London Holiday Day 2 & 3

London Holiday Day 2

Philip and I woke around 8:15 and went down to join others at the hotel breakfast. After fortifying with the very English full breakfast of eggs, mushrooms, tomato, toast or croissant, fruit, bacon, and various other sides, we split up to each get in some places of interest. Drew, Tjitske, and Dad went off to see Baker Street and the Sherlock Holmes Museum while Bill, Joseph, Philip, and Mom went back to the Tower Bridge to walk across it. Abby and I set off for some London shopping!

Abby and I boarded the tube and got out at the Oxford Circus stop to see what was there for shops. We walked down a little bit of Oxford Street and part of Bond Street, stopping in at stores that caught our fancy. Sales were incredible, but we didn't find anything perfect to purchase. After about an hour of this, we once again got on the tube and headed down to Knightsbridge to visit the world famous Harrod's department store. This is apparently the largest in the world and is very elaborate in its decor. People (like us) do not go here to shop but rather to gawk. Clothing and accessories are multi-thousands of pounds and are from the highest end designers. The main attractions here though are the food halls and the Egyptian Hall and Escalator.


We entered the main door, held by a uniformed doorman, into the House of Luxury. Here Hermes scarfs were displayed in glass cases. We then went through a doorway on the right into another House of Luxury - this time handbags. The entire ceiling was elaborately carved and painted, and carved Egyptian tiles were around the upper walls. We then entered the first of the Food Halls - there are a bunch of them and each is elaborately decorated according to what is contained within. The Fruit & Veg hall had grape and vine chandeliers, the Tea and Coffee Hall had Chinese decor - lanterns, etc. Each food hall is the size of a small supermarket. After touring through all of them, we returned to the hall that had sandwiches and other prepared foods and chose a sandwich to share and some salmon sushi rolls.

It was also in this hall that I had my first ever sampling of haggis. Knowing what haggis was, I had no desire to try it in Scotland (or anywhere else) but there was a lady giving out samples in a cup and she claimed it was fresh lamb meat and very delicious. So I took a cup and gave it a try. This Haggis at least was not greasy or disgusting at all. It was very tasty served over taters and neeps. I saved the rest of the sample for Bill to try.

Then it was back to confectioneries to chose a treat for Abby. We then headed to the Escalators - five floors of them all stacked in an atrium with many Egyptian decorations. The bottoms of escalators were covered with mosaic tiles and if that wasn't enough to keep you interested as you rode up to the next floor, there were plenty of carvings and statues lining the walls. Abby and I rode up a few floors and then back down, enjoying the sights. We then exited via the crush of humanity in the Cosmetic and Perfumery section and headed to Trafalgar Square via the tube. We were all to meet up at Trafalgar to spend the afternoon touring the West Bank sights.

We met Bill and Mom and the boys near the doors of the National Gallery and found that they had a great time touring the Tower Bridge. Drew, Tjitske, and Dad showed up shortly after, having had a good time touring the Sherlock Holmes Museum and eating at a nearby cafe. We then all struck off through the square and down Whitehall. After reaching Big Ben and Parliament, we left Mom, Dad, Tjitske, and Drew at Westminster Abbey (we had just toured through in August) and headed back up, taking a leisurely tour around Parliament Square to take some more pictures.

Then it was a stop at the Horse Guards to snap pics and let the kids pet the horses. We went through the Horse Gate into the park behind to figure out what is was and caught the Horse Guard changing as we came back out. After walking all the way back up Whitehall, we headed to Starbucks off of Trafalgar Square and chilled out for a few minutes with our coffees and hot chocolates.

Then the five of us went to visit the National Gallery. This Gallery contains quite an astonishing collection of art. We started with the left side of the gallery, working through 15th and 16th century artists. The Kruppa Srs met up with us after a while and we whiled away some more time, hitting a good portion of the Impressionist rooms. Philip was getting very tired and cranky and had a few bad moments in the museum but Joseph and Abby did pretty well all in all, putting up with a more adult activity with the promise that they would get to go to the Science Museum the next day. I myself was very tired of walking and standing by the time we were all done. My personal take on the art was that some of the paintings I would view and not be particularly captured by, but then there were others that I would look at in astonished wonder - like how did he get that pink gown to shimmer?

