UK is fascinating for all the history,
their royalty, world class museums, churches and centuries old
castles and palaces.
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| KEW PALACE |
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| DOVER CASTLE |
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| KEW GARDENS |
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| KEW PALACE |
WHEN TO GO?
We decided to visit Britain in spring
to avoid the teeming crowds in summer. This meant we'll miss visiting
the Buckingham palace which is open for visitors only a couple of
summer months every year. It was okay with us. We did hope we will
not have to contend with grey skies and constant rain/dreary weather
and fortunately for us we had fabulous weather. The famed gardens
like the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh and London gardens like Kew
Gardens, St James park etc were full of flowers. ... as we did get
the full benefit of the tulips, rhododendron etc
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| TULIPS, KEW GARDENS |
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| Rhododendron, ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, EDINBURGH |
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| Hampton Court Palace |
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| Buckingham Palace |
WHAT TO SEE?
PALACES & CASTLES:
We had our dose of royal palaces with
Windsor Castle, Hampton Court Palace from London and Holyrood Palace
in Edinburgh. The royal yacht in Edinburgh, the crown jewels at the
Tower of London and the royal coaches at the Royal Mews etc were
further delights.
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| Buckingham castle gates |
Leeds castle which is touted as one of
the most beautiful was also on our list and it did live up to its
reputation.
Dover castle, Edinburgh castle etc were great as well. So
no dearth of historic castles on our visit.
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| Leeds Castle, Kent |
We had a couple of scenic train
rides... one on the Edinburgh Express savoring the journey to
Edinburgh from London. Another train journey from London to
Canterbury and Dover castle was through scenic Kent which is the
Garden of England.
In England our main stay was of
course in London; we included day trips to the famed Leeds Castle,
Dover Castle, Canterbury along with shorter day trips to Windsor
Castle, Hampton Court Palace from London.
We managed to have a flavor of
Scotland as well, visiting Edinburgh for 3 days. The train
journeys were enjoyable in themselves because of the lovely scenery.
Of course there are tons of misses but we were very happy with what we managed to experience!
Of course there are tons of misses but we were very happy with what we managed to experience!
ITINERARY:
Day 1, April 28, 2013: LONDON: Tower of
London, Organ recital at St Paul's Cathedral, Evening mass at
West Minster Abbey.
Day 2, April 29, 2013: LONDON: St
Margaret's church, St James park, Concert at Royal Opera House,
British Museum.
Day 3, April 30, 2013: LONDON: Day
trip to Hampton Court Palace.
DAY 4, MAY 1,
2013: LONDON: Day trip to WINDSOR CASTLE
DAY 5, MAY 2,
2013: Edinburgh: 7am Edinburgh Express from London-Edinburgh, Royal
Yacht Brittania, The Scottish National Gallery, St Giles Cathedral
DAY 6, MAY 3,
2013: Edinburgh: Holyrood Palace, ROYAL MILE, The People's Story
Museum, The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
DAY 7, MAY 4,
2013: Edinburgh: The Edinburgh Castle, National Museum of Scotland,
4.30pm train back to London
DAY 8, MAY 5,
2013: LONDON: Day trip to Leeds castle, Kent and Canterbury
Cathedral.
DAY 9, MAY 6,
2013: LONDON: Day trip to Dover Castle
DAY 10, MAY 7,
2013: LONDON: St Paul's Cathedral , Royal Coaches, Royal Mews, Buckingham
Palace, London Eye, Big Ben, Parliament
DAY 11, MAY 8,
2013: LONDON: Kew Gardens, Aquarium, Kew Palace, Victoria and Albert
Museum
DAY 12, MAY 9,
2013: LONDON: Trafalgar square.
Now I give a
detailed account of our trip.
DAY 1, APR 28TH, 2013, NOON (12° C—1° C Temp):
British Airlines flight took off from
Houston at 4.50 PM on Apr 27th and landed in Heathrow at 8 am. After
immigration and passport control, we met our Exclusive Airports cab
driver holding a signboard, withdrew £ 200 from the cash machine (no
transfer fee).
Our cab was soon speeding through the
suburbs –we were oohing and aahing about the blue skies and the
little white fleecy clouds prancing around chasing each other!! A
huge relief after constantly hearing about the coldest April
London was witnessing in 65 years!!
