than £10 each.
After walking back to the hotel, we watched England come back in its World Cup match versus Uruguay, only to lose on a last-minute goal.
Friday was our first full day of touring, and it started out very nicely with the breakfast buffet at the hotel. The buffet was very complete, including both hot and cold choices, fresh fruit, juices, pastries and bread.
Our first task was to obtain Tube passes. The hotel was about equidistant from four stations. The closest was Russell Square, but using it would mean one additional train change for each of the trips we wanted to make. Also, its escalator was under repair, so we would have to wait for the elevator every time we used it. We chose instead to use the Tottenham Court Road station, which was about a 15 minute walk.
We had tried to decide in advance which payment option we should use, but we were confused by the differences between Oyster Cards and Travel Cards. By talking with a very patient cashier we determined that we wanted a physical (plastic) Oyster card with a one week Travel Card prepayment. The Oyster card required a £5 deposit per person, which was refundable when we left London. The Travel Card entitled us to one week's access to all stops in Zones one and two, which encompass everywhere we wanted to go with one exception. The exception was our visit to Wimbledon, requiring an extra £3.20 each, which the cashier was also able to preload on the cards. Thereafter, we were able to travel wherever we wished by merely touching the card to the gates at the station. Note that you have to doing this touching both when entering and when exiting the station. The cost of the Travel Card was £31.40 each, which also gave us a significant discount on our boat trip to Greenwich.
Our plan for the day was to visit the British National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery with a break for a free lunch-time concert at nearby Saint Martins in the Fields church. We took the Tube from Tottenham Court Road station to Charing Cross and walked from there to the National Gallery, where admission was free. We spent the bulk of our morning in the Impressionist room, before walking over to the church. The concert featured the soprano Norah King, accompanied by pianist Yau Cheng, singing a mix of opera and traditional works. Admission here was free as well, but, as with the National Gallery, we made a modest donations.
For lunch, we stopped at the church's outdoor cafe where we spent about £3 quenching our thirst with a mildly fermented ginger–rose drink. We walked back to the National Gallery past some fairly enthusiastic break-dancing buskers. At the gallery, we visited some of the other rooms before leaving for the nearby National Portrait Gallery where we viewed paintings of many famous and familiar figures from British history.
Leaving the portrait gallery, we walked through the West End, which is really in the middle of London, to Leister Square station, where we took the Piccadilly line to the Russell Square station. This is where we learned about the broken elevator, which caused us only a mild delay.
After taking a short break at our hotel, we walked over to the nearby Malibar Junction restaurant serving south Indian food. We had a nice meal in a good atmosphere with excellent service for about £40 for the two of us.
On Saturday our target was Greenwich, site of the Primary Meridian and other interesting attractions. To get there, we wanted to take a cruise down the Thames. The cruises left from a spot near the Westminster Tube station. Unfortunately, this station was not on the Northern Line that went through the Tottenham Court Road station, and the transit point, the Embankment station, was closed in the north–south direction. So, instead, we got off at Charing Cross and walked a block to Embankment, where we were able to take the Circle Line train one stop south.
A short walk took us to Westminster pier where several companies offered cruises to Greenwich for about the same price. We had no reason to prefer one over the other, so we took the one with the shortest queue, called Thames River Cruises. The one-way tickets cost us £16.34 each, due to our 33% discount for having a Travel Card.
The cruise lasted an hour and presented nice views of many London landmarks including the London Eye.
As the cruise boat pulled into Greenwich, we passed by the Cutty Sark, one of the local attractions, which we did not choose to visit on this trip.
Upon debarking, we proceeded through the town and into a park. The walk lasted 15 minutes, and the last part climbed a hill to the Greenwich Observatory. The fee was £14 each, which gave entrance to the observatory, the Flamsteed house, and to the meridian line itself.
The area adjacent to the House featured a garden with a sophisticated sun dial, a camera obscura view of the Queen's House and an actor, playing the role of the Royal Astronomer, who provided the historical background. The house itself included a variety of telescopes and clocks.
We watched the ball on top of the Flamsteed House drop at precisely 1:00pm. Historically, this had been a signal to ships on the Thames of the exact time. Then we walked back down the hill by a different route with views of the Queen's House and the gymnastics and basketball venue from the London Olympics of 2012.
Upon reaching the bottom of the hill, we decided to next visit the National Maritime Museum, where we snacked in their cafe. Afterwards, we walked through the museum seeing various ship models, paraphenalia and exhibits devoted to Nelson.
We ended our visit to Greenwich by visiting the Queen's House. This we found a little disappointing, because there was no furniture, only some paintings and big empty rooms.
Instead of taking the cruise back, we opted to use the Tube. The Greenwich station is on the boundary between Zones two and three, so there was no additional charge. We needed to ask directions, but a short walk past the Cutty Sark took us to the Cutty Sark station, which was actually part of Docklands Light Rail (DLR) system. We took this to Canary Wharf, where we walked across the street to the tube station for the Jubilee line. Two changes later, we were back to Tottenham Court Road.
That evening, we decided to revisit Gaeles Restaurant for fish and chips. We had been there in 1995, and, like then, enjoyed our visit. Note that although it is a short walk from the Notting Hill Gate tube station, you have to have sharp eyes to see Farmer Street heading south.
Sunday was a half day for us because my workshop was in the afternoon. So in the morning we took the Tube two stops west to Bond Street, and then walked two blocks north to the Wallace Collection. It included a nice exhibit of paintings, porcelain and armor. The highlight was seeing The Laughing Cavelier.
