London: Around Town

In between museum visits, we managed a few other activities.

• Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace: not particularly impressive (we even followed Rick Steves's program to the letter). John thinks we have been to too many of them.
• Reflections Flotilla (Thames Festival): I normally would find a parade of power boats stringed with lights too extravagant. This parade had crew boats with lit oars. I was thoroughly impressed.
• East End Transformations: The Museum of London is making its new home in the old Smithfield Market; Spitalfields Market area seems to be drawing lots of business; Brick Lane is now a tourist destination.
• The Barbican: we had only known about the Barbican Center as a cultural venture and were surprised to see the whole housing complex around it, with a highwalk connecting them - almost as good as walking on city walls.
• Soane Museum: It was so crammed full of objects, it's a museum to be experienced, not for browsing.
• Pub Visit: glad to get it done.
• And more....

We walked through a much-bigger-than-we-remembered Chinatown on our way to the Changing of the Guard activities.












We watched the flotilla from opposite the London Eye. Look close to see the rowers.


The Barbican Center and surrounds.






East End Transformations: Smithfield Market and Brick Lane.




Sir John Soane's Museum.




Drinks and eats at a pub to celebrate my 65th birthday!




And more: Our favorite Art Deco / Modernist building in London, the Former Daimler Car Hire Garage, was just a few hundred meters north of our hotel in Bloomsbury.




Westminster Cathedral.


Temple of Mithras archaeological site.

London: Finally Kew

I love gardens. Kew had long been on our list. I had two reservations about going to Kew 1)it is not spring 2)admission is steep: 20 pounds. However, since we had never been to a garden we didn't enjoy, we decided to put up with the admission price. Then I read in our very ancient Rough Guide to London, that their two reservations for Kew were: 1) the prohibitive entry fee: 5 pounds in 1999 2) noise from Heathrow flights. While their first point made me feel righteous, their second point brought me right down - I've flown through Heathrow more times than I have set foot in London.

What I didn't expect was the disregard Kew accorded its visitors. Their largest glass house, The Temperate House, was closed for 10 days at the end of September to install some kind of Day of the Dead exhibit titled "Mexico." Couldn't they have worked at night or half of the day, while keeping the glass house open?! I can just imagine the dismay of a visitor coming all the way from Mexico. When we got to the tree walk around 4pm, we were told it was being closed for the day - no explanation given. Imperial vestiges are hard to shake.

To have the best weather, we waited until our last day (9/28) in London to go to Kew. While it is not Spring, everything we did manage to see, we enjoyed very much. The highlight was the giant water lilies. We had come across them a few times at different conservatories. The ones at the Kew are particularly luxuriant. The same is true with the roses. Even almost at the end of the season, the blossoms are still incredibly full. In fact, I don't think I have seen so many such full roses together in a single garden.

A note to fellow travellers: we found a couple of ways to manage the admission tickets. 1) booked at least two days before, it's 15 pounds (14 if you're 65 or over). 2) National Train has a 2for1 that seems very attractive (Kew is only one of many).

Our first stop at Kew was the 2-story Palm House Conservatory. Built in 1848, it's 62 feet high and 362 long. Wow! And features mainly tropical plants.










The Rose Garden is adjacent to the Palm House.








Then to the cozy Waterlily House.




Walking to the contemporary Princess of Wales Conservatory with more water lilies, fish, carnivorous plants, orchids and ...


















The outdoor seasonal gardens with flower beds and a vegetable garden.








The Temperate House was almost ready to open "Mexico".






We were startled to see several huge "weeping beech" trees. Amazing!




And finally the pagoda with an airplane flying by; and the Kew Gardens Tube Station as we make our way back to Central London.