Scotland Trip Part 4 – London and Back Home

This post is the forth and last about our trip to Scotland and England in July, which happened because my husband got tickets to the final round of the British Open golf tournament at Troon.

So many things have happened since then. It is already fall, and I am glad to be wrapping up this series of posts. My first Scotland trip blog post, about our time in Glasgow at the beginning of the trip, can be accessed here. The second post about our tour of Outlander filming sites, can be accessed here. The third post about our time in Edinburgh can be accessed here. This last post is about our time in London at the end of the trip, and getting back home.

Honestly, I was not excited about going to London. I was there once a long time ago, and I would have preferred spending more time in Scotland. Because Wayne had never been to London, I was willing to tack it on at the end of the Scotland trip so he could check that off his bucket list.

The train ride from Edinburgh to London took a little over four hours. We were on our own, as the rest of our travel group went back home from Scotland. The train route passed pretty scenery, and stopped in some towns along the way.

Our hotel in London was a Travelodge near King’s Cross Station. The building was old and historic looking, and not what you imagine when thinking of a chain hotel. The location was great and it worked for our needs, but there were a couple of odd things about it related to being an old building. We had to go through a maze of hallways to get to our room using our card key twice, taking the elevator to floor three and then going down half a flight of stairs. There was not any air conditioning, so we had to keep the window open. I liked having the fresh air and the temperature was comfortable, but there was a lot of urban traffic noise on the street below our room. There was a note in the bathroom about keeping the door shut when taking a shower to avoid setting off the smoke alarm. They needn’t have worried, the water in the shower was luke warm.

The last goofy thing about the hotel was that after I took a shower and washed my hair at 9:30 pm the first night, I could not find a blow dryer in the room. My hair dries pretty fast, but normally I spend a few minutes with a blow dryer and round brush. Going to bed with damp hair meant that the next day I was going to have a very interesting hair style. Later I asked the attendant at the hotel lobby about it. She said that if you are on the forth floor you get a blow dryer, but otherwise not, and that I could have asked for one. That seemed very strange to me, and by this time I did not need one any more.

We had some time to walk around in the afternoon and evening after checking in. I am not good at directions and did not have anything in mind to do. I was happy to follow Wayne’s lead as we headed towards the Thames river, not sure how far we would go. Following are a couple of photos I took while we were out and about.

We walked through the Theater District. If we had made it a priority, I am sure we could have found last minute tickets for one of the shows.

We walked through a nice outdoor shopping mall with stores and restaurants called “The Brunswick Shopping Centre”. We ended up finding a place to eat dinner there later.

Our route took us into the Covent Garden neighborhood and through a farmers market in a historic looking building. We saw the iconic red phone booths everywhere.

We walked through Trafalgar Square and past the National Gallery in the Charing Cross area.

We kept on on thinking “we’ll go a little farther as long as we are in this area”. We ended up walking all the way from our hotel to the River Thames and back. I am not sure of the exact route we took, but the following map shows that is about three miles one way.

I had done zero research on how we might spend our limited time in London. Since it was Wayne’s idea to go there, I was happy to let him come up with a plan. We decided to buy tickets to the Hop On Hop Off tourist bus for the next (and only) full day of sightseeing. It was not cheap, but after walking over 16,000 steps the first day, it seemed like a good idea, and would allow us to hear some commentary while getting around.

We realized that King’s Cross is the train station used in the Harry Potter story. In the morning, before catching the sightseeing bus, we had enough time to go inside the station to see some Harry Potter tourist displays. There was a luggage cart halfway in the wall heading for Platform 9 3/4. People were standing in a line waiting to get photos standing next to it. We did not have the time nor interest for waiting in the line, but we got this photo standing nearby (after an employee waived us farther away from the display). There was a gift shop with Harry Potter merchandise and a few other displays around the station.

Several people had recommended that since we only had one full day there we should see the Tower of London. Wayne bought tickets ahead of time. Of course I had heard of the Tower of London, but I did not really know what it entailed. In my head (and in my ignorance) I imagined one tall tower. In actuality there is an entire complex including a huge palace and fortress. Following is a map since it is hard to get a feel for the whole place from a few photos.

We joined a tour group guided by a “Yeoman Warder”, also known as a “Beefeater”. Yeoman Warders have been guards at the Tower of London for hundreds of years. Although the Beefeater position today is ceremonial, all are retired non-commissioned officers of the British Armed Forces with at least 22 years of military experience.

