Blue Streak gets a ‘Ticket to Ride’ in London

Our good friends and traveling companions, Dawn and Richard Ford, love London. They’ve visited three times over the past 10 years. It is their favorite city.

So when Alan and I discussed our joint European vacation with the Fords, we all decided that they would be in charge of planning the London portion of the trip while Alan and I would take charge of planning the Paris visit. Paris is my favorite city.

“I love London because it’s a pretty city and it’s interesting historically,” Dawn noted. “We also feel some emotion about London because Richard and I were there when 9/11 happened and people there were so kind to us.”

The plan worked great! With the help of Sandy Hampton at World Travel, Dawn booked us into a great boutique hotel, Rubens at the Palace, right across the street from Buckingham Palace. We would spend some quality time in the hotel’s charming little bar as we gathered each evening prior to going out.

We all travel very well together. While we do most things as a group, we also don’t mind splitting up if one couple wants to do something that doesn’t interest the other couple. Or, sometimes, the women go their way while the guys do something else. It’s a very easy routine borne of many fun trips together.

This blog post will hit the highlights of the three nights we spent in London prior to hopping the Eurostar to take the Chunnel to Paris. Again, Dawn gets the bulk of the planning credit.

Tracing its founding to 1772, the Lamb and Flag was a favorite watering hole of writer Charles Dickens.

Back at our hotel, we checked in, unpacked and met later in the cute little bar.

If there’s one thing we know how to do, it is how to make full use of the concierge in our hotel. He made us a reservation for dinner at what he described as one of the two best seafood restaurants in London — Bentley’s Oyster Bar & Grill, established in 1916.

Since this was our first day abroad and we had accomplished our goal of staying awake until bedtime, we headed back to the hotel to listen to a piano player in the bar. Some of us had dessert.

We did a couple of really smart things on this trip. The first was booking a heck of a lot of things in advance — while we still were in Knoxville. The last thing you want to do on vacation is waste a lot of time standing in lines. We also upgraded whenever possible — that got us through the waiting areas more quickly and also guaranteed top quality experiences. Alan, Richard and I are huge Beatles fans. So one of the first things we booked before leaving Knoxville was a Beatles tour. Our sweet guide, Sarah, picked us up bright and early the next morning and off we went, all over London, to a dozen or so places that had significance in the lives of the Beatles. “You can tell what kind of neighborhood you are in by looking at the cars,” Sarah noted. And she was right.

Next, we met up with Dawn and headed to one of our favorite stops in London: Borough Market, London’s most famous food market. But it’s much more than that. It’s an experience in itself.

In addition to finding a lunch spot, we wanted to taste samples from an establishment called English Wine & Spirits at Borough Market. Our guide on the Beatles tour said that English sparkling wine is really coming into its own. She said that global warming has caused the vineyards of France and Italy to become less productive and that this has created a real opportunity for the English wine to gain a foothold. Since all of us love sparkling wine, we wanted to taste for ourselves.

We split up for lunch as Richard and Dawn went in search of oysters on the half shell. Alan and I ended up at Applebee’s Fish Shop and Cafe.

Then it was on to The London Eye, where we had pre-ordered seats on “the champagne experience.” I mean, why stop celebrating now?

 

The entire ride takes 30 minutes. As soon as we got off, we jumped on a sightseeing boat. I love to see different cities — including Knoxville — from the water.

Pooped but not defeated, we disembarked the boat and asked a cab driver to take us to a pub. That was a bad decision. It was Friday afternoon and every pub we approached was jam packed. Time for Plan B. Take us to Rules, the oldest restaurant in London. Alan and Richard had a dinner reservation there and Dawn and I decided to join them for a drink before heading off for our own reservation at Amaya, a Michelin starred Indian restaurant.

Dawn and I had a great experience at Amaya. We both ordered from the tasting menu — every course included two of the same item. Then we split the courses, so each of us got to taste six different things.

I think we packed a lot into that day. It was time to turn in.

On our last day in London, we split up for the morning. The Fords headed to Kensington Palace. We wanted to take in the National Gallery, which was promoting Van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting. We were to meet up for high tea at The Orangery at Kensington Palace in early afternoon.

Evening plans were to have an early dinner at Axis at One Aldwych and then take in a British farce (Richard’s favorite kind of play) in Piccadilly Circus.

The play, “The 39 Steps,” running at Criterion Theatre, is a spoof of the Alfred Hitchcock movie. It was hilarious and clever. All the parts were played by just four actors. I wish our friends at the Clarence Brown Theatre would consider bringing it here.