Reached Premier inn, Hanger lane by
10.15. As it was a Sunday (when fares are hiked), the cab charge was
£35. If we had prepaid by card, it would have been just £30. Tipped
the cabbie 1 £ for his assistance with bags. Dropped our bags at the
hotel, got some change for a 20, took bus no 83 to Ealing Broadway
overground station paying £2.40 for a single.
(Tremendous amount of traveler info is
readily available on British sites: for a compulsive researcher like
me, this was the most comprehensive web info beating the other
countries we have traveled to hollow. The tfl site is a treasure. You
get interactive maps of tube, bus and station facilities, even
avoiding stairs/ toilet facilites maps!!
tells you all you need to know about
taxi fares in London.
is the central London bus map
worth its weight in gold.
Keying in the location of our hotel
gave us this map about buses
Bought our 7 day travel card for £ 35
after getting a photocard as well with the passport photos we had
brought. Took the central line tube to Bank, from there changed
underground to Monument and reached Tower Hill gate station. Then
walked towards our 1st attraction on this trip—the Tower of London.
Tower of London:
We had earlier planned on going to the
Kew Gardens 1st but after knowing about the free organ recital at St
Paul’s at 4.45 on Sundays, and at 5.45 at Westminster abbey
followed by evensong there at 6.30, we decided it’ll be easier to
go from the tower. It would have been too difficult from Kew gardens
as there was some planned maintenance work on the district line which
our friend the tfl site had told us about!!
On Sunday the tower opens only at 10
and when we reached at 11.30, thankfully the crowd was sparse. We got
our 2 for 1 tickets at £ 21.25, showing our 2 for 1 coupons and
travel card and entered the grounds...
(We had printed out 2 for 1 coupons
from the days out guide website to avail the discount— pamphlets
with coupons are supposed to be at rail stations but we did not see
any through out our trip)
Lovely sight—the tower was built as fortress by William the conqueror in 1060s. The green grass seen now was a moat then.
The Tower of London has played a prominent role in English history. It was besieged several times but never conquered. The Tower has served as an armoury, treasury, menagerie, the Royal Mint, and the home of the Crown Jewels of the UK. From the early 14th century until the reign of Charles II, a procession would be led from the Tower to Westminster Abbey on the coronation of a monarch.
Yeoman warders:
The niftily dressed Yeoman warders are
ceremonial guardians of the Tower of London.
In principle they are responsible for looking after any prisoners in the Tower and safeguarding the British crown jewels, but in practice they act as tour guides and are a tourist attraction in their own right; they are recruited after 22 years of military service...they are called beefeaters because they were allowed to eat as much as they wanted from the king's table!! Every 30 minutes, there is a free tour of the grounds by these warders lasting an hour... the funny spin they put on the gory tales of the tower is a huge testimony to the famed British humor...
In principle they are responsible for looking after any prisoners in the Tower and safeguarding the British crown jewels, but in practice they act as tour guides and are a tourist attraction in their own right; they are recruited after 22 years of military service...they are called beefeaters because they were allowed to eat as much as they wanted from the king's table!! Every 30 minutes, there is a free tour of the grounds by these warders lasting an hour... the funny spin they put on the gory tales of the tower is a huge testimony to the famed British humor...
is the link to access the whole 1 hour
of a yeoman warder tour—history with a heavy dose of British humor.
William Edward Callaghan who is the warder here is a huge star!! He
even has his own channel where he has uploaded a funny speech he‘s
giving at another function!! We however, did the sight seeing on our
own and joined the warder only on the last leg because the chapel can
be entered only with them... The tower demands a whole day to do
justice and since our time was limited, we had to tour on our own…
we loved the last session with our warder—he was awesome!!
The tower grounds are very well
sign-posted. ..
since we had read up all details from the website:http://www.hrp.org.uk/TowerOfLondon/stories, we knew where to go according to our priorities......we had a great map as well.
since we had read up all details from the website:http://www.hrp.org.uk/TowerOfLondon/stories, we knew where to go according to our priorities......we had a great map as well.
bugbog.com/images/…tower-of-london-map.jpg has
a similar map—can’t find the link for the one we had printed.
