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At last, our adventure begins. This is our 5th trip to the Island of Fehmarn to do research for this website. But before we start the working part of this trip, John and I will be taking a short, 3-day holiday in London, England this year. We arrived in London this morning about 9 a.m. local time. From Miami, Florida, we flew into Frankfort, Germany, and from there we flew to London.... About 10 hours aboard the two flights. I was so grateful to be on the ground. I tend to get just a little nervous about the flying, but not enough to stay at home! I had arranged a "Meet & Greet" service to pick us up at Heathrow Airport and take us to the hotel. After a short mix-up with the London Shuttle Service, which resulted in an extra wait of almost 1 hour ……we were on our way to South Kensington, where we had a room waiting for us at The Gallery Hotel. The ride to our hotel was just over 30 minutes, but this was our first view of the city, so we sat back and relaxed. (Tip for our friends: Always confirm your Internet reservations just before leaving home. It probably would have prevented this mix-up.) After doing some research about London, I decided driving was not for us. Everything I read on the Internet advised against it…… what with the traffic being very heavy within the city and everyone driving on the wrong side on the street. With this in mind, I choose a hotel in an area that had several attractions within walking distance. There were some large museums in this area and the tour guide, whom I had chosen, also recommended The Gallery Hotel.
The Gallery Hotel is a winner. Although the room is small, it has all the extras that make for a comfortable stay. The service is excellent and the people are very friendly. The building is quite old, as are all the buildings in this area, but the interior has been restored to be quite elegant, with a wonderful blend of the old and the new. They call themselves an….”Elegant English Hotel” and they most certainly are. Check out their website at www.eeh.co.uk After barely settling into our room, we decided to take a walk and find a restaurant for lunch. We were very tired (up about 26 hours by now) but needed a good meal more. From the ride over, we saw that there were shops and a large choice of restaurants in the immediate area. Within two blocks, we found a French sandwich shop called La Brioche and ate fresh-made sandwiches in a tiny shop. Refreshed, we decided to walk around the area and explore the local sights. At this point, we found an ATM machine in the Kensington Station (for the Tube or Subway, as we know it). Without difficulty, John used his bankcard and got $300 British Sterling Pounds from the machine. This is a very convenient way to convert your money and very easy. Later we found out this cost him $503 US dollars making the exchange rate about 1.67 Pounds to our $1.00 USD. Walking around the streets proved a bit challenging, as the traffic is moving in an opposite direction than we are used to. Consequently, this means that you must look in the opposite direction than you would normally want to look. Luckily, on the streets, just off the curbs, on the road, are painted "Look Right" or "Look Left" in large white letters. I imagine we're not the only confused pedestrians in this town!
After we had wandered a few blocks, we found the British Museum of History. Admission was free, as it is in most of the museums, but special exhibits charge a fee. This museum was in the most spectacular, cathedral-like building I have ever seen. It was very huge and very beautiful. This museum was opened in 1881 and houses some of the finest natural history collections in the world. We walked thru room after room of exhibits about the earth..... rocks, gems, dinosaurs, fossils, mammals, whales, birds, etc that were spectacular to see.
Unfortunately we did not take the proper time to see everything in this extraordinary museum. In addition to being tired, we only had this afternoon to see as much of the local area around our hotel as we could in just a few hours. So, after viewing probably only half of the exhibits in the Natural History Museum, we wandered next door to the Victoria and Albert Museum. This was a very impressive art museum.
The Victoria & Albert Museum (www.vam.ac.uk) is home to 3000 years’ worth of artifacts from many of the world’s richest cultures. They have the largest collection of Renaissance sculpture outside of Italy. You can view the history of Britain through the art works in the British Galleries, and view the varied collections of jewelry, ceramics, photography, metalwork, furniture, costumes and glass….. to just name a few. This museum offers free-guided tours and special exhibits for a fee, but we decided to roam the various rooms at our own pace. We wandered through room after room of statues and displays from different countries and time periods. We particularly enjoyed seeing the collection of Renaissance sculpture from Italy and other countries. These were cast reproductions of the originals and were spectacular to view. We found a large number of these statues to actually be ornate crypts. Considering that John and I like to visit cemeteries...... This exhibit was by far our favorite. By 2:30 p.m., we were feeling the pain..... In our legs and feet! But, like fools, we walked a few more blocks to the Science Museum. It looked interesting with exhibits from the Titanic and several IMAX movies available. But it had a 45-minute wait for a movie about the Titanic, and even though we wanted to see it, we just couldn't make it. Our bodies wanted a rest!!! We continued to walk around the block looking for the street that our hotel was on. It was located only 1/2 block from the largest building in the area..... The Natural History Museum, so we knew we couldn’t lose it! Once we walked back to that extremely large and awesome building, we quickly located our hotel and went up to our room for a short nap. By 5 p.m., we were rested and off again. This time we went looking for an Internet cafe. We found one only a few minutes walk from our hotel, as directed by the young man at the front desk. For only 2 Pounds, we used their computer to check our e-mails from home and send out an e-mail telling all our friends and family at home that we had arrived safely and were having a good time in London. After some more exploring and upon the recommendation of our desk clerk, we found Dino's Restaurant for dinner. For a mere 23 Pounds, we had an excellent meal. The area around our hotel has many shops and ethnic restaurants to choose from, so our choices were great. Relaxed and full, we walked slowly back to our room to watch some very interesting English TV. Have you ever seen a TV talk show Host dressed in a peacock feather shirt???? Wow! It was very strange as I’m sure our television must appear to our visitors from other countries.
Time for bed…… Tomorrow is our 7-hour London Tour with Harry Norman.
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