After my workshop, we ate BBQ at the hotel, which had a covered pavilion in the garden. Although the setting was nice, the meal was expensive (£30.37 for two) and mediocre. Back in the room, we saw Portugal come back to tie the U.S. on a late goal in the World Cup.
Our Monday began with a visit to St. Paul's Cathedral. To get there from the Tottenham Court Road station, we took the Central Line east three stops to the St. Paul's station.
Admission was a steep £29 for the two of us. We climb the hundreds of steps up to the Whispering Gallery, where you can walk around the dome or sit and take it all in. We then went up the next set of steps to where we could go outside to view the city. We decided not to walk the final leg to the very top.
After the heights, we visited the Cathedral's Crypt, where we had a snack in the cafe and then found the graves of Wellington, Nelson, Wren, Nightengale, Van Dyck, and Lawrence of Arabia, as well as the Churchill Gates.
Leaving the Cathedral, we decided to walk across the Thames on the nearby Millennium Bridge to the south bank.
Our next stop was the Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House. To get there, we walked south from St. Paul's to the Mansion House stop on the Circle and District lines and took the train two stops to the Temple station. The gallery was about two blocks away.
Entrance to gallery was reduced to £3 each because it was Monday. The gallery had some nice Impressionist work and the Rubens Cafe, where we indulged in a chocolate tart and a scone.
Before leaving the hotel in the morning, we had done a little research to find a nearby restaurant for the evening. Because it was early. We decided to detour to the nearby Victoria Embankment Park. The walk took us by Cleopatra's Needle. The park itself was a nice respite from the nearby and noisy Strand.
We have picked a place to eat in Covent Garden, and on our walk there, we chanced upon a nice tea shop. Its window display featured some neat center pieces made from pastries..
Our dinner was across the street at the Wahaca Restaurant. The meal itself was great—one of our best in London. The restaurant bills itself as Mexican market, served tapas style. We tried ones with black beans, corn, pumpkin seeds, pork soft tacos, and crab tostados. All were great.
Our last stop for the day was at the St. Martin's Theater near Leister Square to see The Mousetrap. To get there we took the Northern Line Tube from Charing Cross to the Leister Square and walked two blocks.
The Mousetrap is the longest running show anywhere, recently experiencing its 62nd anniversary. Tickets for the show cost us £39.50 for mid-range and perfectly adequate seats in the orchestra. The show itself was a lot of fun, and I could see why it had been around for so long. No spoilers here; you will have to see for yourself.
As we exited the theater after the show, we noticed that it had rained. This was the only rain during our stay, and we escaped it entirely. The Leister Square tube took us back to Tottenham Court Road station and our hotel.
Our last day in London was spent at Wimbleton. Both of us are tennis fans, and Wimbledon is the most famous tennis tournament in the world.
After breakfast at the hotel, we took the District Line Tube to the Southfields station, not the Wimbledon Station. Southfields is in Zone 3, but we had previously added enough money to our Oyster card so that we were able to use it as if it were any other station in Zones 1 or 2. Leaving the station, we walked 15 minutes to join The Queue. Upon arriving, we were given a numbered card indicating our place in line (#8150). We had been told that normally between seven and nine thousand were admitted, so we were definitely on the bubble.
We joined the line at 8:40, and were told that the gates open at 9:30 for a 10:30 start-of-play. We didn't expect to get in then, and, in fact, were finally admitted at 1:20. The admission price for a grounds pass was £20 each, which enabled us to view all but the three main courts.
We chose first to watch a match between Fichman and Bacsinszky. We were able to pick perfect seats, and saw two hard hitting women players battle it out.
After this match, we stopped for a snack before proceeding to watch Paire and Rosol compete to see who could complain more to the referee.
We also took in parts of another match, this one between Jaksic and Cetkovsk.
After this match, I noticed a match going on involving Taylor Townsend, a young American girl. Unfortunately, Townsend was outplayed that day by Koukalova.
After this match, we stopped for a meal at a food court. After which I wanted to see what things looked like from Hinman Hill (also called Aorangi Terrace and Murray Mound). The hill is an elevated area with a view to (the outside of) Centre Court. The site has good views not only of London in the distance but also to a display of the action inside.
The match was between Eugenie Bouchard and Daniela Hantuchova, eventually won by Bouchard. Afterwards, we stopped to buy some souveniers before retracing our steps to the Tube station. Upon arriving back in at Tottenham Court Road, we turned in our Oyster Cards to receive £5 apiece return of our deposit. (Note that I had to show my passport in order to receive the refund.) We then walked back to the hotel, printed our boarding passes and packed for our return trip to Atlanta.
After breakfast and checkout, we retraced our path to return to Atlanta, beginning with a cab from the hotel to Paddington Station (£14.40 plus tip). At Paddington, there is a nice purple line on the floor that you can follow from where the cab lets you off to the Heathrow Express ticket office.
The tickets cost £21 each, and the trip to the airport was uneventful. At the airport, we spent out our remaining English money buying gifts and snacks. We took Delta flight 85, this time traveling with the sun.
In Atlanta, for the first time, we had to deal with an electronic kiosk at customs/immigration. We ended up having to go to four of them and eventually ask for help—some were broken and others were in a weird state. Eventually we made it through, picked up our bag and took a cab home ($62).