The crown jewels:
Our 1st stop was to see the crown jewels of course…
hrp.org.uk/toweroflondon/…crownjewels
gives details and pics of the displayed
items—so we knew what to look for
There was a very small queue entering
the tower and we went along through the dimly lit halls with tacky
tableaus of royal history. Current queen's coronation videos were
good though...no pics allowed at the crown jewels gallery inside this
clock tower— but we managed to get some videos of the gold/silver
religious paraphernalia...
We went on the conveyor belt 3 times and had a good look at all the crowns, the sceptre has the star of africa, the largest colorless diamond in the world. The queen mother's crown has the kohinur, along with 2800 diamonds. St Edward's crown is the one used in coronation and weighs 2 1/2 kg. Yes… it indeed is a heavy burden to carry and the coronation robe on display with all its gold work weighs a ton as well!
We went on the conveyor belt 3 times and had a good look at all the crowns, the sceptre has the star of africa, the largest colorless diamond in the world. The queen mother's crown has the kohinur, along with 2800 diamonds. St Edward's crown is the one used in coronation and weighs 2 1/2 kg. Yes… it indeed is a heavy burden to carry and the coronation robe on display with all its gold work weighs a ton as well!
The imperial state crown has the other
big cullinan diamond. There are 23578 gems and world famous diamonds
there. The coronation spoon and the eagle flask for holding the holy
oil were cool as well, the separate showcases of the huge gold
punchbowl and religious paraphernalia were great too... These were
looted during the civil war but remade when Charles II came to power
in 1661.
After feasting our eyes on all that
bling, our empty stomach was growling—we sat at a bench and had our
picnic lunch of home made puris (flat bread made of whole wheat flour
kneaded in milk and deepfried) and tomato chutney which tasted like
manna from heaven on the fabulous grounds overlooking the White
Tower. The cool breeze caressed us gently … it was a perfect start
for our vacation!
Suddenly the guards were marching and
another set was marching in and there was a change of guards with
some ceremony—we ran to the spot with our mouths stuffed with puris
and took a video of the event!
Change of Guards :
White Tower:
Our next stop was the White tower—
Royal armoury is displayed here. This is the 'keep' the strongest
structure of a medieval castle. St John's Chapel is inside the White
Tower.
The royal armoury collection shows some
of the armours made for the Henry VIII, and the Stuart Kings of
England: Charles I, Henry Prince of Wales, Charles II, and James II
jewelled gun by Cartier and diamonds forming bullet track.
There were lovely gem studded guns, sword hilts glittering with diamonds, amazing how a king can use these weapons in a battle without getting distracted by all the beauty!!
This is a 400 yr old Bible.
Now we were off to another facet of the tower—the grisly side.
There were lovely gem studded guns, sword hilts glittering with diamonds, amazing how a king can use these weapons in a battle without getting distracted by all the beauty!!
This is a 400 yr old Bible.
Now we were off to another facet of the tower—the grisly side.
Bloody Tower and the Torture Chambers:
Saw the Bloody tower and the torture
chambers.
The castle's use as a prison continued
in 16th and 17th centuries, when many figures such as Elizabeth I
before she became queen, were held within its walls. Seven people
were executed within the Tower and 112 executions on the notorious
Tower Hill to the north of the castle over a 400-year period.
Out of the many prisoners, there was a
protestant martyr Anne who was tortured on the rack and burned at the
time of Henry VIII.
A jesuit priest during the times of
Elizabeth I however escaped.
Guy Fawkes was a catholic noble who was
responsible for the gun powder plot to blow up the parliament with
king James. in 1605, Nov, he was hung, drawn and quartered. The day
is celebrated as Guy Fawkes day with fireworks.
Poet Sir Walter Raleigh was one of the
prisoners here for 13 years from 1603 for plotting against the king.
James I freed him to find the land of El Dorado—the place he had
claimed to have visited which was full of gold. Finally Raleigh was
beheaded and his wife who had been imprisoned with him preserved the
head in a velvet bag till her death.
There are similar gory details about
the incidents in the tower but the yeoman warders make it all sound
funny—for this they said—-Raleigh had the worst prison
sentence—his wife was imprisoned with him!!! Imagine being 24/7
with your wife for months/ years on end!!
