We all awoke early the next morning from our spacious room at The Lensbury. We had a full day planned and were so excited to be waking up in one of the greatest cities in the world. The elevator took us down to the restaurant, where of course they had the full spread of breakfast awaiting. We served ourselves, finished our plates rather quickly, and grabbed our things to begin our day. I made sure to flop on my English hat so I could look “cool” while roaming the historic streets of London. Our first thing on the agenda that day had a time slot that we had reserved, so we needed to make sure we got there on time. Plus, we had to catch The Underground, or the train, and we weren’t familiar with doing that yet.

Sometimes, knowing which train to get on was a little confusing. Overall, it wasn’t too bad with the aid of Google Maps, but Google would tend to leave out certain pieces of information about the upcoming train cars that would have been very helpful. We ended up getting on the wrong train just a couple of times, and I’m pretty sure that first morning in London included one of them. And we were very much in a hurry. We were headed to Stamford Bridge, the football stadium for the Chelsea Football Club, to take a stadium tour. The entire train ride there we were wondering if we would make it in time. But by some miracle we did. When I say we cut it close, I mean that in every sense. The tour, which included about 25 other people, had actually already begun, since we were a few minutes late. But one of the employees at the front desk got us caught up to our group and we didn’t miss anything important. When the tour guide went around the group asking where everyone was from, we were the only Americans. There were people from all over the world there to experience the same thing we wanted to.

The tour was a cool experience, though. Chelsea is one of the biggest soccer teams in the world, which is why people from all over the earth were there, so to be able to see the ins and outs of the stadium was very cool. It was a typical stadium tour, so we were able to see the locker rooms, press conference rooms, training rooms, and of course the field, all while learning some history of the place and the team. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and passionate about Chelsea football, which added to the experience. The tour lasted around an hour. Before leaving, we walked around the museum, which spanned a couple floors, and even tried our hand at a kicking challenge they had set up in the museum where you had to kick a soccer ball through three or four different holes. Of course I had to try, so when no one outside of our group was looking, I kicked that thing with my toe (I know that’s the complete wrong way to kick, but also the only way I can) and missed very badly. That’s exactly why I made sure no one else was looking.

We hopped back onto the train and made our way to the royal borough of Westminster. Our next stop was a big one. It was Buckingham Palace. After exiting The Underground, we began our short trek to Buckingham Palace, where our path took us through St. James Park. I was very vaguely familiar with St. James Park before the trip, basically understanding it as “London’s Central Park,” to put it in an American’s perspective. So, when we began walking through London’s 57-acre urban park, it was pretty exciting. Central Park in New York has always looked awesome, but I’ve never seen it in person. And this was the closest thing to it that I had ever visited. Right in the middle of a huge city, a vast green space was sprawled out. Trees, open fields, water, and plenty of people enjoying their day were all around us. We decided to take a small portion of our day and do the same.

It just happened to be lunchtime as well, so very conveniently located was a food stand beside the park. We all bought plastic-wrapped deli sandwiches and a drink, and took a seat on the grass amongst hundreds of others in the park. It was a beautiful day and a perfect one to sit in the park for 20-25 minutes. It was one of the many moments I couldn’t believe how lucky we were with our string of sunny days in the generally rainy city.

After a quick lunch in the scenic park, we finished our walk to the famous Buckingham Palace. The Palace has been the royal residence of kings and queens for centuries and is one of the grandest buildings I have ever been to. At the time of our visit they were not offering tours and weren’t even doing the Changing of the Guards, which I think is only done certain times of the year. That was a little disappointing because I had been looking forward to that leading up to our trip. But we were still in the presence of the grand royal structure, and that in itself was really amazing. Of course, it was very crowded on the grounds outside of the palace. Everyone was trying to get their best pictures taken in front of the gates, while I just wanted to stand and marvel at it for a little while and enjoy the moment. And what a great little moment it was.

While it was special being able to see Buckingham Palace, there was only so much staring we could do at it, so we decided to walk on. Walking alongside the street called The Mall, which ran straight from the palace and adjacent to St. James Park, we made our way to Westminster Abbey. Along the way, we passed numerous old and beautiful buildings that have decorated the London streets for centuries. I wanted to stop and take pictures of all of them, but would’ve been there all day if I had. Everything was so picturesque and ancient-looking, but also so very well-kept. We passed a royal guard sitting on a horse with onlookers, red telephone booths, government buildings, and the famous Big Ben clock tower. It honestly felt like I was walking around in a movie set. I just couldn’t believe I was really in London and seeing all of it in person. The sense of awe was pretty overpowering.

