London Diaries
UK was never on
my mind as a tourist destination. Why pay again to people who have already
looted so much from us? Well! The best thing I learnt from this trip is to let
go. Let bygones be bygones. We live in a different world today where our
economy has given them a beating for the first time. Our choice of destination
was first Rome and then we thought about Greece but then we found out that
Schengen visa dates are not available at all and we won’t even get an
appointment before our travel date. That's when the travel agent suggested UK. “4
din mein mil raha hai visa”, she said. When I started researching the place to
finalize an itinerary (yup we didn't go through that agent, UK doesn’t need one),
I realized UK is in a big mess. Inflation is sky high, veggies are being
rationed (only 4 carrots per buyer, you can read the story here https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/rationing-of-fruit-veggies-in-the-uk-the-politics-and-economy-behind-it/articleshow/98233209.cms?from=mdr
üôÅ), compulsory 15% service charge in restaurants (instead of customary 10%),
strikes going on especially in the medical fraternity etc. Paris too btw was in dumps
due to strikes (even garbage picking employees were on strike so the city was
stinking it seems). This was the situation 2-3 months before my travel date
when I was researching. After much back and forth and checking many more
options, this seemed to be the easiest trip to plan. Air travel, hotel and 4
days for visa. Initially we wanted to do London plus Edinburgh but we made it
even more easy by sticking to London. Our itinerary was flexible.
Day 1 - We
started from Mumbai by Kuwait airways. I had seen many pics of the new
interiors of Mumbai airport but it was my first time to see it in person. It's
been a long time since I travelled internationally, Corona chi krupa. We had
friends for company on the airport to chit chat since this friend (with his
family) was travelling to US on the same night, same time. So the wait wasn't
boring at all.
Day 2- Surprise
surprise!! Our flight was to depart half an hour before schedule. So we took
off at 1:45am and dinner was served at 3am. Sabko utha utha ke dinner de rahe
the. Dinner was okay. Nishad was fast asleep and didn't bother to eat. Kuwait
airport, at least what I saw, was ordinary. Nothing fancy. The moment we landed
the azaan started. We took the connection to London after around 2+ hours.
Breakfast was again okay. Typical English breakfast with scrambled eggs (my
hubby definitely makes them better), sausages (beef so I skipped), juice,
yoghurt, croissant, bun maska jam (now it's sounding Irani) and tea/coffee. What
happened to those spices for which they made others life hell! Atleast, some black
pepper. Anyway. I watched 2 movies in 10 hours. I watched "The
intern" and "Thalaivi". Both movies are good. I did try sleeping
but I rarely get a full sleep when I am traveling.
On landing, we
took the underground from Heathrow to Earl's court. We stayed in a very basic
hotel called Manor. One tip here for first timers. While researching
(applicable to budget hotels only), I came across hotels where a shower was
attached to the room but the toilet wasn't. Funny and stupid. I was glad to get
a full bathroom attached to my room. I have been to Europe before but had never
come across something like this. Thank God, I didn't miss this detail. My hotel
was a stone’s throw away from the underground and secondly you have a bunch of
restaurants around. So 5 stars from me on the location. A shop exactly next to
the underground called “Earl's court food and wine” sells packed Indian food eg
chicken curry and rice or biryani Or veg options with authentic Indian taste.
So our food problem was immediately solved. We love to eat other cuisines but
we knew we had a "go to" place for food. This same shop sells
souvenirs and also rain cards aka pocket raincoats. I had purchased it in India
and taken along.
Today we had
planned Madame Tussauds (station Baker Street), not for the wax statues but for
its Marvel 4d experience. This was on my kids list. It was good. My kid enjoyed
a lot. As far as the statues are concerned, frankly there were many which I
didn't like especially Deepika Padukone, Shahrukh and Katrina. My question is,
did Deepika go to them for measurements and colour matching with such horrible
make up or has the quality of the wax artists dropped? Shahrukh was
recognisable but not an exact replica. Katrina was better amongst the three. More
than a decade ago, I had visited Tussauds in Amsterdam and it was good, much
better than what we saw here.
Next, we saw Sherlock
Holmes Museum. This was on my list of places to visit. Undeniably the most
famous address in the literary world, I loved the museum especially because the
lady who gave us a walkthrough had a captivating style and she brought Sherlock
Holmes to life. Sherlock’s house, Dr’s equipment bag with all his surgical
things in it, the letters written by Holmes, all made it seem that these two
men (along with Moriarty etc) were alive. The museum is a just a tiny walk away
from Tussauds.
Regents Park was
close by so we dropped in there. Lovely park. Total greenery, serene, well-kept
and I love it when a park has a water body with ducks in it. Birds chirping. It
was a bright sunny day hence the Brits too were cheerful.