After the beheading in front of a
crowd, the executor will hold the severed head up and say"
here's the traitor".Then the head will be fixed on a spear and
paraded along the Thames. This was meant to deter others from
attempting treason against the monarch...the victims would pay their
executor so that there is one clean blow.
The Warder said when the cheating wife
of Henry VIII Anne Boleyn was beheaded, the French executioner had
come upon her from behind when she was addressing the crowds and
slashed her head off in one swift stroke— when the head was held
up, the lips continued to move and the eyes were rolling!! The warder
said, "Women—- they have their last words come what may, don't
they?? chatter.. chatter..." What a joke!!!
Talking of Anne Boleyn, here's the tale of all the 6 wives of Henry VIII...
Talking of Anne Boleyn, here's the tale of all the 6 wives of Henry VIII...
The first of Henry VIII's six wives,
Katherine of Aragon (1485-1536) was a Spanish princess ; Katherine
had been pregnant six times but only one daughter, later Queen Mary I
(Bloody Mary), had survived. After 18 years Henry began divorce
proceedings to re-marry and produce a male heir... Katherine had been
earlier married to his 15 year old brother who died, making Henry the
heir... Henry later cited this earlier marriage as the reason his
marriage was void...
The second, Anne Boleyn (c1501-1536)
was married to the King for only three years. Instead of the sought
after male heir, Anne had another princess (later Elizabeth I). Anne
Boleyn was sure of being given a pardon that she had not prepared a
coffin for herself. So when she was beheaded, her body was buried in
a small chest that was available—the severed head was put on the
lap as there was no place to extend the body. The ghost of a headless
body has been seen riding a horse through the courtyard holding a
head on the lap
The yeoman warder spin on Anne
Boleyn—she wanted to give the king a male heir— so she tried hard
not just with the king but with many other men as well. So she was
executed at the Tower of London for adultery.
Jane Seymour was the third wife, she
gave birth to male heir (later Edward VI) at Hampton Court Palace but
died soon after— on the funeral day of Katherine, the first wife. When Katherine
died, Henry had ordered celebrations but he fell from a horse and
became obese and sick then onward and his favorite wife died as well.
Probably Katherine's revenge!
Anne of Cleves was the fourth of Henry
VIII's six wives and at 24 was half Henry's age when they married.
Henry saw Anne in a painting but in the flesh, Henry found Anne
unattractive and began pursuing one of her maids of honour, teenager
Catherine Howard.
After six months the marriage was
annulled yet Anne remained in England and on good terms with Henry
VIII. Henry married Catherine, rumours of Catherine's past and
present love affairs reached him. She was arrested at Hampton Court
Palace and later taken to the Tower of London where she was beheaded
in February 1542, aged about 21
Kateryn Parr (1512-1548) was the last
of Henry VIII's six wives. Intelligent and devout, Kateryn loved
Thomas Seymour but Henry's proposal could not be refused. She and
Henry VIII married at Hampton Court Palace. He was 52, she was 31.
After the King's death in 1547, Kateryn was free to marry Seymour but
she died 15 months later, aged 36, having given birth to their
daughter.
Here's the memorial to all the souls lost in this courtyard...
Here's the memorial to all the souls lost in this courtyard...
The Ravens:
Saw the ravens. Legend says that the kingdom and
the Tower will fall if the six resident ravens ever
leave the fortress. It was Charles II, according to the stories, who
first insisted that the ravens of the Tower should
be protected. There are seven ravens at the Tower today ( the
required six plus one spare!) Their names are Hardey,Thor, Odin,
Gwyllum, Cedric, Hugine and Munin. Their lodgings are
to be found next to the Wakefield Tower. The ravens consume 6oz. of
raw meat and bird formula biscuits soaked in blood each day.
Royal emblem on the gate. From an angle, it appears as though the crown is sitting on son's head:) ha ha!
Tut tutted at the royal excess of keeping exotic animals in a menagerie.
Royal emblem on the gate. From an angle, it appears as though the crown is sitting on son's head:) ha ha!
Tut tutted at the royal excess of keeping exotic animals in a menagerie.
