Detailed Photo Review of Paris and London Trip in June 2019

[deladane]

21 hours ago, Walt fan said:

So glad you got to see a show in London!  I am learning so much through this blog/review.  A Changing of the Guard tour - I was so excited until I saw the 100 people show up.  Whew.  I guess 25 per group isn't so bad.  Eagerly waiting to see if this was the worth the cost.  

 

Our group of 5 seems to always get called last on tours.  Don't ask me why.  Our last name starts with F.  It is so strange, and yes, sometimes the guides have already started their spiel and everyone looks at you like why are you late.  I know the feeling.

 

So happy to be here and following along!

 

More about the changing of the guards tour coming soon!  Thanks for reading along (and for commenting to let me know you're still hanging in here with me!!!)

[deladane]

15 hours ago, deec said:

We will be in Paris mid October for 5 days and London next June (length not determined yet) so I am copying and pasting !!!

 

Oh wow, you get to visit the cities in two separate trips!  How fun!  Let me know if you have any questions 🙂

[deladane]

15 hours ago, cairns local said:

Thanks for the response about the Sky Garden.  I agree you should be doing a travel show or book.  You have a freaky knack of answering questions before they are even asked. Hehe.

 

haha thanks!  Maybe I'm part psychic? 😉  Or maybe it's just that I give you every detail of my thought process and all of us planners on here have similar thoughts?? hehe

[deladane]

12 hours ago, geoherb said:

The Greek restaurant sounds great. It's a block from where I used to work on Pall Mall. I don't remember what was in the location back then. I usually took the Tube to Piccadilly Circus and walked the last couple of blocks. My favorite Greek restaurant back then is closed now. It was called Jimmy's. 

 

I love Greek food because it's light and usually not spicy, so anytime I see a good Greek restaurant in a convenient location, I'll be happy!  Milos exceeded my expectations.  Now that I learned they have other locations besides just in London, I Googled it and it looks like they have a location in Las Vegas!  We'll be there in a few months with my in-laws and think they would enjoy it too so maybe we'll check it out.

[deladane]

Once we reached The Mall, Jess told us to line up along the sidewalk near Marlborough Road.  He took this time to explain a bit more of the history behind these ceremonies, and then, since the guards seemed to be running behind, he took some more time to explain how the royal family gets their names.  These little tidbits of information were so interesting to learn about because it isn’t something I had thought about before.  There was much debate over whether Prince Charles will take over as King when his mother either passes away or retires from her responsibilities as Queen.  If he does become King, Jess said he can choose his regnal name from any of his names: Charles, Philip, Arthur, or George.  Another possibility is that they will skip over Prince Charles and name Prince William as the next king, but Jess suspected that was unlikely to happen and that Prince William would have to wait a bit longer before taking the throne.  I just found all of this stuff fascinating, and it was a good way to kill some time before these guys arrived…

 

 

These were the old guards that we just saw finish their shift back at the Horse Guards Parade, and they were bringing the horses back to the barracks.

 

 

 

[deladane]

About 5 minutes later, we heard the band marching towards The Mall from St. James’s Palace.  I was so excited to finally see those famous black fuzzy bearskin hats in person!

 

 

 

Now is when the fun part started… Earlier, Jess had warned us that right after we see the band turn onto The Mall, he would say “Go!”.  That was our cue to follow him on the sidewalk, marching in step with the marching band towards Buckingham Palace.  He had warned us that we would need to move quickly to keep up with the band, and he was not kidding!  I was shocked at how fast that band marched while playing their tunes.  It was somewhat crowded, with lots of people lined up along the sidewalk to watch the band, and even more people briskly marching up the sidewalk to keep up with the band.  Remember those 100 people on our tour?  We they were all right there with us on the sidewalk, plus several other tour companies too, so it was impossible to take a decent photo.  I held my camera up above the crowd, aimed in the general direction of the band, and clicked away.  This was the best I could get…

 

 

Notice all the other people doing exactly what I was doing?

 

 

 

It was mayhem!  And while all that was happening, we still had to keep track of Jess so we wouldn’t miss out on the rest of our tour!  We were practically running to keep up with him, but we could at least slow down a bit when he turned off into St. James’s Park again.

 

[deladane]

Our next stop was over on Birdcage Walk where we would see another band march out in front of the new guards for Buckingham Palace.  There were already a few people lined up along the fences here so we had to squeeze in to get a good view.

 

 

Here they come!

 

 

 

Their marching is lined up perfectly!

 

 

 

[deladane]

After that brief break, it was time to chase Jess again as we moved over towards Buckingham Palace. 

 

 

Holy moly!  Look at the hundreds of people packed in and lining the sidewalks!  They must have been standing there for hours and only now just got to see the guards arrive, meanwhile we had been up close with several sets of guards and bands for the last 2 hours.  I’d say we definitely had a better morning than these people did!  We could see the band and the guards marching towards the Palace, but Jess said it was far too crowded for our group to go in that direction.  Instead, we turned right near the gardens around the traffic circle.

