Five Days Living in London

After touching down at Heathrow, we were delighted by our quick processing through customs using our US Passports and their access to electronic processing. We retrieved our bags and were off… in a way. We may have hired the slowest black cab driver in all of London who left at least seven car lengths of space between himself and other cars in queue to exit the M4, yielding ground to many others who passed him in frustration, and then glacially glided through the back streets of Hammersmith and Kensington and eventually arrived at our Airbnb in Notting Hill. But hey, look at the bright side, we arrived safely if not quickly.

London has some of the best middle eastern and Indian food on the planet, except (I assume) in the Middle East and (I can attest to) in India. So what better way to kick off our five day return to London and the UK than with a Lebanese meal. According to Londonist, El Waha is “the best Lebanese restaurant in London”. I’d reserved a “table by the window” which I had, of course, forgotten with all the reservations we’ve made for our upcoming many weeks of UK touring. Fortunately, Maher our waiter and host had not forgotten and we were quickly seated at the “best table in the house”, to which we can now attest. We left our order in Maher’s hands and started with the Mhamarah Red Peppers, the Fatoush salad and the Hummus Khawarma with lovely bits of grilled lamb buried within. All that was followed by the spicy version of the Sea Bass and paired with a Lebanese Sauvignon Blanc. Delicious. And of course, no first night would be complete without a visit to the neighborhood pub which, in our case, was the Cock & Bottle.

When we came to London six years ago, we were more about seeing the sights and touring. This time, we were more about living and activities with a few sights sprinkled in for spice.

Day One: Holland, Kyoto, The Ritz and Six. Our first day had two real items on the agenda: provisioning for our UK tour (a proper rain jacket as I’m told it can rain here from time to time, hiking boots, some road cooking utensils to overcome strange Airbnb shortcomings, etc.) and the musical Six. En route to shopping we detoured into Holland Park (free to visit). After paying homage to Lord Holland and his pet pigeons we made our way to the Kyoto Gardens of Holland Park which feel authentically Japanese smack dab in the middle of London. From there, we passed through the Dutch gardens with neatly organized rows of flowers and a massive human sized chess set.

Then, exiting the park, we visited Leighton House (an admission fee is charged) an old Victorian mansion of the artist Frederic Leighton whose decor was influenced by his travels and Islamic designs. We stopped off in the back garden cafe for cappuccinos and what they called a Turkish Pancake, a shortbread pastry which didn’t strike as overly Turkish and was certainly not a pancake but was what caught our eye and made us sit.

Provisioned up and ready to go, after some downtime, we headed off to the bar at the London Ritz Carlton near Piccadilly Circus for some pre-show drinks and salty snacks.

The West End is much like New York City’s Times Square. Flashy with neon signs, gaudy with tourist shops and chain restaurants and overflowing with masses of people: overly estrogened and testosteroned teenagers, vendors, tourists, pickpockets, theater goers and the homeless. We feel the same way about it as we do about Times Square, which is to say that it’s not for us, but it acts as an essential thoroughfare to catch some of the best theater in the world. Six is a pop-rock, slightly raunchy musical about the six wives of Henry VIII. If I’m being honest, all I really knew about Henry VIII prior was that he was large, had a beard, ate full legs of lamb and whole turkey legs (ok, perhaps that one’s just my own image), started the Church of England and had a bunch of wives, one of whom (actually two) he had beheaded. It might have behooved us to bone up on the story of his wives beforehand (this Wikipedia page is a good primer) but we thoroughly enjoyed this fun, witty musical with powerful vocals, great music and a creative history lesson. The act has a simple set design and has no intermission, just 90 minutes with six great vocalists and their “ladies in waiting”, the all-girl rock band which backs them up.

Day Two: Canals and Roses, Really Old Books, the Beatles and Saint Paul’s Cathedral. On our second full day, we struck out early, destination: The British Library. Our walking route took us along the canals of London’s “Little Venice” (more like Little Amsterdam, in my humble) and into Regent’s Park to stroll through Queen Mary’s Garden. Many variety of roses, lots of beautiful flowers and carefully crafted and manicured landscaping under brilliant sunny skies. We were off to a good start.

The special collection of the British Library is worth a visit (free to visit). You can view two of the remaining copies of the Magna Carta, notebooks of Da Vinci, the Gutenberg Bible along with many old Christian bibles and Gospels, Muslim Korans, Hindu artifacts, Japanese and Chinese books, Handel’s Messiah, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, works of Shakespeare and notebooks of the Beatles. It’s free to visit. We paired up with Rick Steves’ audio tour to get an overview and then doubled back to the ancient books for a better and slower look.

