Day 43-46 - London

Anything after Paris and France was going to be a bit of a let down. Unfortunately somewhere had to follow it, and this was London. We arrived on a Monday, spending the working week in what is perhaps the most important city in the world.

Our hotel was near Hyde Park, so after dropping off our bags we went for a wander through. While parks can be few and far between in London, when they do occur they are large, full of wildlife, and closely resemble urban countryside.

We next saw the Wellington Memorial, which contains the London War Memorials of Australia and New Zealand. Both are recent, and reflect this in their design, so one has to know beforehand they are war memorials, or get close enough to see for oneself.

From there we walked past Buckingham Palace, which isn’t really that big from the front and the changing of the guard was inconveniently timed. We didn’t manage to see the guard being changed at Buckingham Palace over the next few days.

What we did see was the Guard Marching Band practising in the open, but with their backs to the street, facing their barracks. Rose was very interested in hearing these guys, while I was more perturbed with the fact they weren’t facing the large crowd.

St James’ Park separates the Palace from the Prime Minister and Westminster, and contains perhaps the first squirrels I had ever seen in the flesh. Rose took great delight in taking many photos of the squirrels in different parks in different places.

The guard was changing at Westminster – the mounted guards. The crowd of normally-sized people prevented Rose from seeing much of the inspection of uniforms and such, but I managed to get the camera above the crowd for some more pictures.

Big Ben didn’t exactly loom over us from that vantage point, primarily because it isn’t that tall. After the Eiffel Tower it seems like you’d struggle to reach terminal velocity if you leapt from the minute hand.

The West End is packed with theatres hosting musicals, which pretty much prevented us from going to one, as Rose has no love for musical theatre. There are also many, many shops on Regent and Oxford Streets, and we walked these many times over the next few days as they led from the centre of London to our hotel back near Paddington.

I had waited until London to have some Indian food, and I wasn’t disappointed, although apparently Bangladeshi-town is the place to go for the best Indian food. We were happy with our choice, and the waiter was more than happy to ensure Rose’s dishes were not too hot.

After weeks of Italian and French breakfasts, I was pleased to see a cooked breakfast and Weetabix. Cumberland sausages are particularly nice, along with eggs, bacon, baked beans and mushrooms. Rose ate my tomato.

The breakfast got us ready for St John’s Wood, site of two of the most significant places in London for me: Abbey Rd Studios and Lord’s. They are about ten minutes walk away from each other, and Rose dutifully stood on a roundabout to take a picture of me walking across the famous zebra crossing.

Our tour at Lord’s was led by a Yorkshireman. If you go to Lord’s, insist on a tour guide from Yorkshire – they were put on Earth to talk about cricket. He showed us Real Tennis, which may be the most ridiculous sport still played on the planet today, and as compensation for not being to enter the Long Room, as it was a match day, we were taken onto the ground surface during the lunch break. No truth to the rumour I was asked for my autograph.

I could have stayed all day, listening to our guide talk about all the greats to have played at Lord’s, but this was a honeymoon and not a bachelor trip. We resumed our search for a pair of shoes for Rose, which eventually ended the next day when we finally found a cheapish place that had shoes small enough to fit her.

St Paul’s is a wonderful cathedral, spacious and grand. Westminster Abbey, on the other hand, is a cluttered mess, trying to fit in everyone important who wants to be buried there. There is a touch of class at the Abbey, with the audio guide being Jeremy Irons, although this means you walk through one of the most famous churches in the world quoting lines from Die Hard 3.

We did the Tower Bridge, and its incredible moving drawbridge, and the Tower of London. We didn’t really leave enough time to properly enjoy the Tower of London, but our “beefeater” guide was humorous and the Crown Jewels incredible in their size and beauty. It was here at the Tower where one feels the history of London, and the English Royal Family, more than anywhere else in London.

The highlight of our time in London was catching up with three people I went to high school with. Julie I had not seen since I was 15, Brad was a good mate of mine and one of most genuine people anyone would ever want to meet, and Tom is a great bloke to have a drink or fifteen with, as I did at my informal 10 year high school reunion in 2007 at the Espy.

It was also one of the few places in London that served a Parma, and considering I medically needed one, this was very good news. Plenty of beer was drunk, but I made sure my original plan to wait until I was Ireland to drink a Guinness was preserved, albeit under some pressure.

Thursday morning, after shaking off some sore heads, we headed down to Madame Toussaud’s, where, much to my disappointment, there was no Ricky Ponting wax dummy. I really wanted to have a photo taken of me with myself.

It’s good fun, however, and the dummies are quite hardy and in some cases, eerily lifelike. After a while, if one of the patrons stands still for a little too long, you’ll start to confuse the dummies with the living people. A hideously out of place fright experience comes after the dummies, and then a cab ride through the history of London.

If nothing else, London is very commercial. You go there to consume. Our last real outing of the time we spent in London was to Harrod’s, so Rose could buy some tea, which she is drinking back here in Melbourne, and some Sylvanian Families figurines, which she has an unhealthy obsession with.

The food in London was mostly pub food, with a great devotion to the hamburger and the hot chip. Aussies should not be afraid to drink Fosters in England – I’m positive it is Crown Lager, and tastes much better than that rubbish in the blue cans we get sold back in Oz. An attempt at high tea at the Ritz was kyboshed by the lack of pounds in my pocket (caused by a money transfer snafu), and by my casual attire. I quickly vowed to be appropriately dressed and cashed-up the next time we were in London.

Our final act in London was to watch Liverpool get knocked out of the Europa League by Athletico Madrid, who had an extra 30 minutes to score the away goal that put them into the final. After this I completely cracked the shits at game of soccer. As usual, I didn’t stay mad for long.

If Paris is beautiful, and it is, beyond description, then London is functional. Apart from the Tower of London, the history of the place is beneath the surface, or contained in gaudy shows like the ones at Madame Toussaud’s, or near the Tower Bridge. Paris seems comfortable that the history and beauty almost need no promotion (when have you ever seen a tourist ad for France?), but London seems to need to promote it in the tackiest was possible (except for the Tower).

It is also described, by one of its inhabitants, as the least English place in England. If so, we were about to see the real England, at the end of a train ride from Euston Station, arriving at Lime St in the early afternoon.