England, Scotland, and Wales
Mike and Judy Henderson
May 13-26, 2018
I'm going to leave the map of our trip at the beginning of each page so you have a reference as to where we are.
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5/14/2018 We depart this morning for Windsor Castle and London.
Here's an aerial view of Windsor Castle to help you follow our tour. The red arrow shows where we entered. The yellow arrow is where we exited and the green arrow shows where Queen Anne's Dollhouse and the State Apartments are. The blue arrow points to St. George's Chapel, where Harry and Meghan were married last weekend.
Here's a diagram that I found that names the major features of the castle. I also found this web page which gives some of the history of how the castle developed over the years. I found it interesting reading.
There were quite a few motor coaches in the parking lot when we arrived.
The parking lot is next to the train station, which you go through to get to Windsor Castle. The train station is just a spur, line so the only trains that come there just pull in and then return in the opposite direction - so there's not a lot of train traffic.
There's a shopping center associated with the train station, and a number of restaurants.
Even though there were quite a few visitors, we were able to get through the security clearance fairly quickly. Judy and Jean are coming through security with Sarah, our tour guide.
Soon we were walking along the outside of the castle.
Once inside we walked along a path around the castle keep. Keeps were fortifications within a castle and were intended to be a fall-back position in case the walls were breached. By the time the enemy breached the wall, all the keep could do is slow them down, but often that was enough to gain time for a relief column to arrive and attack the rear of the enemy, and thus save the castle.
We walked around the keep to see Queen Mary's doll house and the State Apartments. Pictures are not allowed in the castle so I don't have anything to show.
After we left the State Apartments, we walked down to St George's Chapel.
That ended our tour of Windsor Castle, but if you would like more information about the Castle, you can learn more, and see pictures, at this link. Judy, Jean and I had lunch and then we headed to London.
On the way, we passed the field of Runnymede where King John was forced to agree to the Magna Carter. The picture shows part of the field and one of the memorials in the field.
The bus took us on a short tour of London before we arrived at the Savoy Hotel. It's a superb hotel - but one that we'd probably never choose on our own (too expensive). It's large, with 268 rooms, and it sits at the back of Victoria Embankment bordering the Thames.
The hotel was opened in 1889 and has hosted many famous guests. Check the link for more information.
These two pictures of the entrance show something interesting. Do you see anything unusual about it?
That's right - you drive on the right when entering the Savoy, not on the left as in the rest of England. I think it's to allow people to exit the taxis from the non-driver's side.
In the evening we went to dinner at 10-11 Carlton House Terrace and were joined by Patrick Nicholls, a former Conservative Party Member of Parliament for Devon.
Here's Patrick talking with Judy.
We had dinner in a room in the British Academy. Patrick spent some time at each of the four tables. The intent was to allow us to ask him questions about the British parliamentary system, but Patrick had the typical politician's gift of gab and he rattled on. I took many pictures of him and he has his mouth open in every one. Maybe that's how he avoided having to answer difficult questions.
Here he is while sitting at our table. The dinner was very nice, and served elegantly.
After dinner, we headed back to the hotel for some rest.
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5/24/2018 (Thursday) We had a bus tour of the main area of London this morning, and then had the rest of the afternoon to explore on our own.
As we left the hotel we passed by Trafalgar Square, which celebrates the naval Battle of Trafalgar. This battle resulted in a decisive victory for England against the forces of Napoleon.
At the foot of the square is a column with a statue of Admiral Lord Nelson, who led the English fleet at the battle. Just prior to the battle, Nelson sent the famous message to his fleet, "England expects that every man will do his duty." Nelson was killed in the battle.
Just as a side note, Nelson's message reflects on the fate of Admiral John Byng, who was executed in 1757 for not doing his utmost at the Battle of Minorca. While the execution of Admiral Byng was unfair (his fleet was in terrible shape), it put fear into subsequent English naval leaders that they would be censured unless they were aggressive in battle, which led to greater success in battle for England.