There is a daily Ceremony of the Keys
when the gates of the Tower of London are locked each night before
10.00 pm by the Chief Yeoman Warder escorted by an armed guard of
four men.
The ceremony has taken place over the
same piece of ground for about 700 years. It is heavily booked and
watched and is a popular tradition.
Gift shops are integral parts of
all these attractions—they do have classy items but priced pretty
high. We desisted from buying from them as far as possible— bought
some lovely magnets at 1/3 rd the price from a small shop at
Westminster area later. picked up a lovely magnet replica of the
crown here along with a ring.
The shop had some lovely items and playsets.
The shop had some lovely items and playsets.
There was miniature replica of all the crown jewels crafted with gold/silver plate and crystals...
note the eagle ampulla flask to hold the holy oil and the anointing spoon used for coronation.
This is replica of imperial state crown. There were books in honor of the 60th anniversary of the coronation and the ever present state crown.
nice mug for £50... with a spoon having a crown handle—good combo
St George, the patron saint of England, slaying the dragon to rescue a beautiful lady. The dragon stands for wickedness. The lady stands for God's holy truth.
Armoury playset
Nice souvenirs—William and Kate are
available as well.
Sevre porcelain set—with the royal crown motif.
We got out and were on our way to our next destination.
We got out and were on our way to our next destination.
Organ recital at St Paul’s Cathedral:
We had planned on attending the organ
recital at St Paul’s Cathedral. so traced our way back to the tube station
Tower Hill and got down at Monument—wanted to transfer to Bank to
go onward to St Paul's but a lucky talk with a tube staff guided us
to go on the same tube line to Mansion house ... it was an easy walk
to St Paul's from that station and we were well in time for the 4.45
organ recital—-the recital was great as expected—how could it not
be in such magnificent surroundings. We closed our eyes and soaked in
the ambience.. suddenly sleep was creeping in, we shook ourselves out
of the jet lag and dragged ourselves out after the recital!
Westminster Abbey:
It was 5.20—could we make it to
Westminster Abbey for their 5.45 organ recital? No cabs in sight…We
rushed back to mansion house tube station and took the district line
to Westminster.. out of the tube station and Big Ben greeted us
majestically… lovely!!
We set on our walk toward the abbey—passed the parliament square with all the statues, taking videos all along…
we walked on and on… the building was magnificent but where was the entrance??
We accosted a passerby who was walking his dog—he told us we are at the Parliament—the Abbey was in the other direction. OK, we retraced and found the abbey—by then the organ recital was over but we were right in time for the evensong. We got in as the organ recital audience came out and participated in the service…it was divine when the choir sang—we did find ourselves nodding off and sternly rebuked ourselves to rise to the occasion and enjoy the rare opportunity.
We set on our walk toward the abbey—passed the parliament square with all the statues, taking videos all along…
we walked on and on… the building was magnificent but where was the entrance??
We accosted a passerby who was walking his dog—he told us we are at the Parliament—the Abbey was in the other direction. OK, we retraced and found the abbey—by then the organ recital was over but we were right in time for the evensong. We got in as the organ recital audience came out and participated in the service…it was divine when the choir sang—we did find ourselves nodding off and sternly rebuked ourselves to rise to the occasion and enjoy the rare opportunity.
After the service, we went back to the
Tesco Express near the tube station to stock up for our stay—to our
disappointment, it had only ready made items and no staples—we
munched on a hummus wrap and made our way to the tube station with
the slim pickings we had managed from the shop.
Took jubilee line north to Bond Street
and transferred to our central line and reached our hanger lane
station—just a few steps from our hotel… an afghani shop beckoned
us there—normally we are queasy of the sight and smell of meat
displays but we walked in and the shop had all our requisites with a
warm assistant trying to speak our language!! We stocked up and got
to the hotel, checked in and crashed into our bed…
oooh… what a day it had been.. . 3
big ticket items on the day we landed… crowns danced in our dreams,
swords swished, lions roared, choirs sang soulfully, headless ghosts
rode by…
Day 2 report is here:
http://adventuretrav.blogspot.com/2017/08/london-trip-report-day-2-west-minster.html
Day 2 report is here:
http://adventuretrav.blogspot.com/2017/08/london-trip-report-day-2-west-minster.html
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