London Blitz

Photos by H. Darr Beiser

St. Pancras Hotel

This city buzzes and these people fly. Thus, it was critical to have our able 21-year-old son to guide us through the city in three days at top speed. This was the first trip I have taken when I did not have time to unpack. 

We met at our beautiful hotel, the St. Pancras Renaissance.  But oh, how I wish they had not given us a room on the ground floor. Now I will have to write a whiny review because I felt that we only got a fraction of the hotel experience. To get to our room we had to walk down a long corridor of full length portraits of 19^th century hotel staff. A cook with a whisking bowl, an aproned woman with a dead chicken, a butler with a covered dish on a silver tray. Plus, they were those creepy paintings where the eyes follow you. But other than that, nothing to complain about. The St. Pancras is a beautifully restored Gothic wonderment.

The Booking Office at St. Pancras Hotel

The blitz began, we got on a double decker bus (“with no driver on the top”) and went to the lively South Bank, which stretches on with restaurants and bars and milling for miles. It was sunny and warm, and the weather imperative is followed strictly here. So it was packed. My son says that if the sun is shining when he is headed for school, he sometimes doesn’t make it into the studio.

Poet with the Bard, South Bank

We passed the new Old Globe, the Shard, buskers, a street poet and a dungeon. We waded through the happy hoards, studied the Thames, the skyline with its odd mix of old and new new new, and the predominant city bird, the crane. We crossed Tower Bridge, strolled around the Tower of London, saw the weirdo ravens.

With my towering guide

Had dinner at a crazy hip Indian restaurant called Dishoom. An hour and a half wait during which they passed trays of sherry and chai and mint tea. The food was out of this world and served so quickly you’d think you were at El Minuto Cafe in Tucson. Spicy prawns, lamb stew, saag and garlicky naan. The waitress could not be heard or understood but boy was she enthusiastic and had mega big black eyes with tons of makeup.

The Shard

Day Two our leader commandeered us to the Churchill War Rooms, perfectly preserved since August 16, 1945 "the day they turned the lights off in the Map Room." All muzee-ified now with glass enclosures. See where the war cabinet smoked and made powerful decisions. See where they slept and where they stayed up all night. Go through the Churchill Museum to learn what a pain in the ass Winston was to work with, what he drank, when he napped and bathed, and what an amazing man he was.

We passed through St. James Palace and saw all the Queen’s pretty horses and pretty men.  Then as we were heading for Buckingham Palace the Changing of the Guard procession appeared on the street right in front of us. And we were under Big Ben at chime time. Travel karma.

And that Buckingham Palace and its gardens and St. James Park, and the monument to Queen Victoria, well they are all spectacular. And they remind me why I love London. Flew by Trafalgar Square and Parliament and 10 Downing.  We stopped in at the Courtauld Gallery and learned about the history of impressionism.  Then sat out in the full sun in the lovely lovely Somerset House courtyard.

Somerset House courtyard

Made an evening reservations for the London Eye which my son thought might be too touristy. My husband quoted graffiti from London 40 years ago:
           “Bloody tourists.”
           “We are all tourists.”
It is not a scary Ferris wheel where your feet dangle, as I had imagined. It has big enclosed pods that carry 12 or 15 people and provide a view of the entirety of London.

Eye, ay yi

Headed for Drummond Street for dinner, dense with Indian restaurants, we chose Shah Tandoori where they saw to our vast needs for spices and rices.

Oxford Botanic Garden

Day Three we took a train to Oxford University my son expecting little more than to see the Harry Potter movie sets. But of course it was this and more, we stopped first at  Christ Church Cathedral and therein was the dining room that served as the model for Hogwarts.  Oxford is a Classics major delight, with tons of architecture featuring my friends the Gods and their antics in marble and stone. Oxford University is college after beautiful college, one more impressive than the next, with courtyards and quads and history and famous alumni. It differs from my alma mater, the University of Arizona, only in that it was founded 700 years earlier.

Oxford Natural History Museum

At the back of the Oxford Natural History Museum, the Pitt Rivers Museum features a collection of archaeological and anthropological “stuff” (300,000 objects) by brave world explorers or fearless donors.  My favorite, the “Smoking and Other Stimulants” case, featured a collection of hookahs, opium pipes and utensils to pry apart the yummy betel nut. And also, a “tooth that fell out of an old person” that shows decay and rotting from the betel deposit.

Back to London, the Marylebone neighborhood.  We spent much time discussing why Marylebone is pronounced Marleybone. But like so many questions about the British, we had to give up. Why do they say “lovely” when you hand over your credit card? Why did the man coming out of the port-a-potty in Oxford say “excuse me, love.”  And why do they use “fancy” as a verb? French dinner at Galvin Bistrot de Luxe.  

Okay, one more day of the blitz.  We had breakfast with UA grad Paul Kelly who lives in London after years in Granada. Okay, we hadn’t spoken in 30 years and had a lot to catch up on. But a friend from Tucson is a friend forever.

Where are my marbles?

And we went to the British Museum. Let’s see those ripped off Elgin marbles. There is a propaganda pamphlet that justifies the theft…well, they are made available to the public free in a museum that has 12 million visitors a year. As opposed to say, in dusty old Athens with the Parthenon?  Who ever goes there?

Led to a conversation about The Godfather

 

Round the world in 90 minutes…to Greece and Rome, Egypt, Asia and Africa. I loved the Enlightenment Gallery, lined by books of the history of everything by everyone.

Pranced through Regent's Park for the afternoon.

Finished off with an Italian dinner at Latium. Nothing like pasta after a nine-mile walk. No wonder Caesar's troops liked Italian.

I didn’t read a guide book until the end of this trip, unusual for me, but as I looked through it, I saw that we had blitzed through the major highlights of London in 72 hours and 35 miles of walking.

Time's up