TO LONDON AND BACK

Big Ben, the symbol of London

In May, we traveled to London with Art and Barb Bolz. Art has recently retired too, and it's a great thing to be able to travel with old friends from the days when we were doctors. They're such fine people that it was a double treat for both Kathryn and me.

The time in London was wonderful, and the return home on the Queen Mary 2, "The Crossing," was an experience not to be missed if you can swing it. There's a lot to show, and about that, more, later.

After an easy flight, a short wait and a bus trip, we checked in to the Royal Horseguards Hotel, just off the Thames Embankment a few minutes from everything. Here's the view from our room.

It's really easy to get around in London. The legendary taxis are everywhere, or for a few pounds, a day pass on the transit system gets you anywhere in a few minutes. The city itself is vast, of course, but the center where all the action is is really very accessable.

May is a beautiful time in London. The flowers are in bloom, and some of the gardens rival Charlotte. This park is in front of our hotel...we overlooked this each day. Just a few blocks up the street was Trafalgar Square...the other direction was Parliament and the river. It's a great location.

Immediatly after arriving, we set out to research the question of whether or not English food has improved since we were last here. The answer is, no. Pub food in London, well, forget it. But the Guinness is still creamy, and that makes up for a lot. Pubs all seem to have a similar ambience, but we recommend small ethnic restaurants for actual hunger related issues.

Having criticized pubs it's only fair to mention this one; the food is awful, but the pub is real. The Sherlock Holmes Pub is on the site of the old Northumberland Hotel, which is mentioned in several places in The Canon of the great man's Adventures. Just a few minutes from our hotel, we couldn't pass this by.

Each time we come to London, I have a different appreciation. Often we've been on our way somewhere else, and don't spend a lot of time in the city itself, but this time I realized my deep appreciation for what this city means to all the world.

The tradition is everywhere...in the museums and on the street corners...there are monuments to warriors and memorials of heros everywhere, and it is a magnet for incredibly diverse citizens, of all shapes and flavors, all drawn to the place where freedom began.

This 2000 year old city has seen everything that history can show. There are other great cities of course, and some older...Rome and Athens come to mind...Alexandria...but in terms of the significance of what happened here, I think London signifies the Beginning of the Modern World. Just think of it....the origin of the English Enlightenment...the beginning of experimental science....home of Issac Newton...the origins of self governing peoples....the measuring of longitude that enabled the spread of European culture over the entire world...the creation of instruments of finance...it goes on and on. And it's not over...the city is growing within itself. One evening at dinner in a tower across from the old city, we counted eight giant construction cranes in a single view...billions of pounds of investment in new buildings.

Some of the new stuff is really ugly, consistent a lot of contemporary "art"...one building, nicknamed The Gherkin, literally looks like a pickle, and it contrasts with the classical Christopher Wren architecture of St. Pauls Cathedral and the old city. But it's still being made. Everywhere there's more...more growth, more traffic, more people, more money... Where does it all come from? I guess from all the world..it all goes to London....for the same reason we do.

Everything is expensive in London....one wonders how anyone can afford to live there....and lots of folks don't, but just come for day trips from outside the city. Still, the place is overflowing with people from all over the world.

Speaking as a Classic Knee Jerk Jingoistic Patriot, it's my opinion that one of the least attractive attributes of life in America is our claim that cities like our lovely Charlotte are "World Class." Fuggetaboudit! London is World Class. On a London Scale, Charlotte ranks no higher than a 3.





This is the Battle of Britain Monument, on the Thames Embankment. I'd missed this on our earlier visits...it's very inspiring, and a remembrance of what was done here, for them, for us, by a small group of brave men.


Most of our time was spent on the usual "tourist" stuff....discovering the underground...Hyde Park on a rainy day...the Victoria and Albert Museum, at any time a superb experience....pubs and small ethnic restaurants....street performers in Covent Garden, a Vivaldi chamber music concert at St. Martin in the Fields....and the London theatre.

Limbo in Covernt Garden

We saw several shows.......the best of which was American, Movin' Out, which we'd seen here...it was superb and wonderful and beyond great...but closing early in London for reasons nobody could understand. Kathryn got to see Judi Dench in an easily forgettable Noel Coward play...she was excellent of course... and we saw "Sinatra" which is popular in London now. At the same time, the latest said-to-be-smash-hit there is Billy Eliot, which we couldn't make ourselves enjoy, even a little... Go figure.

Trafalgar square is a great place...I just wandered around alone one afternoon, while a festival of folk dancers from all over the North of England performed their traditional dances with themes from ancient times, complete with swords and knives, fools and knaves, and fun for the performers and the audience, alike.

