London

Thankfully, Ted and I had five hours of sleep on the plane, because London was hectic when we arrived. It was the last day of the Wimbledon championships and also the final match of the World Cup cricket championship between England and New Zealand, neither of which has ever won before. Traffic was horrible, and the sidewalks were packed. London won the cricket championship, so there was a lot of yelling and cheering in the streets all evening.

When we got hungry for dinner, the concierge told us there were restaurants on the street alongside the hotel. We turned the corner and guess what the first two restaurants were: McDonald’s and Five Guys! The others were local, and we chose one of those.

One day we ate dinner in an historic restaurant about two blocks from our hotel. It was called “Byron,” and the manager told us the entire building is “protected” and cannot be changed. The huge (18″ x 18″) ceiling beams, the stamped metal ceiling, the marble wall panels, the huge mirrors, and the mosaic floor are all more than 240 years old. It’s amazing how late Europeans eat. The restaurants are still packed at 10:30 p.m. and going strong with no sign of closing any time soon.

Note: On the menus, salads are described as “assorted leaves.”

This little shop was on the street with the restaurants. It was about the size of two kiosks at the mall.
As usual, we did a lot of walking. It’s unusually warm in London (low 80s), and we wanted ice cream one day, so we stopped at a gelato shop that featured “rose” ice cream cones in your choice of flavors. We chose vanilla and strawberry.
We walked to Buckingham Palace to see how far it was (about a mile) so we’d be in time for the changing of the guard in the morning. Here are some of the Palace gardens. Ted thought he saw the Queen deadheading flowers so they’d look nice tomorrow.
When we returned to the hotel after dinner, we saw that the hallway and stairway were lined with candles. Very pretty, and romantic too.

The changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace occurs at 10:45 every morning. What a disappointment! We arrived about 15 minutes early and found a place to stand right in front. And there we stood, watching police on horses and bicycles riding back and forth to make sure no spectators breached the barriers. Around 11:00, a marching band of guards arrived from our left and got through one song (not Sousa, and not “Stars and Stripes Forever”) before entering the palace gates and disappearing from sight. About 15 minutes later, another band came from our right and did the same thing. Another 15 minutes later, a troop of eight guards arrived, stepping smartly, so we thought they must be the “new” guys. They also disappeared inside the fence. Finally, another 15 minutes later, both bands came marching out and went to our left and to our right. That was it! The show was apparently all about watching the police riding in circles.

Here’s the band coming from our left.
This is Buckingham Palace, and it’s what we saw for most of the 75 minutes we were there for the changing of the guard. You can see other people lined up around the open space, and the police in the neon yellow vests.
The next day, we walked to the London Tower Bridge. It was more fun than the changing of the guard.
On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at the Tate Modern Museum. It was interesting to see the modern art, even though we don’t want any of it in our house. This is a tower built of antique radios and speakers and titled “Babel.” I looked for a radio like I had in my bedroom when I was growing up, but didn’t see one.
On our last evening in London, we walked along the Thames and saw this bike counter beside the bike lane. It displayed the number of bicycles that went by each day and also the total for the year. We were there around 10:00 p.m. and it indicated 6,653 bikes had passed in the past 22 hours. The annual number was in the hundreds of thousands.

One evening, as we walked along the Thames on the Queen’s Walkway, we were passed by some bicycles. We knew they were behind us because they rang their bells and because their headlights projected “BIKE” in green letters on the path ahead of us. Cool!

We were surprised at how many shopkeepers spoke English as a second language in London–and at only an intermediate level. In non-English countries, we’ve often had a clerk call an English-speaking person to help us, but England is the home of English, so we expected at least store managers to speak fluent English. It’s definitely a one-world society these days.

Our last stop before returning to our hotel was a pretty view of lighted buildings and the London Eye (the Ferris wheel) across the Thames. It was so peaceful, we just sat on a park bench for awhile and enjoyed our last evening in London.