Solo trip to London

***NB: It seems this one was also ready for posting (the last week of August)...but I never scheduled it!!

How can you pass up cheap airfare on Ryanair? Well, I can't.

Chuck is quite busy at work and I know he has some long days ahead of him, so in order to ease his guilt and my crabbiness, I booked a solo-midweek trip to London. How's that for logic? In all seriousness, he works a lot; not as much as in the states, but plenty of hours by Danish standards. I sense there are going to be some late nights on the horizon, so rather than have me talk about the equity and fairness issue, I am heading to London and he can have 4 evenings filled will all the work he can possibly handle.

What exactly can a girl do all by herself in London? Lots, lots, lots. And, because Chuck doesn't fancy shopping, I threw in a few stops at some little stores. Maybe you know them...Harrods, Liberty, Fortnum & Mason?

I strolled through Green Park, over to Buckingham Palace, St. James Park, and then over to Westminster Abbey. I waited in line for about 15 minutes until they opened and then stepped in and took in all it had to offer. I walked around the Parliament building and Big Ben, then a quick subway ride over to St. Paul's Cathedral. I was there in March, but Chuck wanted me to (sneak) some pictures of the phrase at the back of the cathedral. I shopped, went through Chinatown early in the morning as they were getting deliveries...did you know that they don't make anything from scratch...all the sauces come in boxes!!! I spent the afternoon in Nottinghill and had lunch at this great little shop near the subway station, but of course, can't recall the name!!

The highlight of the trip was my organized tour to the Cotswolds. I took the train to Oxford, then met up with Martin from Absolute Tours. I thoroughly enjoyed the day, even if it was overcast and then rainy. With a group of just 5 of us in a minivan, it is so convenient to quickly stop, take pictures and get personalized treatment. The large bus tours are so impersonal and really limited to their stops. There were several 'cottages' for sale in the Cotswolds. I wonder if I can get Chuck to agree on a second home for us?!?!?

Here's a link to the slideshow.

More slideshows posted

I'm all caught up.

• Lugano, Switzerland and Lake Como, Italy


• Frankfurt, Germany


• Kiel, Germany


• Bremen, Germany


• London and the Cotswolds, UK

Touring the Greater London area

I *love* three day weekends and how quick and easy it is to travel around Europe.

On our latest three day weekend, we flew on Ryan Air to London. Our flights (including the extra cost to priority board) were a low-low-low price of 25Euro or about $33 per person round trip.

We were in London in March, where we saw most of the local sites, so this time we decided to check out some of the surrounding towns and cities. The weather cooperated and we had three beautiful days to be tourists.

On Saturday, we were up early and on the move to catch the train to Oxford. I typically ask Chuck what he wants to do on our getaways and he usually has no input, but this time...Oxford was on the top of his list. As we walked around Oxford and toured some of the colleges, I couldn't help but recall my days at the U. If only I was 10 years younger, I would jump at the chance to study at Oxford. I'm sure Chuck would too...but MIT is probably at the top of his list for a PhD. We had lunch at the King's Arm Pub, which was fan.tas.tic!

On Sunday, I booked a tour with Evan Evans to Bath, Stonehenge, and Salisbury. We were supposed to leave the bus terminal at 9 and return around 7:30pm. Had we followed the planned times, the trip would have been perfect, but we didn't so it was a good trip, but not perfect. We didn't leave until 9:30 because 2 girls in their 20s were late. Rude, rude, rude. Needless to say, our tour group of 11 didn't speak to the two girls all day. They were mad! We returned to London at 6pm. I would have loved an extra hour in Bath rather than getting back soooo early. I'm not sure what happened. On to the tour details...

Bath is about 2 hours from London. I would love to go back and spend a long weekend there. The city is located on the River Avon, with a beautiful riverside park, amazing pedestrian walkways, and the Roman Baths. Maybe we would even run into Nicholas Cage, as he has a home there!

Our next stop was Stonehenge. With all the hype around Stonehenge, I was slightly disappointed because it was considerably smaller than I had anticipated.

The final stop was Salisbury, with the primary (and only) focus the cathedral. The cathedral was impressive, as was seeing the best preserved Magna Carta and the oldest working clock!!! We were only there an hour, so there was no time to explore the town, nor go up into the spire. Again, I wish we had more time.

Monday was spent walking through Hyde Park...and then shopping on Oxford Street, Regent Street, and Bond Street. Heaven! Liberty is a great store and of course, we had to go to Hamley's toy store and find something for Lincoln.

A few of my favorite pictures, until I get around to finishing the slideshow.

Cathedral in Salisbury, England

Stonehenge

Bath


Chuck and Holly at Stonehenge

Christ Church in Oxford

More from London

Here's our 4-day Itinerary in London. It’s really two full days in London with a travel day on each end.

Day 1 – We flew into Stansted Airport, which is just north of London and took a 50 minute ride on the Stansted Express train to the Liverpool Street Station. The Stansted Express train was very convenient and the price was right (about $30USD/person round trip). The train has probably seen better days, but the cars were clean and smelled fresh and the seats were comfortable. The Liverpool Station was about a 10 minute taxi ride from our hotel. We quickly checked in and after checking our watches it was midnight local time and 1am Denmark time.

