2024 England - April - London Trip - Day 01 - Museums and Theaters!

 April 18th - 20th, 2024

We start this one on the Isle of Guernsey.  Our alarm clocks were set for 4:30 AM to be up and ready to take a taxi to the airport to fly from Guernsey to London City Airport.  Unfortunately, I worked up at 2:30 AM and could not get back to sleep.  So I laid there just pondering life until it was time to get up.  Not much that you can do in a small hotel room.  Anyway, we got up, got ready and headed down to find the taxi waiting for us.  The driver was a very kind man.  He was a native, many generations back, from Guernsey.  His Aunt was sent to the UK (Wales) as a child during the invasion of Germany on the island.  She never came back and still lives in Wales.  Bottom line, Guernsey has a ton of WWII history there with the German occupation.

We arrived at the London City airport at 8:30 AM.  We were a bit delayed getting off the plane as the plane’s wheels/brakes started smoking or shedding something.  So they had the fire team come out and quickly check.  All good.  Once off the plane, we caught the DLR train to Stratford and then from there we caught the Central Underground train to Holborn station which was about 200 yards from our hotel, the Z Hotel - Holborn.  We’ve stayed at Z Hotels before.  The cheaper rooms are quite unique.  Very small, no windows and amazingly designed and clean.  We actually enjoy them as their service is top notch and we don’t need a big fancy room as we are never there except to sleep.  So it has always worked for us and this time was no exception.  We checked our bags, as our room was not ready, and headed out.

One thing I need to note, as we were flying and getting ready for the day, we checked our tickets for our plays that we were going to see.  It turned out that we bought 2 matinees…which was not going to work obviously.  So upon checking in our luggage, we headed to the theater where Frozen was playing ( and was very close to our hotel).  We went into the foyer and asked where the box office was.  They told us that it did not open until 1:30 PM.  That meant we had to call to see if we could move our tickets to the evening.  Well, as is the case, we got through and ended up in a telephone queue and we were #23.  Hmmm…it was going to be a while.  So, Denise stayed on the phone and we went and got some breakfast at a Pret Manger…which is a bakery on every corner in Europe.  We finally got through and for about £9 more per ticket, we could get a little better seating for the evening.  So we did that.  And the seats turned out to be pretty fantastic.  More on that in a bit.

After getting the ticket issue dealt with, we were closed to Trafalgar Square.  So we decided to go into the National Museum that sits on Trafalgar Square.  We spent a couple of hours there looking at lots of art and historical things.   The one thing about seeing all these museums is the amount of nakedness, especially in the 1500’s and 1600’s.  We went to multiple museums (Wallace Collection, National Museum,  Albert and Victoria Museum).  The only one with no nudes was the National Science museum…which I like the best.  That was pretty good.

Well, at this point, I’m going to summarize the three days into Theater.  We went to 4 plays.  2 on Thursday, 1 on Friday evening and 1 on Saturday afternoon.  On Thursday we saw Mousetrap in the afternoon and then Frozen in the evening.  Mousetrap is about to close this year.  Longest running play ever…72 years.  However, I was so tired and the English brogue was so tough to understand, that I was in and out of sleep pretty much through out the play.  In the end the….did it.  I won’t tell.  It’s an Agatha Christie murder\mystery.  Frozen was pretty darn good.  It was probably my favorite of the 4 plays.  The theater was newly remodeled and EXTREMELY comfortable.  It seemed like all seats had good vision of the characters and all the special effects.  The music (and the singers) were fantastic.  And of course the story is fun.  I hope our kids can take their kids someday to it.  On Friday, we went to Hadestown.  This is a fairly new play with kind of a Greek mythology base in modern times.  It has won a number off Tony awards.  The music (band and singers) were awesome.  I loved the trombonist.  He was amazing.  But they were all good.  If there was any cursing (other than hell), I did not catch it.  Anyway…good one to see.  On Saturday, we concluded with Phantom of the Opera.  We ad not seen Phantom since we lived in California over 20 years ago.  And we love the story and music of Phantom.  This version here in London did not let us down.  It was really nicely done.  As the play was winding down and the Phantom has the girl on the boat in the bowels of the theater, the boat heads of the stage and then the curtain comes flying down followed by an announcement saying there was some technical difficulty beyond their control.  We waited about 5 to 10 minutes and then the play started again.  We had never experienced that before.

We got out of Phantom around 5:30 PM.  We arrived back at our flat at 7:30 PM.  That was after walking a good 20 minutes back to the hotel, getting our bags, eating some cheese and bread at the hotel, walking to the Underground and catching 2 trains to Victoria Station.  There, buying 2 tickets to Lingfield, walking directly to the train and getting on with no stopping.  And then 45 minutes later, Dave Thackeray was at the Lingfield Railway station to bring us to our flat.  It worked out like clock work.  And our 2 week ‘holiday’ had basically come to an end.