It didn’t end there, though. Next on our agenda was Westminster Abbey, the Church of England, that has stood since 1065. With 40 British coronations held there, 16 royal weddings, and being the final resting place for 18 monarchs, it’s safe to say Westminster Abbey is a royal, historic treasure. In fact, it was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987 because of its historical relevance. The outside of the building, with its Gothic-style architecture, left us staring at it in amazement just as we did Buckingham Palace. And after marveling at the outside of the church building, we were even more impressed by the inside, which was beautifully decorated with paintings, carvings, stained glass windows, and the most details infused in every inch of the place. It was such a huge place with many rooms to explore, so that’s exactly what we did.

We were each given a headset as we entered the door, along with a handheld device that we could use to play audio explaining each room that we went into. It told of the kings and queens buried there, what each room was used for, and all the royal events that had taken place there. It was an abundance of information to try to take in, especially being so visually overwhelmed at the same time. Walking around the place definitely gave us the sense that we were walking around somewhere very, very special.

After our self-guided audio tour was over and we had seen the entire place, we headed to the gift shop to get a souvenir or two. One of the things I was wanting to bring back home, before the trip had even begun, was a tea cup since the British are known for their tea. I thought one would look great in my cabinet in my house, where I’ve brought back some other things from our last international trip. And lo-and-behold, I found my teacup. Sitting on a little plate, it was fancy and royal-looking, and just begging me to grab it. Then I noticed the price tag was pretty fancy and royal-looking as well. After pondering for a few seconds if it was worth it, I ultimately snagged it, got in the check-out line, and bought it. I was in England, I had decided. So, I wasn’t going to hold back.

After our Westminster Abbey experience was over, we strolled just down the street and took in all the famous sites. Of course, the one that really hits you in the face when you turn the corner is Big Ben, the huge clock tower recognized around the world. It may be the most associated icon with the city of London, so I had definitely seen it countless times on tv, whether it was on the news, tv shows, or movies. It provided yet another unreal moment to actually be standing in the presence of the real thing. We walked past the London Eye (the monumental ferris wheel) that overlooks the city, but never considered riding it due to time constraints and the high cost. On another trip, possibly. Our walk continued across a bridge over the River Thames, which gave us a fantastic view of the Palace of Westminster, or more commonly referred to as the Houses of Parliament. The view of the very long government building was another impressive sight to take in. The list of these impressive sights seemed to grow longer and longer every few hundred steps we took. We stopped on the bridge for a while, took in the moment along with hundreds of other tourists, and after a while hated to turn our backs to all of it to continue walking.

Our journey that Thursday afternoon led us along the bustling streets of London, where we saw so many other grand buildings which probably offered significance that we were unaware of. We saw the famous double decker red busses and black taxi cabs everywhere we looked. I was even able to snap a picture of one of each in the same shot. I was really happy with that one. Then we let GPS give us the walking directions to Benjamin Franklin’s house, which was tucked into a small, much quieter street, but still in the midst of all the London chaos. The three-story house was bordered by a row of like-houses all along the street and was a pretty modest house. They do offer tours of the home, but they weren’t at the time we went. However, we took pictures and were able to go right up to the front door. It was a small thing on our list of sights to see, but it was still a pretty cool thing.

Ready to give our feet a break and thirsty from all the walking, it was time to find a pub for a beer. And that wasn’t too difficult. Like I’ve mentioned, there is a pub on almost every corner in the entire country of England. And they all seem to have unique character to them. This one we found was no different. The Sherlock Holmes Pub had that quintessential historic English-look to it. It was located on the bottom floor of a building, which looked like it housed apartments above it. We quickly snagged an available table outside before someone else could, and ordered a beer at the bar. I ordered the Sherlock House Ale, a bitter, which not-surprisingly was really good. We may have stayed there for close to an hour, just sitting and enjoying our conversation, the London streets, and our beers.

As nightfall began to inch closer and closer, we slowly made our way back to The Underground station, stopping at a few shops along the way. It took a while to get back to Teddington, the area we were staying in, especially in the evening with the work crowd trying to get home from work. The train rides in the evenings certainly weren’t my favorite part of the trip. Having to board multiple trains to get back, and having to stand up pretty much the entire time in a crowd of strangers while the train stopped probably 25 times before it got to our stop, made it feel like we were never going to get back. It may have taken around an hour if I remember correctly, which isn’t bad, but it definitely wasn’t fun. The morning rides to London, however, weren’t nearly as bad because the trains weren’t nearly as crowded.

Finally back to our Teddington neighborhood, we were trying to figure out which one of the restaurants around us we wanted to eat at, when we stumbled across an Italian place. I cannot remember the name of it, but it looked nice and we all agreed that pizza sounded great. And it sure was. It was different than the meals we had been having, so a brick-oven pizza hit the spot that night. I don’t know how I remember this, but I remember eating six slices that night. With full stomachs and an adventurous day behind us, we were all ready to get back to the hotel, possibly have a drink or two, and call it a night. One more day of exploring London awaited before our flight back to America and we wanted to make sure we made the most of it. Cheers!

Queen Victoria Statue in front of Buckingham Palace

Garett

England Trip: Day Six