Final post: The verdict on London

Well, it’s time for us to head back home. It’s been a trip with a bigger footprint than my usual planning – France, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and now London. The overriding world theme has remained one of political peril, diplomatic failures, and bewildering aggression.

The personal themes of the trip are far easier to quantify. As ever, when I get out on the road, I meet my kindred soulmates – who are happy to live out of their little suitcases. I get to wander the snack aisles of the markets, poke my head into dozens of churches, and learn about tax systems, hospital care wait times, and utility bills.

I’ve loved our time at the Taj. It is the perfect antidote to crazy, crowded London. Every time we get back to the hotel, we walk into this beautiful courtyard:

We’ve never stayed at a Taj-branded hotel before. It’s over-the-top attentive service. There are about 10 staff members hanging around us anytime we do anything – sip our coffee, walk to the buffet, look at a menu, enter the hotel. It’s a little bit unnerving, but fun for a few days.

I think we’re driving them nuts though. All they really want to do here at the Taj is make us happy – but Ron’s hard to peg. The problem arises each morning at breakfast. We are shown to our table and any normal person would then sit down at the table. But Ron cannot do it. The restaurant offers a large buffet AND the right to order whatever you want off the a la carte menu. And so every morning, Ron freezes, standing awkwardly near our table, unable to choose if he wants to sit down to order his a la carte breakfast or walk over to the buffet.

When Ron freezes in the dining room, the hordes of staff, hovering near our table, don’t know how to help him – and it’s stressing them out. They want him to sit or get food…or something, but instead he stands there while I hiss at him to sit down sit down sit down.

I’m proud to report that I made it through Phantom of the Opera – the whole thing! It was the best production of Phantom I have ever seen – the voices, the set, the costumes. I’d really like to link a video of the cast leads singing Masquerade, but I’ll just include this picture of the costumes:

It was a lovely evening, strolling from our hotel over to His Majesty’s Theatre. It helped me answer that lingering question: Do I really like London?

Absolutely yes! What a city! It’s surely one of the busier cities I’ve visited, but this map of the areas we were touring confirms what we noticed as we walked – there are parks everywhere:

Look at this photo below. It’s a scene from our one mile walk from the Taj to His Majesty’s Theatre. We’re standing here with Buckingham Palace behind us:

And we’re looking off in the distance across St. James Park at this lovely scene:

And then, not ten minutes of park-strolling later, we are at Leicester Square – teeming with people, musicians:

And we ran into this interactive video display called The Butterfly Trail – billed as the world’s first mixed reality experience. It’s a virtual botanical garden – I saw it from afar, as we were walking down Tottenham Court Road, tens of thousands of people walking with us, and pulled Ron right into the chaos to get a better look. I love light art!!

We also made it to Westminster Abbey. The main part of the building you see here was opened in 1269. Westminster Abbey is a seriously important place. It has the burial shrine to King Edward the Confessor, it’s full of the tombs of kings and queens, and in an area called Poets’ Corner, it has memorials to many beloved writers:

Here’s Shakespeare:

Here’s Charles Dickens:

We had timed entry tickets and were some of the first people in and got to briefly enjoy the quiet solitude. About 20 minutes later, the Abbey was so crowded it was hard to move around but here’s a pic from before the masses arrived:

My favorite part of Westminster Abbey was the Lady Chapel, built by Henry VII in 1516. That ceiling below is called a pendant fan vault ceiling. I’m supposed to also probably tell you that the real heavy hitters are buried in the Lady Chapel – Ron was all excited – Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth I, Edward VI:

I’ll tell you this, though: I really don’t know who these Albert/Victoria/Charles/Elizabeth people are and I’ve given up trying to sort it out. We cannot all be historians.

(But compare: we went out to Bletchley Park, the WW2 code breaking museum. There are buildings full of code details, historical impact stories of when the code breaking stopped specific attacks, bombing plans etc. All very interesting – but what exhibits stopped me in my tracks? Well, the listings and discussions of the menus served to the codebreakers, the types of transportation the employees used to get to work, and a reconstructed wall of memos sent during Bletchley Park’s operation – notes about needing more supplies, limiting employees to just one dessert, and invitations to meet for small parties).

Ron may know his history, but he’s not much of a talker. At the end of our Baltics tour with OAT, his tour buddy – who has made sure you’re on the bus, present for tours etc. – was tasked with describing Ron, based on 17 days of obervation. Ron’s tour buddy said only this: he’s taciturn. And he surely is.

Except when he’s not. Yesterday, Ron, who has never – in any of the 10,000 cathedrals we’ve toured in Europe – spoken to anyone – announced that he was going to speak to a priest of this monumental place. Here they are chatting:

That’s it from me. I’ve had a blast and learned so much, even if it’s not the history of the British monarchy. I’ll be back with you in January, when we head out on a two-week bus tour of Baja California, searching for whales.