London, as always, you're awesome!

I traveled to London and Paris mid March with my mother and brother and his family.  I've been putting off blogging about it because I didn't know how hard I wanted to be on Paris in my official report.  London was fabulous and wonderful as always and Mom planned another great trip.  We stayed in Ealing in a very Eastender-esque terraced house.

Our street was very quiet with a small Tesco and Sainsbury's nearby AND a yarn shop a short walk up the street on Ealing Broadway.  We were also a short amble away from a tube stop on the Picadilly line.  Can you believe the shrub behind them in the picture is an olive tree with actual black olives growing on it?  On our way to the Tube station there was also a house with a giant rosemary bush growing in their yard.  Below is a view of the back gardens of the houses.

My only real complaint about the place was it was well equipped but ill equipped.  We had a washer/dryer, plenty of beds for everyone and a towel for each person, but lacking in the little things.  There were two bathrooms but only two rolls of toilet paper in the entire place.  We'd thought ahead and had everyone pack one roll in their suitcase.  We're weird and think of things like this because of past experiences.  There was no hand soap in the bathrooms.  No clocks in the entire place!

What I like about renting an apartment with a kitchen is you can save money on meals by cooking at home.  This place had rudimentary utensils, a can opener that barely worked, one bowl to mix things in, etc.  I sheepishly packed a dollar store muffin pan and cheese grater, my own measuring cups/spoons, egg piercer as well as a handful of parchment paper and was so glad I did!  I left the pan and grater at the apartment as my offering to the place when we left.  Usually rental places have community cupboards of items left by prior travelers: bottles of oil or vinegars, teas, sugar, seasonings.  Not this place.  There wasn't even any salt or pepper in the kitchen.  There was a coffee maker but no filters.  I made what we called "clothes pin coffee" every morning.  For whatever reason, I was worried about the coffee situation before we left.  I packed large unfilled tea bags and coffee grounds as well as clothes pins and made tea bags filled with coffee to steep in hot water.  It looked weird but it worked and I was so glad I brought it!

We made do and sampled British delights from the Tesco and Sainsburys:  Scotch eggs, sausage rolls, pork pies, pot noodles, delicious British bacon, hot cross buns and Cadbury's Easter eggs.  We saw these frozen pizzas and couldn't help but wonder what the heck a sloppy Giuseppe is?  Is it like a sloppy Joe?  I discovered Tick Tock Rooibos Tea on this trip and brought home 3 boxes.  We brought soup mixes and granola bars from home and ate a lot of soup suppers.  Most lunches consisted of cheese and jam sandwiches while out and about.

Mom and I were traveling with a group who had never been outside the US before (except for my older niece) and after we'd arrived at Heathrow, cleared customs, changed money, bought oyster cards for the tube, navigated to our flat and settled in...we were tired.  The first instinct is to nap but it was around 1 PM.  We made coffee, rallied the troops and we all had a little snack and then we headed out into the city.

I'm happy to report that my brother's family are PBS nerds too and they LOVE Sherlock.  Our jet lag crunching afternoon activity was to visit 221b Baker Street, better known as the Sherlock Holmes Museum.  It was just the right amount of activity to pass the time but not be overwhelming on that first day.  We hit Sainsbury's on the way home and had an early supper and early to bed that first night.

Unfortunately, a lot of what we did and saw was stuff we've seen and done on prior trips but most things, like St. Paul's Cathedral for example, never get old.  This photo was taken from the top outer balcony.

My older niece and I climbed this together back in 2012 and again this year.

This was my third trip up to the top of St. Paul's.  Not bad for a fat girl!

Another PBS stop was the department store Selfridges.  My sister in law is a big fan of the show.  We walked through the ground floor but didn't buy anything.  This was the neighborhood we stayed in back in 2012.

The day we visited Trafalgar's, the girls couldn't climb on the lions because they were roped off for a pro-immigration rally.

 We did stop in to St. Martin's in the Field for some brass rubbing and because it is wholly appropriate as St. Martin is the patron saint for travelers.  His symbol is his red cape.  Incidentally, this is the church where  Vivien Leigh (aka Scarlet O'Hara) had her funeral.

One new thing we did that I never would have thought of as an activity was to visit the HMS Belfast.  It is permanently docked near Tower Bridge and is a museum.  My brother is in the Navy so of course it appealed to him and it was handy to have him with us to explain and point things out to us.  He was wearing a Minnesota Wild sweatshirt that day and the ticket gal was a big hockey fan and we struck up a conversation with her.