We then collapsed in a tired and hungry stupor on a bench in the main hall of the gallery, waiting for a few minutes before heading out to dinner. It was a short walk down to the Texas Embassy where we guzzled down the iced tea. Tjitske and Drew joined us after a short wait and we found that they had gone into some War Museum and then into the western portion of St. James park, where hungry squirrels were aggressively looking for food. One particularly brave squirrel raced up Drew's trouser leg in search of food - I am thinking that lots of people feed the squirrels here, as they do the birds at Trafalgar Square (thank you Mary Poppins). Then it was back to the hotel, where the kids were divied up in the rooms and we all crashed in exhaustion.

London Holiday Day 3

Joseph was staying in our room that night, and we gave him permission to quietly play his DS if he woke up before us. The next morning, I stirred as he rustled a plastic bag to get to his DS. He then made a lot of noise getting up to use the toilet. I was laying there, waiting to go back to sleep, when it occurred to me that I didn't feel 6:30 or 7 AM tired but more like 8 or 8:30 AM tired. Since we were meeting up to go to the Science Museum at 9:45, I figured I should get up and look at the time. Hmm, it was 9:30!!! I quickly woke up Bill. Needless to say, it was a very late start for us. When we called over to the Kruppas, we found that Abby again was sick with a fever. So after eating breakfast as quickly as possible, everyone but Abby, Mom, and me set off for the Science Museum. Mom decided to stay in her hotel room with Abby that day, so I got ready and packed up all our stuff, took it over to the Kruppa's room and checked out (the Kruppas were staying another night to go to the airport the next day, while the rest of us were taking the train home).

I have to say that I myself was very tired that day - I wasn't too keen on standing and walking around all day, after two solid days of it. I got to the museum just in time to sit down for lunch! : ) After lunch I took Philip down to the exploration area for kids his age, where he spent an hour playing with this water contraption. Bill, Dad, and Joseph hit some more exhibits, while Tjitske and Drew took off for Buckingham Palace and other highlights they hadn't gotten to. At 3:30, I blissfully sank into the seat of the IMAX with Joseph, Philip, and Bill to watch Fly Me to the Moon - very cute animated movie about the lunar landing. After that, we went to get our coats - Bill and Philip leaving to go back to the hotel, and Joseph and I going back to watch another IMAX - Sea Monsters.

After Sea Monsters, we booked it to the tube to get to our restaurant to meet everyone on time. We found the restaurant easily and were hardly late, despite the tight amount of time to get there. There we celebrated Tjitske's birthday - New Year's Eve - and ate our Thai dinners, topping it off with lots of fried banana desserts. It was then a huge rush to get back to the hotel for our stuff and make our train home at St. Pancras. I was somewhat concerned about the timing - taking the Piccadilly line seems to be very time consuming because it is so far underground, and at St. Pancras, it is always a hike from the tube to the trains. We said our very sad goodbyes to the Kruppas at the tube station. The tube stopped for a bit on our way to St. Pancras, but fortunately got going without too much of a delay. And we were so quick getting from the tube to the trains at St. Pancras, that we ended up being a half hour early! The train ride home was fairly empty and we purchased some teas to settle our fried-banana-laden stomachs (oh, and scarfed down some cookies to help with that too) and enjoyed a nice ride home.

At home we did a quick unpacking and got the kids to bed and then ushered in the New Year watching Big Ben chime the hour and the London fireworks display over the London Eye. Happy 2009!!!!!!!!!