It is going to be a bit different now that the Wallace’s have departed.  They like to go and do as we like to do.  Others here tend to be more reserved and fine dwelling in their flats after long days in the temple.  But we will see who is going to emerge as a couple wanting to go out and do.

Pictures:

The Frozen set.  It was pretty beautiful.  It was the largest stage and theater that we’ve been to in London.

As we approached the English Coast, we could see 7 Sisters which are some of the best white cliffs around.  They are better than the White Cliffs of Dover in my opinion.

Trafalgar Square from the steps of the National Museum.

I believe this is St James Piccadilly, a church where some of Denise’s ancestors were once buried.  Their remains have been removed and moved elsewhere.  They had no idea where they might be today.  But it was fun going here and being on the site where they once were.  There was also a very nice food court just outside the door here where we got some nice food for lunch.

Denise could not exist stopping and getting a snicker bar pastry here.  I must admit.  It was pretty darn good.  London is a foodies paradise.

I found a place to get a gelato and she ate her pastry.  We had time to kill between plays and things.  So we sat here and people watched and ate our treats.

This was the theater for Mousetrap.  We were on row A in the Grand Circle.  Sounds good…right.  Not so much.  You can see the gold railing down below…we had to look through that to see the play the whole night.  And this theater was not designed for guys with long legs!

Sitting and waiting for our friends, Steve and Heather Turner, to arrive at the Wallace Collection.  This museum\house was interesting.  They had collections of porcelain, armor and of course paintings.  Lots of nudes in their collection.  The armor collection, to me, was the most amazing.  You’ll see a few photos of that below.

Now, I don’t recall which museum I saw this painting in.  But it was my favorite of the day.  Kid pulling this guys mustache and I’m not sure what he’s doing or about to do with his hand.  I liked it.

That’s a dragon fruit I think.  Odd looking thing.  He cut it open for us to see inside.  This was taken at Boroughs market.  We love going there.  It’s amazing.

I believe this was a statue portion of the Albert and Victoria National Museum.  We did not spent much time in this one.  We were kind of burnt out on the old stuff.  So we went over to the National Science one and loved it.

I didn’t mention that we took a Harry Potter walking tour on Saturday before The Phantom of the Opera play.  It was fun…a nice walk.  Not sure I trust all the info given.  But nonetheless, we saw interesting parts of London.  This is Leicester Square in London where movie premiers are held.  Around the square there are many bronze statues of famous actors and characters.  This is Mary Poppins if you cannot tell.

I believe this is looking down a street towards Piccadilly Square that is all lit up for the EID celebration that was going on in London and in this area.  EID celebrates the end of the long Muslim fast that has gone on for a month or so.

You see so many American businesses over here.  I put this in for my brother, Fred, who I know enjoys Wing Stop.

Trafalgar Square was the central set up for the EID celebration on Saturday.  Lots of dancing, singing and so on.  We sat there and watched people and listened to the entertainment or a good 45 minutes.

This lady definitely had the best outfit on the square there.

2024 England - April - Guernsey Trip - Day 03 - Little Chapel & Candle Making

 April 17th, 2024

Great day today.  We both slept well although Denise will have this cold for a while I think.  We were up, ready to go by around 9 AM.  We went to breakfast and then came back to the room to plan the day.  The plan was to go to The Little Chapel by taking 2 buses to get there.  We would then walk to the German Underground Hospital and tour that.  After that, we would take buses to the Guernsey Candle store to make candles…just up my alley being the artsy kind of guy that I am.  After that, we’d catch at least 2 buses to get back to our hotel from the candle making shop.  Well here’s how the day played out.

We caught the first bus fine.  Upon getting on the bus, I asked the driver if he could tell me when were to arrive at the stop when we’d switch buses (93 to 71).  I gave him the name.  He looked at me like I was from Mars.  I must have been saying the name wrong.  He said to just go to the airport and catch it from there.  Well the stop that Google had given me was just before the airport but close.  I chose to get off at the stop using Google Maps as my guide.  Upon getting off, we noticed a sign that bus 71 would not be stopping at this stop for an indefinite period of time.  Bummer…no worries…we will hustle to the airport and take 71 from there.  As we were walking into the airport, a bus was leaving.  After waiting there a few minutes, I determined it was 71 and I missed it.  Now these buses only come every hour.  So we decided we’d just walk the 25 minutes to The Little Chapel.  It was a lovely walk.  Cool, everything green, slight breeze.  We found The Little Chapel with ease.  And it was worth the walk.  It is 16’ by 9’ large is all with an upstairs and a downstairs.  As wall coverings, inside and out, it is made up of china (plates) and cups fragments.  The whole place is built that way.  We were told that 7 marriages had been done there recently.   So it is popular.  But I think only two others could fit into it beside the Priest, Groom and Bride.  So small.