Trafalgar Square

We spent one day in Kent, at Churchill's home, Chartwell. It's a lovely place on a large estate...picturesque and all. Actually, I think a case can be made that once you've seen one great man's home, you've seen them all.....but not here.

Chartwell contains the artifacts of one of the critical times in all history...The Battle of Britain...before and after, one of which overwhelmed me. On a wall, by a door, in a small glass frame is a letter from Franklin Roosevelt, the envelope says to "an important naval personage." Here's a copy.

January 20, 1941

Dear Churchill

Wendell Wilkie will give you this--He is truly helping to keep politics out over here.

I think this verse applies to you people as it does to us:

"Sail on, Oh Ship of State!
Sail on, Oh Union strong and great.
Humanity with all its fears
With all the hope of future years
Is hanging breathless on thy fate."

As ever yours
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Think of it..in the darkest hour of a dreadful time, written before Pearl Harbor at a time when the U.S. was "uninvolved," at least officially, the President of the United States summed it all up with a handwritten note to the beleagered Brits...a poem by Longfellow. And it was hand carried by a defeated political opponent, Wendell Wilke, who in the darkness of the hour was "trying to keep politics out."

Consdider the bitterness of our current politics and I wonder if we're the same people now...or whether we can come together ever again to defeat a deadly threat as Americans did in 1941. I was overwhelmed by this note....literally moved to tears.

I can't leave this one out....no boater can not go past the oldest yacht club in the world, The Greenwich Yacht Club, and then downriver to Greenwich and the Observatory.

Here's Kathryn with a foot on each side of the Prime Meridian of the World. I tried to tell her she was in both today and yesterday, but she pointed out that the international date line is on the other side of the globe. Damn smart women, anyway.

There's really too much to show on a blog.....so invite yourself for drinks at our home, and we'll give you the whole earful and pix to boot.

The Signature Treat was "The Crossing" on QM2, the greatest ocean liner afloat. This is a remnant of a former time...some say QE2 is even moreso, though smaller, but this ship is a phenomenon in its own right. Once again, for a discussion of propulsion mechanisms, roll in two days of Force 10-11 storms on the North Atlantic, please invite yourselves for drinks, but here are some impressions.

Imagine the finest Four Seasons Hotel you've been in, a fifth of a mile high, and two football fields wide, laid on its side, driving through the North Atlantic at twenty five knots for a week, arriving under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge at sunrise, past the Statue of Liberty on the port side, to the dock, slick as a whistle exactly as planned, on time to the minute after three thousand miles at sea. If you got that, you're starting to understand The Crossing.

The Ship's Lobby

Accomodations are great, the service excellent and the food superb. Here are some views of the ship....huge and magnificent, and the company was better than that.

The ship carries nearly 2500 passengers, but wasn't completely full...and nearly half that many crew to provide impeccable service. Excesses everywhere, some understated and some not, but no request is untended to. Multiple restaurants, entertainments, pubs, bars, a spa, swimming pools, scholarly lectures, a great library, it's all aboard.

A theatre and Planetarium Entertain Day and Night

A fine bar, The Commodore Room extends across the whole beam of the ship with a view over the bow. The Churchill Room cigar bar was my favorite place of all. I closed that place down with long conversations with a young Scot, Liam each night over brandy and cigars....wonderfully elegant.

Commodore Room

Dinner was formal for several nights, informal, meaning coat and tie or casual on occasion....but that made the evenings into an event...not just a great meal. I actually enjoyed it, although it's clear I spent more time in tux that week than I have in the past three years combined.

All in all, it was a great way to spend a week. I'd probably not do it again, just because I'm a hands on kind of mariner, but it was a rare treat, and a fine way to celebrate our 70th birthdays, this year.

A week at sea is a long way, and a lot of time. I've found, in my own boats, that when things are going well a day at sea is like a day at sea. It gets exciting in bad weather, but this ship performed magnificently in a two day storm, and we hardly were inconvenienced at all. So I was glad to see the Statue of Liberty, and very proud to see the joy and excitement, the anticipation of America in the eyes of all our fellow passengers.

We had a great trip, loved every minute of it...but I'm glad to be home! We have lots of other events planned, and now that I'm about half way home figuring out this Blogger Thing, perhaps I'll do better keeping up in the future.

Check back from time to time.....you never know what I'll post here....and if you have the stomach for it, try the Patriots Point blog too.

Best to all our friends and family, from Jerry and Kathryn