London Holiday Day 1

Monday morning, we organized ourselves to head to the train station. Two adults had to take an 8:57 train (in order for rail ticket discounts to apply) and the rest of our group had to travel on the 9:26. Bill drove his dad, Joseph, Tjitske, and Drew down to Kettering and dropped them off to come back for Abby, Philip, his mom, and me. Drew and Tjitske took off on the 8:57 with plans to wait for the rest of us at St. Pancras train station. Dad and Joseph chilled in the coffee shop waiting for us to arrive. Our drive down to the train station was as fast as possible but only left us five minutes until the train’s departure. I leapt from the car and whipped out our huge duffel bag and my bag and with Mom’s help, herded the kids into the train station. Bill zoomed off to park the car. As we came out onto the platform, the train was already there waiting, so we started to load our luggage on. Dad and Joseph saw us from the coffee shop and came out with all their luggage and began loading. Bill was nowhere to be found. The train guy was ready to close boarding, and just then I saw Bill coming through the doors. But, unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to get a ticket for the car-park, so he ran to the train to get a train ticket from me. I whipped one out of the holder and stuffed it into his hand as the doors were closing on us. So our train took off without Bill. It was then I realized that I had, in my haste, given Bill a child’s ticket, not an adult’s.

I had my phone, and Drew had Bill’s phone, so Bill was left with no way to communicate with us. We knew he could get a train a half hour later and decided to wait in an obvious place for his later arrival at St. Pancras. I was really hoping they wouldn’t check his ticket too closely so he wouldn’t have to buy a whole other adult ticket.

Once at St. Pancras, we left the frigid track area and went downstairs to the shop area, spotting Tjitske and Drew on our way down the escalator. After a toilet break and a few trips up and down the escalators for Philip, we spotted Bill coming down the escalator! Basically, the car-park ticket machine there at the train station was broken, so Bill had to go all the way across to a different place to get the ticket which was why he was overly delayed. It all worked out pretty well though and the delay was not too long at all. Dad and Mom set off with some of the luggage in a taxi – heading to our hotel – while the rest of us headed for the tube. There were huge long lines to get tickets, so that took some time, but we eventually made our way to the Earl’s Court station and easily found the hotel. We left all of our luggage there and set off for the Tower of London. It was back to Earl’s Court and all the way across the District Line to Tower Hill – a ride of about 20 minutes.

After arriving, hunger set in and all but Bill and Drew went to find somewhere to eat. Bill and Drew got in the hugely long line to buy tickets for the Tower of London. Once we found a nearby bbq restaurant, I went back to the line to tell the guys where we were. Fortunately, the line moved fast so we were all able to get our lunch pretty much together. Then it was off to the Tower.

I personally think the Tower of London is a “must see” and it was quite an amazing tour. You walk along the walls and go through the round towers spread here and there along the walls. In one tower, we found King Edward I; and Bill, Abby, and Joseph were sent by the queen to go before the king to plead for their home and land to be returned to them. King Edward I decided to allow them to live in their home and pay rent to the crown – very magnanimous!

Another tower held ancient crowns used in the past for various monarchs – now without the gemstones because the settings had weakened. Then we moved on to the White Tower – perusing weaponry from the last 1000 years as well as actual suits of armour from various monarchs and aristocrats etc.

It was quite the crush and we tried to see as much as we could of the five floors, but time was going fast and the last admission for the Crown Jewels was 4:30. So with this in mind, we exited there at about 4:15 and got in the huge line to enter the vault. The line moved much faster than I anticipated and we made it through the doors in time. The Crown Jewels at the Tower holds gem encrusted crowns – about a dozen of them, including the State Coronation Crown. There is also the scepter that holds a 530 carat diamond – one of the nine diamonds to be cut from the Cullinan diamond – the largest ever found. There is also a robe made with gold thread as well as huge displays of gold used for dinners and feasts. Of course it’s no photography allowed and there was tons of security everywhere to ensure no one was breaking rules. One guy tried to surreptitiously take a picture and we saw a guard corner him and confiscate the camera and start deleting photos. After being boggled by priceless treasures, we exited to the beautiful sight of the Tower Bridge lit up in the night.