Our next stop was the German Underground Hospital Museum.  It was a 20 minute walk with walking being the only option.  So off we went.  Another nice walk.  We arrived there to find out that it is not open on Tuesdays - Thursdays until May.  Man…what a bummer.  We rested a bit there and then set out at a frantic pace to catch the next bus that would start to take us towards the candle making shop.  Google said the bus would arrive at the bus stop in 20 minutes but it was a 17 minute walk to get there.  So off we went walking very fast.  Now, the walking in the area was up a bit and down a bit.  And to close out this walk to the bus stop it was an uphill climb.  I took off a bit ahead of Denise to try and hold the bus if it came while I was there.  However, we both got there with plenty of time to spare, both sweaty and tired though.  This bus took us into St Peter’s Port and from there we’d catch the 31 bus out to the candle shop.  We had a decision to make as the connection times were going to be close.   It was around 12:15 PM, our candle activity wasnt’ until 2:30 PM and the bus ride out to the candle shop was going to be about 20 minutes.  Well, the bus coming into town that we were on was a bit held up and I wondered if we’d make the connection.  Fortunately the bus drive radio’d ahead and asked the bus driver of our next bus to wait.  And He did!  So rather than get lunch in town, we went off to the candle shop to find food near there and to take our time getting to the candle shop.  This all worked out.

We found the shop and told them we were here and that we’d be back.  The candle maker was not going to be there until 2:30 PM anyway.  So off we went to find some lunch and we ended up in a Pub…named…The Pony Inn.  Wow…it was a very nice lunch.  We split a plate of Carbonara with some garlic bread.  It was really, really good.  The pub closed at 2 PM.  So at that time, we headed back to the candle shop.  About the time we arrived, on foot of course, the candle maker also arrived.  He had been out to lunch with his ailing daughter.  He was a wonderful, older than me man who jumped right in and got all the materials and things set up.  There were many examples on what designs we might do with our candles.  He showed us how to dip and put layers of many colors on our candles.  We did that for about 10 minutes or so.  Once that process was done, we were given some dull knives to cut through the soft wax to make the design of our choice.  Denise’s turned out quite great.  Mine…well…maybe in 2000 years they will think it was a great piece of work.  But today…leaves a lot to be desired.  Nonetheless, this was really fun activity.  We were wishing our grandkids could have been with us.

Lastly, we waited a bit and then caught a bus into town and then transferred to another that would take us to our hotel.  It was about an hour or so journey and the connection worked out great.  It seemed to be around the time when schools were letting out and the 2nd bus filled up with school kids heading home.  I would say these kids were 7th to 9th graders.  And I’m always amazed by their language.  Makes me sad.

We are flying to London tomorrow morning on a 7 AM flight.  A taxi is to pick us up here at the hotel at 5:30 AM.  We shall see how this goes.  Tonight, the hotel is providing dinner for us.  I may have said this but we are getting this room for only £100 for 3 nights which includes breakfasts and this one dinner.  And we are across the street from the sea.  Sweet deal for giving up our sea view room!

This will probably be the end of this England blog as I don’t plan to blog while in London as we’ve done London so many times.  But so I remember, we have tickets to 4 West End plays…Mousetrap, Frozen, Hadestown and Phantom of the Opera.  Mousetrap and Phantom are ending their runs here in England this summer.  I think Frozen is too.  Anyway, should be a fun filled stay in London.  We head back to the temple on Saturday (20th) after the matinee of Phantom of the Opera.  Well…cheers!

Pictures:

An old, very old, water pump that we saw along the side of the road.  It was pretty cool!

I wonder which one is mine?   Do the different colors mean that they are not friends as neighbors?

Lots of this today.  It was a cool day, but sunny mostly.  The walking kept us warm.  I think we did a few miles today.

We loved how this ‘street’ sign was a hand written sign.  Wait until you see the pot hole.

This was the pot hole.  I believe it was the only pot hole we’ve seen on the island.  And this one was small compared to the monsters we see where we live over in England!

The Little Chapel

The next set of photos were taken in this tiny castle.  Remember, it is 16’ x 9’ only.

This is the exit door to the German Underground Hospital.  All closed up it is.

This is the entrance to the German Underground Hospital.  All closed up!

Some information on a large trail that you can take all over this island.

Flowers growing out of the wall on one of our walks.  Vegetation can grow on ANYTHING.

Our shared lunch.