This much site
seeing was enough today. We went back to the hotel totally tired and sleep
deprived with jet lag as a bonus. So my take - go to Tussauds for the marvel
experience but not for the statues or the history of London or other phalana. I
will recommend Sherlock Holmes museum and regents park. I liked it. Btw, do you
know that London has a pigeon menace. Back at the hotel, we slept like logs.
Day 3 - The day
is quite longer and starts early too. Today we had booked a tour to Warner
Brothers Harry Potter studio in the afternoon. So in the morning slot we went
to Hyde Park (station Hyde Park corner). My husband and kid loved this park
more than regents. It's a huge park and we could not explore it in entirety.
The internal roads of the park were filled with horse poop so it was a little
disgusting. However the greenery is to die for and the squirrels were so
adorable. My kid had fun clicking the squirrels. Overall, London has so many
huge green spaces right inside the city. Please keep contactless cards handy.
The public toilet here did not take coins and my international credit card
(contactless card) did not work here since ICICI has not entered into a
partnership here. For the same reason, we purchased oyster cards for the metro
travel. The drawback with oyster is that they charge a 7-pound fee per card.
However, you can keep the card with you for life. Con of having an international
contactless card is that you will pay fees per transaction since it will be
considered international transaction. So find out what works best for you.
My first impression
of London - keeping the history aside, I loved the city. Loved the houses, the
huge office buildings, the carvings on them, well planned transport system and
since it was start of summer - the weather too. London otherwise is a gloomy
place with people who are not upbeat during those winter months. All people
dress elegantly and this is something that really distinguishes Americans from
the Europeans. BTW, I have never seen such wholesale long noses on people's
faces. They really do have extraordinarily long noses. Women’s faces can more
or less be put in 6-7 moulds but they are good looking although I found women
in Paris are a notch more good looking. I also saw lots of children everywhere.
The only person I spoke English with, is my son who like an angrez has stopped speaking in Marathi for some reason. I have to bring him back to
becoming a Puneri. My hotel guy was Indian. The underground help desk guy was a
Sikh. After entering Mc Donalds, the person at the counter exclaimed “Tumhi
Marathi aahat”. He was overjoyed to hear Marathi. He was aapla Mumbai cha
mulga. He was so happy that he gave few extra fries to my son. The nearby shopkeeper too knew Hindi.
Now bring in the
history and I felt yeh sab humare paise se banaya hai aur yeh bakiyon ko loot
ke banaya hai. Aish hai. Irrespective, from builders and architects point of
view, everything is tastefully done. As for the weather, it was the start of
the summer and but the wind was cold. My method of judging if the season has
properly changed or not is by looking at locals. There was a sizeable number of
locals who were still wearing jackets and that meant it was only early days of
summer. The wind was blowing and it was quite cold.
Harry Potter
studio - The buses are called coaches and start from the Victoria coach
terminus. So you have to first reach Victoria underground station then it's a
little walk to the bus stop. My son is a big fan of the books but somehow he
was not drawn towards the movies. Most of the experience here is about the
movie making. Kids and adults alike love Harry Potter and the craze is evident
and still going strong even after so many years have passed. As the bus leaves
London, you immediately see vast open green spaces suggesting that the
population here is still low. If we leave Mumbai or even Pune for that matter,
the urban sprawl continues for a very long time before you finally hit an open
patch either agricultural or otherwise. The urban sprawl is limited. Back to
Harry Potter, the studio gave good insights into film making. The sets,
drapery, mechanics e.g., how the iron moves over clothes automatically and the
knife chops vegetables automatically. It is good info for kids. In fact after
knowing how it works, Nishad was fully relaxed in that forbidden forest. The
green room is a highlight. Unfortunately, they charge you separately for
filming you on the broom and the queue is
really long. We decided to skip it because my kiddo was interested in every
single detail and we had limited time on hands. We could not stop at every place.
Each kid gets an activity passport and you can put a stamp of every house on
house on it. BTW, my kid is in Ravenclaws house. The souvenir shop is highly overpriced
even by UK standards. 34 pounds for a wand is ridiculous considering half of
them were just moulded plastic and quality was worth Rs150. Some had beads on
them but I won't give it more than Rs 200. Anyway the hysteria associated with
it makes you keep logic away and buy so many things. As for the weather,
although yesterday was bright and sunny and today it was quite cold. English
weather! The next day was back to being sunny.