Below Nelson's statue is a statue of Charles I. All distances to London are measured to this statue.
We continued through London in the motor coach but I didn't get any great pictures - you pass things too quickly!
We finished the motor coach tour at the Tower of London. We had purchased tickets from the concierge to avoid the ticket lines, but we learned that our vouchers would not give us entry and we had to go to the ticket office to exchange our printouts for real tickets with barcodes. The ticket office was not crowded - we could have just bought our tickets there instead of buying them earlier.
One thing that surprised me was that the Tower of London is actually a castle. It has towers but would be better describes as the Castle of London. Here's the castle as we approached it.
The crown jewels are kept at the Tower of London and are available for viewing. However, when we got to the area where they are displayed, there was an extremely long line - the red arrows point to the line. You can see that it extends around the corner and beyond the view of the camera, so we decided to skip seeing the jewels.
We took a walk along the walls, but I think we were were all "castled out" by this time, so we left to go to the London Eye.
On the way out, we encountered one of the Yeomen Warders. We asked him for directions and he's pointing the way to the river exit.
As we neared the exit we encountered this actor who is dressed like a gentleman of about the time of Shakespeare.
We found the river taxi station and bought a ticket to the London Eye. Here's the taxi coming into dock. You can see Tower Bridge in the background.
A view of another river taxi that passed us going in the opposite direction.
We arrived at the London Eye and again had to exchange our voucher for tickets. The ticket office had self service kiosks and I'd recommend buying your ticket there. I think it would be faster.
Anyway, we had "fast track" tickets and got on quickly. They don't stop the Eye - you walk on as it's moving.
Soon we were moving up.
This picture was taken fairly high up.
I took this picture as we reached the top of the Eye. You can really see over London from the Eye.
Here's a view of Big Ben, the Parliament Building and Westminster Bridge. Big Ben is shrouded in scaffolding for major refurbishment.
Leaving the Eye, we walked across Westminster Bridge. We're headed to the Churchill War Rooms.
This picture of the entrance to the Churchill War Rooms was taken from the web.
And here's what the entrance looked like before the renovation done in 2012.
When I heard about the Churchill War Room, I though it was the room where they tracked German planes during the Blitz, as shown in this picture. But that's the Battle of Britain Bunker in Uxbridge.
There are many rooms in the Churchill War Rooms and I'm not going to try to show them all to you. You can do an image search if you want to see more. Here's one.
That evening, Tauck arranged for us to have dinner in our choice of restaurants, followed by a live show of our choice (from a list provided by Tauck). We chose Tutton's, followed by the show 42nd Street. Here we are at Tutton's.
42nd Street is a show about singing and dancing and there was a lot of both in the show. I think both Judy and Jean loved it. It included some of the most amazing tap dancing Judy had ever seen.
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5/25/2018 (Friday) Today is our last day of touring and includes a tour of Westminster Abbey. They do not allow pictures in the Abbey so I don't have anything to show you. The most interesting aspect of the Abbey is that many of the pasts kings and queens of England are buried there. Britain's tomb of the of the unknown soldier is located in a prominent place in the Abbey.
After our tour we returned to the hotel to meet two English friends of Judy's, Steve and Judy.
We had lunch and then walked around the area of the hotel, ending up at St. Martin's in the Fields Church. The church is used for many musical rehearsals and performances, and there was a group playing when we went in.
That evening was our Farewell Dinner. Bret said his dad was following this blog so I'm including this special picture of him, for his dad.
Everyone was dressed to the nines.
As we were having dinner there was a surprise appearance of a string quartet. They entered playing Bolero, continued with an aria from the Barber of Seville (including one of the violinists singing "Figaro, Figaro, Figaro", etc.) and ended with the overture from William Tell. It was spirited and lots of fun.
5/26/2018 (Saturday) This is the last day of this tour. We head to Dublin today to begin our tour of Ireland.
Our trip continues in Ireland. You can follow us in Ireland here.