 

Once we found a spot along the path in the garden, we could not see the guards anymore, but we did have a beautiful view of Buckingham Palace and the Victoria Memorial in the gardens.

 

 

 

 

We both thought this tour was worth every penny (…or should I say every pence!).  As we were promised by the tour description, Jess put us in the right spot at the right time to see several components to the changing of the guards ceremony, and we avoided the large crowds of people as much as possible.  When the tour ended, Jess said we could stick around and try to get a view of the changing of the guards in the courtyard in front of Buckingham Palace, but we decided not to tackle that chaos and that we had seen enough during the tour.

 

[deladane]

We had a little bit of time before our lunch reservations, so we walked back through St. James’s Park.  I just couldn’t get enough of these colorful flowers!

 

 

I noticed these silver plaques in the sidewalk so I Googled it.  These are placed along a 14-mile path connecting London’s iconic locations between Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London.  The path was created to celebrate the Queen’s 25^th anniversary in 1977.

 

 

We walked over to Westminster Abbey to take a photo.  We did pass by here quickly during our tour on Friday, but we were across the street then and couldn’t get close so today we were able to spend a little more time examining the architecture and taking better photos.  We wouldn’t get to go inside so a quick view from the outside would have to suffice!

 

 

 

[deladane]

A few weeks before our trip, I made a reservation for lunch at the Sanctuary House.  The restaurant gets great reviews online, and was located near Westminster Abbey so we could go to the Evensong Service after lunch.  Of course, we now knew that we would not be attending that service, but we decided to keep our lunch reservations.  They offer a special Sunday Roast menu, in addition to their usual menu with lots of traditional British specialties. 

 

I loved the look of the exterior of the building.

 

 

 

 

 

We arrived at 12pm for our reservation and the restaurant was nearly empty.  The hostess took us over to a table for 4 next to the window in a quiet section towards the back of the restaurant.  We looked over the menu and considered getting the Sunday roasts but decided against it because we were not hungry enough for all of that food this early in the day.  Instead, we ordered the tasting board, which included 3 mini pies paired with 3 ales, and we ordered one extra steak pie so we could each have 2 pies. 

 

 

 

[deladane]

We planned to share the ales with DH drinking most of it, and I ordered a cider for myself.  The waiter offered to bring out the drinks first so we could get started on that, and he would bring out the pies when they were ready.  Sounds good to us!

 

 

A little while later, the waiter brought this to the table.  We looked at him a bit confused because surely he knew he had already brought out our ales.  He said he got mixed up but not to worry about it, so now we had more than enough to drink with our Sunday lunch!

 

 

All 3 of the mini pies were delicious, with a good ratio of filling to crust.  I also liked how they marked the top with a flower, a cow, and something else (I can’t remember what it was and it’s not clear in the photo) so we could identify the fillings.

 

 

The service was very good and we enjoyed our fancy lunch here, but we agreed that we would have liked it better for dinner when we had a bigger appetite.  We finished our meal by 12:45pm and decided to make our way towards the baseball game even though it was still very early.  It was going to take about an hour to get there, and the game didn’t start until 3pm, but we could spend some time walking around the stadium before the game started. 

 

[deladane]

We asked one of the agents working in the Underground station how to get to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.  It turned out to be extremely easy!  We needed to take the Jubilee line to the Stratford Station, and the fare was included in the travel cards loaded on our Oyster Cards because it was within Zone 1 and 2.  I had assumed we’d need to pay extra for our ride out to the stadium so that was a nice surprise.  Once we got on the train, there were tons of other people wearing Yankees and Red Sox shirts so we knew we were in the right place, and we all followed each other when we arrived at the Stratford Station to get to the stadium. 

 

It was about a 10 minute walk from the station to the stadium, but it was obvious where to go because we could see the stadium out in the distance.  We arrived at 2pm so it was after the initial rush to enter and there was no wait to go through security.  There are no regulation baseball stadiums in London, so this game was being played at a soccer stadium built for the 2012 Olympics.

 

 

DH was super excited to be here as it is the first time an MLB series has been played in Europe!  For anyone interested in going, they are repeating the series in 2020 with the Chicago Cubs vs. St. Louis Cardinals.  We actually have good friends out here in the Bay Area who are big Cubs fans and are seriously considering flying out for that game next summer!

 

 

 

We entered the stadium and walked around checking out the vendors.  We had seen people wearing really cool shirts in London this morning that they bought at yesterday’s game, so DH wanted to buy one.  We found the official booth selling MLB London Series merchandise, but DH didn’t like any of those shirts.  We later found out that the shirts we saw in London were purchased from private vendors outside of the stadium, although we never saw those vendors when we entered or exited the stadium. 