Day 2 – We are Americans, so as per our stereotype, we’re up early and ready to go. As a side note, we are usually the first ones at an early morning sight and we are asked…or it’s stated…Americans? This was our first trip to London, so we packed in as much sightseeing as possible. We walked from the hotel to St. Paul’s Cathedral, which is absolutely amazing. The interior frescos and beautiful and very ornate. Too bad we couldn't take pictures inside! Our next stop was the Tube to get our 1 day pass for the underground (about $7USD). One of the workers said to Chuck, “How do you like Chicago?” I guess our Midwestern accent hasn’t changed with our year in Denmark!

We rode the Tube to the Tower of London, toured the grounds, saw the Crown Jewels, and then headed back on the Tube to take the Original Sightseeing Tour (about $25USD). Here’s a separate post about the bus tour. We ate lunch at The Texas Embassy, which had some amazing salsa and chicken tortilla soup. Chuck’s comment when he took a bite of the salsa was, “Mmmm, tastes like we’re back in the US.” We hopped on the Tube to make our way to Warr’s Harley Davidson Shop to get our BIL a birthday present. Then, back to the Tube (District Line) and the Tower Hill station. It was already 4:00, so walked over the Tower Bridge and back to the hotel to drop off some of our loot. Our last ‘tourist’ sight for the day was the Tate Modern Museum. Later that evening we had dinner at the Great Wall Restaurant near the hotel, which was good, but nothing spectacular.

Day 3 – We were up early and walked over toward the Tower Bridge for the 9:30 tour. We were stopped just short of crossing the river by a film crew. They were clearing the Tower Bridge so a helicopter could film some shots for the Sherlock Holmes movie. Cool. We toured the Tower Bridge and the Engine Room (how could an engineer pass up the engine room?!?!?).

We had a little time before the St. Paddy’s Day Parade at noon, so we decided to see the changing of the guard at 11:30 at Buckingham Palace. This, was not an original idea, as we arrived at 10:30 and there was no way we were going to get any closer than the roundabout. But, now we know what to do for the June visit. The weather was beautiful; sunny with a slight breeze. I’m so accustomed to gray skies that I forgot the sunscreen for Chuck…you see where this is headed. Ooops. He has a nice ‘flushed’ pink look. The next stop, was the Parade, which started on the north side of Green Park. The parade was little dull, so we decided to head to Harrod’s, shop a bit, and have lunch at the pizzeria, which has amazing bruchetta. Harrod’s is complete and utter sensory overload with way too many people wandering around. After being surrounded by all of London in Harrod’s, it was time for a little seclusion. Ahhh, our London Eye champagne flight with just six people…..perfect. We ended the day with dinner overlooking the London Tower at Strada.

Day 4 – It was going to be a long day. Chuck managed to get sick…food poisoning from his dinner at Strada. 3am was way too early for the wakeup call, the 4:10am Stansted Express train was just crazy, and the 6:40am flight back to Denmark was just poor planning on my part. I won’t make that mistake again. Chuck's bout with food poisoning lasted a good 96 hours. Yuck!

Birthday weekend in London, England

What a way to spend my thirty-something birthday! Living in Europe makes celebrating birthdays sooo much fun because within a few hours you can be in just about any fabulous city...with, of course, an amazing husband *blush*.

I refer to Chuck's birthday as Chuck-fest because we seem to celebrate for weeks and I tease that we celebrate my birthday for a day, maybe two. Well, this year was definitely Holly-fest with the celebration starting on Monday, March 9th with flowers and champagne...and the celebrating just got better as the week progressed.

We just returned from my birthday weekend in London. In a word (or two) A.ma.zing. Fab.u.lous. The weekend highlights...

• Dinner at Strada overlooking the Tower Bridge
• Champagne flight on the London Eye
• Strolling along the Thames with Chuck
• Watching a helicopter crew film scenes for the Sherlock Holmes movie
• The Crown Jewels at the Tower of London
• The Tower Bridge
• Harrod's
• Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace

The weekend flew by. We are returning in early June to take in some more sights because we basically did a quick drive-by of the central and western attractions such as Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Hyde Park, St. James's Park, Marble Arch, etc. We're also going to do a day trip to Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, and Oxford (or Baths).

The slideshow is posted.

The Original Sightseeing Tour in London, England

Yes, I am a fan of the Hop on Hop Off bus tours in European cities. The 2-hour tour was perfect to get a good lay of the land. We took the HoHo Original London Sightseeing Tour (Yellow route), but there is also a Red route and a Blue route. The fee of about $25 (discounted using the London Pass) or about $30USD gets you admission on all three routes (within a 24 hour period) and the City Cruises river cruise. The Yellow route has a live commentator, the Red route has headsets so you can listen to the commentary in a variety of languages, and the Blue route is the museum route. The commentary was minimal and I didn’t find it as informative as in other cities (NB: Berlin has the best HoHo commentary, Vienna is also very good).

Sights on the Yellow route: Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and Parliamentary Buildings, Buckingham Palace (need to get off to take pictures), London Tower, Tower of London, London Eye, Hyde Park, Marble Arch, Green Park.

The HoHo in London wasn’t as good as in other cities and it is very difficult to take pictures of the sights; however it is a good way to familiarize yourself with the sights and plan out which ones deserve a personal visit.