We then took the tube back to our hotel to prepare for dinner. Bill and I had dinner reservations just for us (anniversary dinner a day late) and the rest had reservations at a restaurant named Giraffe. They set off walking shortly before 6:30 and Bill and I leisurely got ready for our later dinner of 8 PM. At 7:30, Bill and I went downstairs to leave and as I was walking by the hotel restaurant, I saw the family sitting at a table getting ready to eat. Somewhat taken back, we went in to see what had happened. They had walked up to Kensington High Street and were just about to reach the restaurant, when a group of Palestinian protesters started up pretty much right in the area of the restaurant. Things were looking a bit chaotic and rowdy and very quickly police arrived on the scene and started barricading things. So they couldn’t get to the restaurant and in the interest of safety, they turned around and brought the kids back to the hotel.

Bill and I then went on to our restaurant, a lovely French place smack in the middle of a high-end designer store area with the requisite Rolls-Royces, Lamborghinis, etc. It was a quiet night in that area though and we had a peaceful and delicious dinner before heading back.

A note about this trip: there was definitely a difference in London at this time of year. In August, there were lines at the London Eye, but there was not the huge crush of humanity that occured during this trip. London was packed, everywhere, and it was almost vibrating with energy. Tourists like us were out in droves speaking many languages. Lines for attractions were long and there were little “events” happening everywhere you went. Add to this the heightened security (elite police with automatic weapon guarding various places) and things were hopping.

Scotland

Monday morning (22nd), we set off around 10:15 for Scotland. It was us with two kids in our "estate" Mercedes and the Kruppa Srs with one kid in a rental compact. Shortly before leaving, I tossed a whole bunch of food stuff into boxes including a very large turkey for Christmas dinner. I knew we were in for a long trip when our first toilet stop was 45 minutes later. Then of course, it was another stop for lunch down the road. After lunch we managed to eek out an hour and a half before stopping again. Then we hit traffic around Manchester which slowed us down for a while. But the hours eventually did pass and we hit Scotland at Gretna Green, unfortunately missing the exit for our route. I was supposed to be navigating, but the lady from Edinburgh Castle had called me back right in those moments and I became distracted until we were right on the junction. We then wound our way down a B road to connect back with our route. Now, when I say B road, you must picture a narrow, winding, country road with loads of hairpin turns and hedges on either side of the road. Anyway, our journey did eventually bring us to Scotland's west coast. We then decided to stop and eat dinner shortly before we reached our place. We were the only customers at the Black Bull that cold dark night. Thus fortified, we drove down a few more one-lane, twisting roads complete with hair-pin turns and sheep-crossing grates until we reached the middle of nowhere. Our place proved to be two 3-bedroom bungalows and we unpacked and settled in.

Tuesday morning, Bill felt pretty sick and decided to stay in. The rest of us went for a drive up the coast to explore the area. We wound our way from the middle of nowhere (Dailly) out to Ayr then on to Largs. It was quite a cloudy afternoon and pretty windy down by the ocean, so our explorations were abbreviated. At Largs, you can catch a ferry over to an island, but we decided against doing that. We then took our cold selves back home for some R&R and dinner.

Wednesday was our big outing to Edinburgh Castle. Edinburgh was about a two hour drive from our place, so we left at about 8:30 that morning. After parking in a nearby garage, we began our trek up to the castle. I say up because when you arrive at the castle area, it is perched up high on a hill above and you have to climb significantly to get up there.

We strolled across a bridge, and past a large fountain, then down a wide lane flanked with gardens (somewhat winter-bare). Then, it was onto the streets of Edinburgh, steadily climbing uphill - one of the roads was appropriately named The Mound. Views of the city were wonderful. Finally, a little breathless, we arrived in the castle courtyard.

Our tour of Edinburgh Castle was in general a real highlight! The castle is huge and has many areas to explore. Along the walls, you could view the entire city spread out before you. Beyond that to the west you could see for many miles over to Ben Lomond and surrounding mountains. Over to the north and east-ish, you could view surrounding hills and ocean. It was amazing despite the grayish skies and very easy to see why the castle's location was prime for fortification.