You could climb all over the decks into the gun mounts and the bridge and below decks they had wax figurines set up in these vignettes.  Here they are portioning out the daily ration of rum.

Here is the sail maker.

This is a mess hall.

The infirmary.

Here is the dentist's office.  It even smelled of clove oil!  To this day my mother in law can't stand cloves in baked goods because she says it reminds her of the clove oil from the dentist.  There were sailors in the kitchens on KP duty, a mock up of the surgery, the ship cat to catch mice and raise morale, the ship bakery and butcher shop.  I never thought about ships being self sufficient like that but they'd have to be to feed a crew for an extended period of time.

There were wonderful views from the river too.  Here is the White Tower.  I'd never seen it from this vantage.

And same goes for the iconic Tower Bridge.

We spent a few hours at the Imperial War Museum.  Never enough time here.  My favorite is always the rationing recipes and the Make Do and Mend stuff and Knit For the RAF.

 We took a day trip over to Windsor and had a lovely afternoon.  England was having an early spring because everything was in bloom on the hillsides.  You can see from the flag that the Queen was in residence the day we were there.

 She didn't invite us in for tea so we had to make our own arrangements.  Mom treated us to a cream tea at Limes.  2 scones and a pot of tea cost L5.95 so we ordered 3 and asked for 3 extra cups.  We Minnesotans were the only ones sitting outside.  Everyone else was huddled inside the heated restaurant.  It was a beautiful but cool day and that hot tea really hit the spot.  We think this place used to be called The Brown Bag because Mom and I swore we'd eaten here before under different management.

We took a day trip to Salisbury to visit Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral.

 This is one of the few churches we visited where we were allowed to take photos inside.

Here is part of the ceiling in the Charter House which holds the Magna Carta.

This is a section of the tile floor in the same room.  I just love the detail.  It was after we got home that we heard of the terrorist bombings in Belgium.

The following day, Mom and I traveled outside London to visit Chartwell which was Churchill's home after WWII.  It was a beautiful stately home and garden.  My brother and his family traveled to Portsmouth to visit the HMS Victory.  Travel was slower and more cautious the day after the bombings.

Mom had arranged a hired driver to take us to Hever Castle which was a few miles away and then back to the train station.  Hever was Anne Boleyn's birthplace and childhood home.  I love the Tudors and was in heaven this day.  They had her prayer books and some of her sewing.  To think she and Henry VIII had walked in those rooms and she had touched those things.  Unbelievable.

I was a bit disappointed because I didn't know the home had been owned by John Jacob Astor and of course remodeled.  I was expecting to see lots of  Hampton Court Tudor rooms but once inside the house, it was relatively modern.  However, there were several Holbein paintings inside and the bed that was believed to have been Anne's.

I should mention that all these day trips require a train to get there.  We took the tube to get around town but anything out of town required the train.  We Americans just don't have any concept of train travel.  I think my nieces got a kick out of catching a train.  I can't help thinking about Hogwarts every time I catch a train in London!

Westminster Abbey was beautiful and we were gobsmacked by history as always.  It helps to get a view of The Eye and Big Ben on the walk in.

Here is a view from inside the cloisters.  Note the flag is at half mast.

We took another PBS day trip out to Bletchley Park.  It was AWESOME!  I was a big fan of the Bletchley Circle series and then of course The Imitation Game and to see the actual place.  It is now a museum and I'd never seen that many enigma machines in one place before that day.  They happened to have an Imitation Game exhibit going on while we were there.  That movie is too adult for my nieces but they still loved the exhibit because they LOVE Benedict Cumberpatch since he is also Sherlock.

There were displays in all the various huts and outbuildings.  I recognize all these structures when I re-watch those shows now!

We hit Convent Gardens Market on the way home for our last minute souvenir shopping and I was kind of disappointed I'd never been here before.  We got some really good deals here for much cheaper prices than we'd seen in the city.  After we got home, we had some championship packing and I ran down to the yarn shop (more about that later).  We'd hit the bakery near our flat for some Easter goodies and mentally prepared ourselves for the trip to Paris.  Security was going to be extra tight and the lines would be longer and slower because of the recent events.  Once again we'd had not nearly enough time in London.  How is that even possible.  London is always beckoning.