Out in front of the pub.

Making candles.  We start with a basic core and then dip many times into many colored wax.

Instructor teaching the student.  His name was Peter.

Proud designers of two candles!

The group with the finished product.

The finished product.  Mine (on the right) is a bit like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

A picture of the bay and little village where our hotel is.  You can see the hotel to the right side off the bay.

Some beautiful views of the sea as the sun slowly sets.

After dinner, we went for a walk to see the sun set.  While waiting at the end of the paved trail, I discovered this sign and what they call the ‘Ferry Ring’.  Apparently this used to be some importance place and people would gather to participate in some type of ritual.  It says that Ferries and Witches would come!

The Fairy Ring….

2024 England - April - Guernsey Trip - Day 02 - St Peter’s Port & Island Tour

April 16th, 2024

Denise has a horrible cold and struggled sleeping.  Our bed is a full bed, pretty small.  So that made it kind of difficult to sleep too.  But we both got through the night.  I’m sorry she is not feeling well.  I hope it passes quickly.

We had a lazy morning, reporting to breakfast a bit after 9 AM.  We ate and then caught the 91 bus that takes you the long way around the island arriving into town St Peter’s Port.   Our breakfast here at the hotel is really nice.  I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s breakfast.  The ride around the island was pretty spectacular.  The side we are on has many wonderful looking beaches and sea.  It also is dotted with German strong holds that they built to protect their stronghold here.  The Germans poured more concrete on Guernsey than any where else during the war.

We arrived at St Peter’s Port and immediately went out to the Lighthouse.  It was a good walk.  It was well worth it.  Not a big Lighthouse however,  But it was fun to watch one of the ferries come out an head out to sea. 

After the Lighthouse, we went to Castle Cornet which originally was built on a small island next to St Peter’s Port.  Now they’ve built a large pier structure that takes you to the castle\fort and the Lighthouse.  We toured the castle\fort for a couple of hours with the highlight being them shooting off a canon at noon all dressed in their military garb.  It was fun to watch.

After the castle visit, we hiked up the hill to Hauteville House…the house where Victor Hugo exiled to and wrote many books, including Les Miserables.  While there, one of his great, great grandsons was there with much media following him.  I’m not sure why he was seen as so important.  But it was interesting watching him get grad A treatment.  Victor Hugo’s house was unique and that’s an understatement.  Quite gaudy if you want my opinion.  However, his garden and views of his garden and St Peter’s Port marina was absolutely amazing.  Just spectacular.  On a clear day, he can see all the Channel Islands and France.  Pretty nice.

After visiting Victor’s house, we continue our hike up the hill to Candie Gardens.  This was a park set in the middle of urban living that looked out over the sea.  It was quite nice.  They have a museum there.  But we were kind of burnt out on seeing old things.  So we did not stay and headed over to see Elizabeth’s College.  The main building looked amazing and drew us to it.  This was our last tourist stop as we shifted into finding food.   We ended up in a Crepe restaurant which turned out to be quite good.

We caught the 91 bus again to complete our island circle arriving back to our hotel about 5:30 PM.  It was a fun day.

Pictures:

This is how our day started…with a hearty breakfast sandwich and eggs.  They also had a continental breakfast that you could help yourself to as well.  All very yummy and good.

Some shoreline as we drove around the island.  This is a rocky part.  But there were many, many sandy beaches along the way.

Part of St Peter’s Port marina.

The dike like structure that we walked on out to the Lighthouse.

The ferry leaving port and passing the Lighthouse.

Looking back at the harbor town of St Peter’s Port.

The fellows who fired the cannon.  The cannon is behind them and the gun powder exploded quite loudly.  Surprised us all.

I believe this is the back of Victor Hugo’s house in the garden area.

The next photos are of rooms in Hauteville House.  Strange place by designed by Mr. Hugo.

The picture above, if you can believe it is in his bedroom.  

We were standing by his bed and shot this looking out.  The picture below is looking down into the garden.  You can see the party interviewing the great, great grandson for some reason.  I don’t know why.

Some of the many steps we had to go up and down to get around this town.

We popped into a church and I liked this stained glass window of Jesus walking on water with Peter when he loses his faith and begins to sink.  Very pretty it is.

This is High Street in St Peter’s Port.  Over here, the main streets are called ‘High Streets’.  In England too.  

Beautiful flowers in Candie Garden.

Mr. Hugo watching over Candie Garden.

Queens’ College.  It took up a few city blocks.

Our dinner…a couple of sandwiches, hot chocolate and….

…a very large crepe to share.  Very yummy all of it.

Last but not least…yellow telephone booths just for the woman who loves yellow.  What happened to red ones…I’ll never know.  But she was happy.