The White Tower building in the middle of the complex was built by William the Conqueror in 1078. This is where Elizabeth I and others were “sent to the Tower” in the 16th and 17th centuries.

We waited in a long line to see the Crown Jewels that have been kept at the Tower of London since the 13th century. It was kind of a blur walking past all the items, and photos were not allowed. On display are gem stones, an 800-year-old coronation spoon, some crowns worn by royals, and thousands of diamonds. The collection includes the Koh-i-Noor 105.6 carat diamond that originally came from India thousands of years ago. Click here for an article from Smithsonian Magazine with information about the controversial history of this diamond, including how it came to be in possession of the British in colonial times. Maybe it is time to give it back?

There is a “secret” entrance from the river.

There was a lot of interesting information and history provided by the Yeoman Warder tour guide, but I cannot remember much of what he said. After leaving there, we got on a tourist boat that was part of the Hop On Hop Off route. It was a good way to get a boat ride and see the sights from a different vantage point, and also get us to the area where Buckingham Palace is located. We saw two famous bridges across the Thames from the boat. Following is the “Tower Bridge” which is near the Tower of London. This bridge is what people think of when singing the children’s song “London Bridge is falling down”.

The other famous bridge we saw is actually called the London Bridge, but is a contemporary style, and does not make one think of the nursery rhyme. There have been different bridges here for 2000 years. The one from 1831 until the late 1960’s was purchased and moved to Lake Havasu City, Arizona. It was replaced in London with what you see today, in the photos below.

The London Eye, viewed from the tour boat across the river, is the tallest “Cantilevered Observation Wheel” (fancy term for an enclosed Ferris Wheel) in Europe at 443 feet tall (135 meters). It opened in 2000 as a temporary exhibit. Later it was granted permanent status and is now the most popular tourist site in the United Kingdom.

There are many tourist sights within easy walking distance of Buckingham Palace. In addition to the Palace, there is Westminster Abbey, St. James Park, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery, and Piccadilly Circus.

The Mall runs parallel to St. James Park, ending at Buckingham Palace. There are photos and videos of Queen Elizabeth and other royals in parades on the Mall with throngs of people crowding the sidewalk. I got a photo of Wayne standing on the Mall with Buckingham Palace in the background, minus crowds of people and with no royals anywhere.

The bus back to our hotel took us through the Piccadilly business area and other neighborhoods. After resting and freshening up, we headed back out for dinner. Wayne had some kind of meat pie for his last dinner of the trip.

A day and a half was enough time for us to see some of London. I had been intimidated thinking about navigating around in a big city. There were a lot of people everywhere, but the main tourist sights were easy to get to and clustered in a couple of areas.

The next morning we took the subway to the airport. Our direct flight from London Heathrow to MSP was uneventful. On the return flight I worked on the second Sofie Scarf that I started at the beginning of the trip. This time I knew I had enough yarn, so I did not have to worry about running out before I finished the project.

It was late afternoon central time when we arrived back in Minnesota, late evening London time. Our son picked us up at the airport and brought us back to his house, where our car was parked. We both wanted to get home, and Wayne was worried about how tall the grass was going to be at our house. He loaded up on caffeine drinks and we made the 3 hour drive to our house in West Central, Minnesota.

Before we left for the trip, the produce in our small garden was starting to grow. When we got home there were tons of green beans. Every possible bud had a bean on it that was ready to pick. We could not eat it fast enough and I had to give some away.

There were also some cucumbers ready to pick, but I swear I did not plant any cucumbers. What I remember is making only two mounds for the zucchini and planting fewer seeds per mound than last year, when we got way too many. I was trying to keep the garden manageable. We did plant cucumbers two summers ago. I don’t know if I actually did plant cucumber seeds, or if there were some dormant seeds in the ground that grew.

After we were home I finished knitting the Sofie scarf.

This Sofie Scarf is the correct shape with a point in the middle, as opposed to the orange one I made earlier when I had to improvise due to not having enough yarn.

Following is the obligatory Sofie Scarf photo in a roll shape.

After the usual transition period following a big trip we were busy with guests and summer activities. When my sister Betsy visited she modeled the Sofie Scarf.

The Scotland and London trip were two months ago already, and I am very glad to be done posting about it.