Day 4 - Today we
went to Greenwich Royal observatory. This was on my husband’s TODO list. You must
take the tube to North Greenwich and then take the bus to Trafalgar Estate (and
not Trafalgar Road, these two stops are adjacent but different). After you
alight from the bus, just enter the bylane on the same foot path and keep
walking till you reach a park. Enter the park and in the middle of the park,
you have to climb a small hill. The observatory sits atop this hill. All in
all, it is a bit of walk and a climb so do keep that in mind. A wheelchair
accessible road is available but it quite a longish route. I can proudly say
that quite a few of my friends have referred to my travelogues before they
planned their trips and hence, I write these tips in case they have senior citizens
with them. A note for senior citizens – All my trips where we have used public
transport in Europe and Singapore requires a lot of walking and hence, they
should consider their fitness level. Truth in today’s era is that some senior
citizens are more fit than me. In my defence I have walked in the waree for 21km.
LOL.
Anyway. Back to
the topic. The park is huge and a delight for pet dogs. The observatory had a
fair number of visitors, especially a school picnic although it is not a
typical touristy place. This was a must
visit location for my husband who was interested in knowing all about the
clocks made by John Harrison to solve the longitude problem over the sea. The
clock actually went through four versions before being declared perfect and won
the coveted award of 20k pounds to whoever solved this issue. My son was age
appropriately interested in standing with two feet on the two sides of the
meridian and making a reel. I will
recommend this place. They do have a deer enclosure somewhere but we had to
skip that. Kiddo had a great time rolling on the grass. Parks across England
need a special mention and accolades. They are extremely well kept and are huge
in size. Most belong to the Royal family.
Today we also
went to Wimbledon. You might ask what kind of planning is this? We had two
locations on the opposite side planned in a day. Well, we had plans to do
Wimbledon on the weekend but a friend with a good know-how asked us to change
our plan because 1. It is overwhelmingly crowded on weekends 2. this was a long
weekend and 3. you get a family ticket on weekday which is far less than the
price on weekend. Remember that to go to Wimbledon, you should not go to
Wimbledon station but get down at Southfields. Further we were told it's just a
few minutes walk from the station but boss take my word. It's not "just a
few minutes" for a Punekar although it could be for a Londoner. You better
take bus 493 and get down at Gate 4, Wimbledon Stadium. The tour of the courts
goes on 90 minutes which includes some fabulous history of the game, the
passion of the players and staff alike, technical aspects about maintaining the
grass and Rufus - the hawk. We saw multiple courts including the prestigious centre
court. The place was in full action mode since the tournament is not far away.
This was followed by the museum which is in the same complex. We were exhausted
that day but it was a day well spent. Wimbledon was on my bucket list. However
McEnroe's ghost was nowhere visible. Either I missed it or a change has
happened. Please google the terms if you are not aware. We crashed on our beds
that night and our eyes were closed the minute we hit the bed.
Day 5 - Today we
decided to sleep an hour extra in the morning. Humari vaat lag chuki thi. Today
was a special day for us. Windsor Castle was to be followed by a visit to my husband’s
very dear friend. We took the tube to London Paddington National Rail after
which you have to take the GWR rail, basically the inter-city railway as
against the local metro. Your final station is Windsor and Eton. The castle is
just outside the station and thank God, no walking today. Please do not miss
the Royal shopping area at the station. A special mention to Hobbs. I loved
every piece of apparel on display. The
castle is as expected.... Grand. The variety of weapons on display made my kid
go crazy. He loves history. Swords, pistols, armours in huge numbers and very
well arranged. The entrance moat and courtyard are good too. The beautifully
decorated halls are a highlight. However, same cannot be said about its
architecture. The halls were dimly lit artificially using lamps in spite of the
beautiful sunny day outside. The King's closet was huge as expected followed by
a dressing room which didn't have any mirror (maybe they had one in olden
days). The next room however had two huge mirrors on the wall. They were placed
next to the windows and did not help at all in bringing the natural light into
the room. Secondly they were placed at such a height that the king would have
hardly seen his face in it, not a full self. These were the flaws I found in
one glimpse and based on common sense. The lone security guy in the funny red
outfit and a hat covering his eyes was standing like a doll. What a redundant
job! BTW, he is known as the royal guard.
The gift shops
are as usual overpriced and nothing exquisite to buy. The new addition are
coronation memorabilia or the Queens photo merchandise after her demise. The castle has a chapel adjacent to it.
First, excuse my lack of knowledge about difference between a church, chapel,
cathedral, abbey etc. 1. They all seem same to me on the outside 2. I don't
know the meaning of these words. 3. I am not going to make any attempt to find
out the difference even now. Moot. After entering, we realized we were walking
on graves. Most of them are in the path and all the visitors were walking on
the graves because there was no choice. That was the only path to move inside
the chapel. There is no other way. The place was totally crowded due to 1. Sun
was out and 2. Long weekend. Only the recently expired queen and her husband’s
graves are on the side. Apne ko ajeeb lagta hai woh.