 

When we got to our seats, they were starting some of the pre-game festivities out on the field.

 

 

 

 

They brought out giant flags to sing both the USA and the Great Britain national anthems.

 

 

Since the game was held at a soccer stadium, the field dimensions were very short compared to the standard MLB stadiums that these players are used to playing in.  Last night’s game turned into a homerun derby because the final score was 17 to 13 (Yankees won).  As you can imagine, that lead to an extremely long game.  The game lasted 4 hours and 42 minutes, making it only 3 minutes shorter than the longest 9-inning game in MLB History (in 2006, coincidentally also between the Yankees and Red Sox!).  Today’s game was a similar story, with a final score of 12 to 8 (Yankees won again), but luckily it only lasted for 4 hours and 24 minutes!  That was still a very long game, and we ended up leaving after the 7^th inning so we’d have time for the rest of our plans for the day.  In the end, I’m glad we went to the game as it was a fun experience, even if it meant missing out on more quality time in Central London.

 

[Cotswold Eagle]

59 minutes ago, deladane said:

this game was being played at a soccer stadium built for the 2012 Olympics

 

It might just be the way you phrased this, but it’s not quite right. Although it is now primarily used as the home stadium of soccer club West Ham United, this was THE Olympic Stadium, where the opening and closing ceremonies were held, along with the athletics (track and field) programme. It has been substantially altered since then, of course. The Olympic soccer competitions were held at various stadiums around the country, with finals at the iconic Wembley Stadium. 

 

The ‘Anniversary Games’, a two-day top class athletics meet is still held here every year, so the stadium reconfigures to include a track. 

 

 

Edited August 30, 2019 by Cotswold Eagle

[deladane]

9 hours ago, Cotswold Eagle said:

 

It might just be the way you phrased this, but it’s not quite right. Although it is now primarily used as the home stadium of soccer club West Ham United, this was THE Olympic Stadium, where the opening and closing ceremonies were held, along with the athletics (track and field) programme. It has been substantially altered since then, of course. The Olympic soccer competitions were held at various stadiums around the country, with finals at the iconic Wembley Stadium. 

 

The ‘Anniversary Games’, a two-day top class athletics meet is still held here every year, so the stadium reconfigures to include a track. 

 

 

 

haha yes, that is what I meant to say... perhaps I should have used better punctuation or wording or something? Thanks for sharing that photo!  Our seats were above the track- we could tell the seats we were in were temporary for when they changed the shape of the stadium to accommodate baseball.

[Cotswold Eagle]

And here’s what it looked like in the glorious Olympic summer of 2012 😎

 

 

 

[Walt fan]

The pies looked delicious.  The Evensong Service sounds very interesting.  Glad ya'll had fun at the game!

[pcrum]

Having lived in Berkshire County just outside of London for 4 years, I am really enjoying this review.  No one does a ceremony like England!  I'm sorry you did not get to visit Windsor.  They do a changing of the guard with the band marching down the High Street that is much less crowded than the one in London.  When you visit England again, that is a nice day trip from London and a very quick train ride!!

 

We have never taken a free walking tour before.  Considering your walking tour of the changing of the guard in London was 20 pounds, what would you normally tip for a "free" walking tour?  I'd like to take advantage of some of these free tours, but am so unsure what to tip.

 

Looking forward to the rest of your review!!

[deladane]

On 8/30/2019 at 8:59 PM, Cotswold Eagle said:

And here’s what it looked like in the glorious Olympic summer of 2012 😎

 

 

 

 

So cool!  Did you attend any of the events at the Olympics?  

[deladane]

duplicate post

Edited September 1, 2019 by deladane

[deladane]

15 hours ago, Walt fan said:

The pies looked delicious.  The Evensong Service sounds very interesting.  Glad ya'll had fun at the game!

 

I know people complain about the food in England but we really liked everything we ate there!  

[deladane]

4 minutes ago, pcrum said:

Having lived in Berkshire County just outside of London for 4 years, I am really enjoying this review.  No one does a ceremony like England!  I'm sorry you did not get to visit Windsor.  They do a changing of the guard with the band marching down the High Street that is much less crowded than the one in London.  When you visit England again, that is a nice day trip from London and a very quick train ride!!

 

We have never taken a free walking tour before.  Considering your walking tour of the changing of the guard in London was 20 pounds, what would you normally tip for a "free" walking tour?  I'd like to take advantage of some of these free tours, but am so unsure what to tip.

 

Looking forward to the rest of your review!!

 

What makes you think I didn't get to Windsor??? 😉  

For the free walking tours, our tip depends on the length of the tour and how much we enjoyed the guide.  Most of the free tour companies recommend a tip of $10 to $15 per person.

