London Travel/Royal Wedding

Well this title is a bit misleading, our remaining days of travel were all outside of London.  This was the week of the Royal Wedding and I was pretty much prepared to change travel dates, but my grandson said Yes, so off we went.  He scouted out the best route to get to Windsor and we took a bus, double-decker of course, to a train filled with other wedding watchers.

The trains were filled with people from all over the world, speaking a huge variety of languages and all seemed quite charmed by the event about to take place.  Windsor is a smallish town fairly distant from London and very much like the places you see on TV shows.

With the help of the “Royal Wedding” signs around town and a local giving us directions as he watched from his front lawn this parade of people going past.  We made it through security and safely on the grounds of Windsor Castle.  About 100 yards in front of our location was a huge, movie screen size, TV for viewing the wedding.  Now, just to wait.  A camera in a tower on the grass was about 10 feet away and he was filming all around the area.  When he turned the camera on the people right there a lot of flag waving and cheering happened.  We were “officially” at least in our minds, a part of the royal wedding.  We found a fairly open space to watch and settled in.

The people watching was fun and a few cars with guests and Megan with her Mom came right past us for us to all wave to.  We then watched them disembark from those same cars at the front of the castle.  Once the wedding started the grounds quieted a little but not completely.  Many of us on the grass joined in with the songs and cheered the events happening. We all sang God Save The Queen and waited for the carriage to come past.

We were certainly rewarded for our efforts and were no more than 20 feet from the carriage and saw Prince Harry and Megan!!!!! This was never officially on my bucket list, but certainly is crossed off now.  The locals asked what would this compare to back in the US.  The only thing I could think of was seeing the President.  I have luckily seen 3 and shaken hands with 2 and this felt the same.

London Travel Part 1

I have a couple of adventurous grandchildren who are always up for almost anything fun.  I was doing a bit of whining and saying it had been far too long since I had the opportunity to do any international travel and I would be doing some soon.  I had some eager companions who said they were willing to take time off from jobs and school if necessary to go along. My grandson and I settled on a weekend where he knew he could make himself available and we decided on London.  So I checked the calendar and flights and hotels and discovered it was the weekend of the royal wedding.  He said let’s go anyway so we did.

We arrived Friday morning and first stop was the hotel we were staying in.  It offered a great rate but was a bit out-of-the-way.  My cell phone never did work while I was out of the country so we had no sense of where we were going.  We stopped in a pub by the underground stop that I remembered was near the place for lunch and directions.

By the way, for any of you going there.  I am not sure if it was the wedding weekend or just the summer weather starting but it was the worst time ever getting out of the airport.  When we got off he airplane there was a queue that snaked through the airport at a snail pace.  We spent almost three hours in line waiting to get up to the front of the line and have our passports checked and stamped.  This was my 7th trip to London and I have never seen anything so bad.  They were bringing water for us standing in line because they thought someone might pass out.

Found the hotel, but they had no storage facility for our bags so off we went on our adventure.  First the London Eye.   A truly giant Ferris Wheel with huge enclosed cars for about 20 people in each car.  Moves very slowly, no shaking or wobble almost don’t even know you are up in the air.  A short walk over to Westminster Abbey,  Big Ben is in scaffolding for the next 5 years with some major repairs to the building.

We took a pedicab to Buckingham Palace, just because it really is impressive, between the gates and the people and the size and the park area, I’m not sure I would want to live there. Then off to Piccadilly Circus because it is like going to Times Square in New York, just an iconic place to see.  I was pretty much done for the day, but when you have an 18-year-old boy along you just keep going.