Once done Kaustubh’s
dear friend was kind enough to come all the way to Windsor to pick us up. So
kind of him to do that especially because we were quite far away from his place
of residence. At the friend’s house, Nishad was the happiest because he got
friends of his age with the same hobby.... Reading. Also they love the same
authors. Lots of catching up for the guys and as for me, I am so glad to have
found such wonderful friend. Although I was meeting them for the first time, I
never felt so. It was as if I knew them forever. Thoroughly enjoyed their hospitality,
yum food, gifts and the gappa in their beautiful garden. I am so glad we didn’t
do any walking today because my kid was actually exhausted. Our friends dropped
us back to the station. Thank you for this enjoyable and memorable evening.
Day 6 - Today was
our popat day. We had planned for a hop on hop off bus tour along with Thames
river cruise. This would ensure that we cover all photo stops inside London. We
reached the pick-up point and were told that due to a cycle race, the bus tour
has been called off. We could either use same ticket on a different route
(which I was not interested in) or we could do the tour on the next day. Next
day too wasn't an option since we had already made plans with another dear
friend (number 2) of ours. We cancelled the ticket. So we decided to go to the
Natural History Museum. We were shocked to see the queue spilling right on to
the footpath. Hai re Sun and long weekend. Also, this was unplanned so we
didn't even have a ticket. We got scared of the queue. Btw, the museum is free
but still you need an entry ticket. That is the museums way of controlling the
numbers being let in. So plan C kicked
in and we started walking towards Harrods. Harrods was quite fun. The perfumery
hall was filled with perfume smells and I was wondering if people were able to
differentiate one from the other. The ladies section did have a good designer
collection with a wow factor but same was not true with the men’s section. We
ended Harrods with a good ice-cream.
Next we went to
Picadilly. The entire area was closed due to the cycle race. We got to see the
race. We walked along up to Trafalgar square. It took us longer than usual
because road crossing was not allowed unless all the cycles passed. We were invited
by friend 3 for dinner tonight but we had to cancel the plan since my kid was
really exhausted. A big apology to him. The only good part was that we were
supposed to eat at a restaurant so no food was wasted.
Day 7 - Today was
yet another amazing day since we were to meet another friend of ours. He picked
us up at Richmond and we travelled in his Tesla. I loved his car. The fully
transparent roof was ‘ek number’. Plan was to go to the countryside. So
exciting!
We first went to
a model village called Bekonscot. It’s a cute little model of 6 villages
complete with a working train network, stations, working railway crossings,
working cable cars, lakes, windmills etc. It just gave a glimpse of country
life. Later we went to Little Marlow park where we were joined by his wife,
daughter and a cutie patootie doggy. Nishad was so happy to pet the dog. He is
generally scared of dogs, although he does love them. This doggy made him comfortable.
The rest of the day Nishad along with his new friend spent to day enjoying with
the doggy. Doggy was super excited when he saw ducks and chased them right into
the water. He went swimming behind them. Secondly he was sniffing away,
checking for any duck eggs. We had a picnic by the lakeside. Good food, amazing
company. Mast. Later we went on a long drive in the country side. All the greenery was so therapeutic for the
computer strained eyes.
Next stop we went
to Bushy park, another royal park. You are totally one with nature here. We saw
a variety of birds and lots and lots of deer. I didn’t see these many deer even
in Jim Corbett. Gappa, tappa, jokes, laughter, and nature. What more do you
want. Perfect. After dinner, our friend dropped us back to the hotel. Thank you,
guys. We spent an amazing day with you.
Day 8 - Today was
our last day in London. We did not have any specific itinerary today. There
were many places which we had not seen, especially because we lost one day of sightseeing
due to cycle race but now we did not have enough time left. We had to meet one
friend (number 4) for coffee. So, before that I made a quick trip to a music
shop in Kensington called Kensington Chimes. I purchased some strings for
mandolin and violin for my father. We also had to check out of the hotel. Well,
the checkout also was early at 11 am as compared to India. The hotel kindly
agreed to our request to keep our luggage with them for few hours. So glad that
we managed to meet this friend although it was a working day for him. After
coffee, we had some time on hand before we head to the airport. So we took the
metro to Big Ben. There wasn't much to do and not much time on hand. We grabbed
some go to lunch. It was time to say goodbye.
At the airport, I
got a refund on my oyster card balance. I had to take help from the staff because
the machine was not dispensing cash. So the man helped me to a machine which
was working and said that I should not take a refund. “You will again have to
pay 7 pound fees when you come back”, he said. I just smiled. I hope that I do
come back sooner for another trip and this time go to Edinburgh. Bye bye
London, till we meet again.
Labels: Travel