[deladane]

We took the Tube back to our hotel to get changed for the evening.  I must say that something I really missed about cruising was the logistics of getting ready for the evening.  It is so convenient to ride an elevator back to our deck and walk a few steps down the hall to our cabin to shower and get changed for dinner, as opposed to taking some form of public transit to travel across the city to get back to our hotel, and then needing to take more public transit to get to our evening activity.  Even with conveniently located hotels, it still always took a long time and really made me miss that aspect of cruising.

 

Once we were ready for the night, we took the Tube over to the Aldgate Station.  We had reservations for dinner at Mayfair Chippy at The City location because we had to stay on schedule and this place got good reviews on Trip Advisor so it was just easier to plan a reservation here as opposed to aimlessly wandering the streets looking for a good restaurant.  This restaurant was in the business district near lots of high-rise office buildings, so it was not surprising that most restaurants were closed on a Sunday night and the streets were somewhat deserted.  When we got to Mayfair Chippy, it was actually very crowded and nearly every table was occupied, so it’s a good thing we had a reservation!  We were seated immediately and it didn’t take long to look over the menu because we planned to order their specialty… fish and chips!  What else would you order at a chippy?  The food came out quickly and everything was crisp and tasty.

 

 

After dinner, we walked a few short blocks over to the Sky Garden for our evening activity.  On Thursday, we visited the Sky Garden from the reservations I made on their website 3 weeks in advance, but that kind of ticketing is only available during the day.  At night, the Sky Garden features a bar in the main open space called the Sky Pod Bar.  You can make reservations on their website starting 2 months in advance (way better than just 3 weeks in advance for the daytime slots!), and you can either request a table or just sign up for standing room around the bar.  There are also a few restaurants in there, but we were not interested in eating dinner there.  I made reservations for the bar for 9:15pm so we could watch the sunset and then see the nighttime skyline light up after dark. 

 

The Sky Pod Bar has a dress code at night and they do not permit flip flops or shorts, so we made sure to be dressed appropriately when we got changed at the hotel.  When we arrived at the hostess stand in the downstairs lobby, there was a group of people who were arguing with another hostess because she denied them entry because of what they were wearing.  I didn’t realize they would enforce the dress code so thoroughly, but those people were wearing shorts and flip flops so I guess it really did matter!

 

We went through the same thorough security check that we did on Thursday afternoon, then took the elevator up to the 35^th floor to the Sky Garden.  We checked in again with the hostess at the Sky Pod Bar and she said we were free to walk around and order drinks at the bar, but we needed to leave after an hour and a half.  It also said that on our booking confirmation, and that wasn’t a problem because we didn’t plan to stay that long anyway.

 

I was drawn towards this gorgeous view of The Shard.  I tried to go outside on the balcony to take a better photo but the doors are locked at night and you need to stay inside the main Sky Garden complex.

 

 

We took a look at the menu at the bar and were surprised that the beer and cider prices were quite reasonable.  We each got a pint and took it to walk around and check out the views.  That’s why I didn’t want to book a table… I knew we’d want to wander around while we were here.

 

We timed our visit perfectly to watch the sunset.  The views from up here were so amazing!  It was hard to avoid the glare off the windows, but I did my best!

 

 

 

 

[deladane]

 

 

 

 

We stayed at the Sky Garden for about 45 minutes, then found our way back to the elevator to leave.  Back down on the street, we caught this view of The Shard peaking out down the alley.

 

[deladane]

Before heading back to the hotel, we decided to take a detour to see the Tower Bridge lit up at night.  We didn’t get to see it on Thursday night on the walking tour, and we were so close by so why not?  We walked down to the Thames in search of a walkway along the water.  On the way, we caught another great view of The Shard.

 

 

We could not figure out how to access the walking path because the gates near the Tower of London were locked, so we walked down along the Tower Pier to get as close as we could to the bridge.

 

 

I love that there was a red double-decker bus going across the middle of the bridge right as I took this photo!

 

 

 

Mission accomplished, we turned back to exit the pier and caught this view of The Shard and a neighboring building lit up for Pride month.  A beautiful end to another wonderful day in London!

 

 

Fitbit Daily Summary… Steps: 21,014,  Miles: 10.17,  Flights of Stairs: 24

 

[pcrum]

3 minutes ago, deladane said:

 

What makes you think I didn't get to Windsor??? 😉  

For the free walking tours, our tip depends on the length of the tour and how much we enjoyed the guide.  Most of the free tour companies recommend a tip of $10 to $15 per person.

Oh, I do hope you saw Windsor!  It is my absolute favorite place on earth!!  Sorry, but I thought I saw an overview of your trip where you mentioned Bath, but I did not remember Windsor!  

 

Thanks for the information on the walking tours.  We were in Barcelona in May and wondered about taking one, but were hesitant.  I'm glad to hear you have had good experiences with them.