The day after Christmas, which is Boxing Day in the UK, we traveled to London to spend a few days there. We were joined on the Eurostar high-speed train between Paris and London by what seemed to be half the population of both countries. Boxing Day is evidently a popular day to travel. We showed up at Gare du Nord in Paris about an hour before our train -- normally 15 minutes is plenty -- and we still missed the train by 30 minutes. In fact, we almost missed the next train. But after a bit of stress and a bunch of scrambling, we finally were able to sit down for the relaxing two hour fifteen minute journey.
I had always been curious about the experience of crossing under the English Channel -- via the Chunnel -- on the train. That too we missed. With the train departing in the evening and traveling through mostly low population areas of France, the whole trip was dark and nothing really stood out about going through the Chunnel. That was a bit of a disappointment.
We stayed in Wimbledon, a suburb of London, at the home of our friends Kathy & Mike. Their son, Gavin, went to Kindergarten with Clay last year in Kirkland. Like us, they packed up their family and moved to Europe this past summer. Unlike us, they packed up pets and everything else, have rented a house (not an apartment), and plan to stay for at least a few years. Clay had been talking for months about seeing Gavin so he was very happy to see his friend. Paige holed up in her room to avoid Gavin's little sisters and Erin & I enjoyed visiting with Kathy & Mike. We also enjoyed being in a house again.
Our couple of days there were spent exploring the tip of the iceberg that is London. The first day we wandered through the Tate Modern where the kids saw a couple of paintings and artists that they recognized and were intrigued enough by the modern art to survive an hour or so. Then we saw the exteriors of the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey but didn't have enough time to go inside like we had wanted.
The second day we had fun visiting the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park where we enjoyed bratwursts, Dutch poffertjes (a real treat; soaked in butter and smothered with powdered sugar), and a fabulous homemade blueberry liqueur (a subsequent business trip to London had me squeezing in a side-trip between trains to go buy a bottle).
We then went to the Natural History Museum to check out their fabulous dinosaur exhibit, featuring a number of amazing full skeletons. Finally, we did a quick run-through of Harrods to finish up a busy day.
In typical fashion, we traveled around the city and from our base in Wimbledon using a combination of trains, subways, double-decker buses, and the famous London black cabs. The double-decker buses were by far our favorite, offering a great view from the top as we traveled from place to place.
The metro offered a surprise. While I was working on getting tickets, Erin and the kids ran into a family from Bellevue that lived three houses down from us. They were in London for the holidays and on a tour so they could just briefly stop and say hello. Small world.
On our last day, after saying thanks and good-bye to Kathy, Mike, and family, we had lunch at a traditional pub and then spent half an hour in the National Gallery. A benefit of many museums in London not having entry fees is that you can quickly pop in and out without feeling bad about paying $30 or $40 (or more) for a short visit. We couldn't see much in the short time we had but the kids enjoyed seeing some paintings by Monet and then discussing the vivid painting The Execution of Lady Jane Grey by Paul Delaroche, depicting the sixteen year-old queen's last moments.
We then hustled back to St. Pancras International Station to catch the Eurostar back to Paris. On the return journey, I paid careful attention to when we might be in the Chunnel and this time barely recognized it.
I had always been curious about the experience of crossing under the English Channel -- via the Chunnel -- on the train. That too we missed. With the train departing in the evening and traveling through mostly low population areas of France, the whole trip was dark and nothing really stood out about going through the Chunnel. That was a bit of a disappointment.
We stayed in Wimbledon, a suburb of London, at the home of our friends Kathy & Mike. Their son, Gavin, went to Kindergarten with Clay last year in Kirkland. Like us, they packed up their family and moved to Europe this past summer. Unlike us, they packed up pets and everything else, have rented a house (not an apartment), and plan to stay for at least a few years. Clay had been talking for months about seeing Gavin so he was very happy to see his friend. Paige holed up in her room to avoid Gavin's little sisters and Erin & I enjoyed visiting with Kathy & Mike. We also enjoyed being in a house again.
Our couple of days there were spent exploring the tip of the iceberg that is London. The first day we wandered through the Tate Modern where the kids saw a couple of paintings and artists that they recognized and were intrigued enough by the modern art to survive an hour or so. Then we saw the exteriors of the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey but didn't have enough time to go inside like we had wanted.
The second day we had fun visiting the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park where we enjoyed bratwursts, Dutch poffertjes (a real treat; soaked in butter and smothered with powdered sugar), and a fabulous homemade blueberry liqueur (a subsequent business trip to London had me squeezing in a side-trip between trains to go buy a bottle).
We then went to the Natural History Museum to check out their fabulous dinosaur exhibit, featuring a number of amazing full skeletons. Finally, we did a quick run-through of Harrods to finish up a busy day.
In typical fashion, we traveled around the city and from our base in Wimbledon using a combination of trains, subways, double-decker buses, and the famous London black cabs. The double-decker buses were by far our favorite, offering a great view from the top as we traveled from place to place.
The metro offered a surprise. While I was working on getting tickets, Erin and the kids ran into a family from Bellevue that lived three houses down from us. They were in London for the holidays and on a tour so they could just briefly stop and say hello. Small world.
On our last day, after saying thanks and good-bye to Kathy, Mike, and family, we had lunch at a traditional pub and then spent half an hour in the National Gallery. A benefit of many museums in London not having entry fees is that you can quickly pop in and out without feeling bad about paying $30 or $40 (or more) for a short visit. We couldn't see much in the short time we had but the kids enjoyed seeing some paintings by Monet and then discussing the vivid painting The Execution of Lady Jane Grey by Paul Delaroche, depicting the sixteen year-old queen's last moments.
We then hustled back to St. Pancras International Station to catch the Eurostar back to Paris. On the return journey, I paid careful attention to when we might be in the Chunnel and this time barely recognized it.
 |
| A batch of poffertjes cooking |
No comments:
Post a Comment