We toured through a chapel that is the oldest building in Scotland, a building honoring dead soldiers, the Royal apartments (Queen Mary would have lived in these apartments), the building containing the Crown Jewels of Scotland and the Stone of Destiny (this is the stone that Jacob supposedly slept on and that every monarch has had under the coronation throne as they were crowned), and the Great Hall. We also ate lunch in a cafe there near those buildings where I partook of my first mince pie ever. I thought it was very tasty. Then it was onward through the dungeons and a few other buildings including another military type of museum. Hours later, we determined we had seen almost everything and definitely enough, so we headed on out.

Then we headed down the Royal Mile, going first into the store where tartans are made and they have an actual tour of the mills downstairs. We then continued further with a brief stop for a few in the writer's museum (something about Robert Burns). Then we detoured over to the Royal Museum to view some great exhibits from Scottish history. After all that, we exhaustedly plopped ourselves down at a Mexican restaurant for dinner before heading back to our place.

The next day was Christmas and the first order of business was for Andrew and Tjitske to be picked up at the airport. I started cooking the giant turkey. Despite not being at home, we were able to produce a wonderful Christmas dinner feast, followed by present-opening for the children.

The next day, I managed to sleep long in the morning which was great! Late morning, we all headed out to a nearby castle ruin - Dulquharran. The drive was about a mile or so away, and then we walked along the muddy road leading to the castle for about another mile. This castle was once magnificent, I am sure. Now, it is an empty carcass, surrounded by tall fencing to keep people out.

After lunch, we headed out to nearby Culzean Castle. This castle is located high on the cliffs of the ocean overlooking the Firth of Clyde. It is ranked as the second-best castle in Scotland, after Edinburgh Castle. The castle grounds are extensive and are now a country park open to the public. There is a fountain garden, , a walled garden, a swan lake, a cliff walk, a deer park, an aviary, thousands of acres of woodland walking paths, and a few thousand feet of beachfront. The castle itself was closed for the winter season, but we were able to tour around all the castle buildings. You cross a very picturesque bridge after going through a very old archway. On either side are gardens. Then you enter the castle courtyard where the main larger building is to the left, and a smaller building is to the right. The archway leading directly through the building on the right brought us out into a smaller courtyard and gave spectacular views of the ocean and cliffs looking to the north. We then headed back along the front of the larger main castle.

This lea down to the various walks that you can take through various gardens. Nothing was in full bloom of course, it being winter, but you could still how beautiful they would be. Then it was up to the cliff walk. We took the path that switch-backed down the cliff to the beach and explored down there for a bit. The beach was very interesting - course-grained, multi-colored sand, purplish-pink rocks, yellowish covered rocks, and all manner of huge rock formations. There was also a view out to the ocean's left of Ailsa Craig, a large, round mound of rock sticking out of the ocean. A few of these unusual formations can be found around the coasts of Scotland. By this time, it was closing in on dusk, so we headed back up and wound our way through part of the park and back to our car.

As opposed to the strong and impressive fortress profile of Edinburgh Castle, Culzean was a more whimsical and romantic type of profile, with many turrets and decorative medieval columns. The surroundings were stunningly beautiful, both in splendid ocean views and well-planted and tended gardens.

Thus ended our tour of Scotland and its ancient castles. The next morning we headed out to brilliant and blinding sunshine and below-freezing temperatures. We saw incredible countryside views (missed coming in because it was night) sparkling with ice and glistening in the sunshine.

We left Scotland without incident, except for Mrs. Kruppa beginning to feel worse and worse (sick). Upon reaching the same area of M6 near Manchester though, we were literally stopped for a few hours in terrible traffic. Shortly before we got in this jam, we blasted by a truck catching fire - and just managed to make it safely through the view-obscuring billows of smoke before traffic stopped there also. It was frustrating to sit in traffic, but we finally made it home at around 7 PM.

Scotland was very gray at this time of year - not a whole lot of daylight, but was still very beautiful and the castles were awesome. I have come to the conclusion that it would be even more incredible in the long summer hours of daylight. There is no spot on Scotland that is more than 65 km from the ocean. A trip to the Highlands might be well worth it in summer.