While Melissa worked, I set off in the afternoon to visit Saint Paul’s Cathedral (free to worship, admission fee to tour – advanced purchase for a discount and recommended). She’s not a huge fan of crowded, cramped, winding staircases to the top of towers and, well, I am. With Rick in my ears, I toured the chapel, viewed the dome from below and checked out the altar and the American Memorial chapel. My visit was accompanied by a choir practicing for that evening’s service, an added bonus.

Then I climbed. Though I was hardly alone, I was pleasantly surprised with the late afternoon dwindling crowd and efficiency with which we all collectively slipped up the ever-narrowing spiral steps like a long human serpent to ascend to the top for views of the city.

For dinner, we returned to Mazi, where we ate in 2016 and have been looking forward to coming back ever since. As good as we remembered, nothing like Greek food in London, well except in Greece, of course. Efkharistou again, Mazi.

Day Three: Bankside. On our third day, we crossed the Thames to visit Bankside. We began at Tate Modern (free to visit except for special exhibitions). We love a good gallery and are typically more drawn to the impressionists but our visit to the Picasso Museum in Antibes last year really helped us appreciate the works of Pablo and fellow cubists. We particularly liked the gallery on floor 3 of the main building, in particular, with its randomly placed (seemingly) smattering of Picasso, Jackson Pollack and others. We don’t totally understand or haven’t found (yet) appreciation for some of the message art (words stenciled on a wall or a pile of sand just don’t feel like “art”, but what do I know?) but we did enjoy our visit and avoided enough of the really disturbing stuff to fend off dark nights full of terrors.

After some tapas for an early dinner, we made our way to The Globe Theater for a playing of MacBeth. This was a classic tale filled with modern props and costumes (spider man PJs, a blender filling in for the cauldron, gurneys for the corpses struck down by King and Queen). The theater itself (the one rebuilt in 1997 as the original burned down in 1613) helped us appreciate Shakespeare’s staging of performances in the original and the weather continued to cooperate making for a more pleasant open air showing and a beautiful night to observe the lights reflecting upon the river on our walk across the Millennium Bridge towards home.

Our Final Full Day: Look Kids: Big Ben, Parliament. For our last full day, I’d booked us a Parliament tour with the audio guide (there is a fee to tour Parliament). Rain (our first) was in the forecast so we donned our rain jackets and headed down through Hyde Park, past the Wellington Arch and Buckingham Palace and landed at Parliament Square. Last time we came here, we toured the Churchill War Rooms which is on our London must do list. That’s close by here as well if you’re hitting the Parliament area sights (and well worth it).

The Parliament tour and audio guide are also well worth it. In fact, with the hour-long-ish audio guide, paying for a real person version did not seem necessary. After passing through security, you’ve got some great views of Big Ben and then enter through Westminster Hall which was built starting in 1097 and is one of the oldest buildings, still standing, in England. When these buildings were used as a palace, the king would preside from and hold councils and banquets here. Now, when dignitaries visit Parliament, this is where they come and when they pass on, prominent Brits lie in state in this large chamber including Winston Churchill and most recently Queen Elizabeth II.

On the tour, you get to pass into the House of Commons and House of Lords through their voting lobbies (ayes in one lobby and nays in another when the vote, or “division”, is taken). In the Central Lobby, above the doors which go out to four other areas from each side (House of Lords, House of Commons, the way you came in and, I presume, offices), are mosaics of the Patron Saint of each of the four countries of the UK: St. George for England, Andrew for Scotland, David for Wales and Patrick for Northern Ireland. The audio guide tour is interspersed with narrations from various staffers and members of Parliament including videos of a polite debate in the House of Lords and a more raucous one you’d be accustomed to if you’ve watched any coverage of the House of Commons on TV. No photos allowed except in Westminster Hall, so you’ll just have to come visit yourself for a glimpse.

We’d planned to visit Westminster Abbey as well, but not knowing how long the Parliament tour would take I’d neglected to buy tickets in advance and they were all sold out, so we swung by the statue of Abe Lincoln (built to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the War of 1812) and headed back in the developing rain retracing our morning route home.

We finished our day with a little pub hopping to stay out of the rain and to try to catch a little of the British Open golf tournament on the tele but alas, the pub goers are more of a cricket watching crowd and my favorite major golf tournament was nowhere to be found.

Last time we came we divided our sightseeing up by neighborhood and I posted one post per day vs a summary, like this one. I’d still recommend tackling London by neighborhood so here are our posts about The City (financial district, Tower of London, Saint Paul’s), Westminster (Churchill War Rooms, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Changing of the Horse Guard) and the Museums we visited last time (Churchill War Rooms, The British Musuem, the National Portrait Gallery and the Museum of London). Bankside/Southwark can be combined with “the City” by crossing the all-pedestrian Millennium Bridge. The British Library can be combined with the British Museum.

Fortunately for us, our current tour will end in London so as we head off and away to explore three of the four UK countries (having visited Northern Ireland last summer) we will have one more night to bask in London’s loveliness. Ok see you, London.