Traveling to Barcelona

Since the better part of today will be spent traveling from London to Barcelona, I thought I’d talk about packing.  We belong to the group of Classic Overpackers. 

Just as we have the cardinal shopping rule for travelers (Charge It-Ship It), we have 2 basic rules for packing.  First is the “What if rule.”  Second is the  “We don’t travel to report on great self-laundry facilities we have seen.”  I think I inherited from my mother the first rule.  You never know what strange malady you may run into.  Hence we bring some of everything in the medicine cabinet.  Likewise I never travel without my roll of duct tape.  It can be useful for so many things.  Unfortunately it’s also pretty bulky and heavy.  I guess I could make a fashion statement and wear it as a bracelet.  The second rule complicates the amount of clothing we haul with us.  On our cruises recently we’ve had access to free laundry services which always came back the next day.  That meant if we packed enough clothing for our days pre-cruise plus 2 extra, we would be good to go.  On this trip we’re spending a week ashore first and since we’ve never been on Seabourn we have no idea if their laundry will be as efficient.  Add to that the fact that we’re traveling from cooler London to warm Rio where you don’t even need to wear clothes on the beach, unless you count a thong. So we prepared for all climates.  And then there is dinner clothing on the ship.  There are formal, elegant casual, country club casual, and whatever else they come up with.  The upshot is we have four large suitcases and two big carryons. 

I did have a moment of revelation as I packed at home.  We always make a list of things we need to pack.  I  try to pack so we don’t have to open all our suitcases during the land portion.  That nevaer seems to have worked before.  There was always something tucked away in another bag.  This time it hit me that I needed two lists.  The things to pack list and a list of what’s in each suitcase.  So I’ve attached a numbered sticker to each bag and I made a list of everything that went in each suitcase as I placed it there.  That’s worked really well and we haven’t needed to open every one.  It only took 60 plus years to figure that one out.  I’m learning.

So now we sit in the British Airways lounge waiting for our flight.  Al is feeling better.  The weather looks good and hopefully the day will be uneventful.  More later.

London - Change in Plans

Unfortunately, today we had to change our plans and have a day of rest.  Al’s foot had been bothering him the last two days but he had been marching along anyway.  This morning, though, he awoke with Henry VIII’s revenge (or maybe it was Anne Boleyn’s).  We decided it was best to  take a break.  We’ll come to London again so there will be other opportunities to see more.  Instead we stayed in the hotel and began our Scrabble tournament  for this year.    It’s late afternoon and I think he’s feeling better. 

Since there isn’t much of anything to tell about what we did, I thought I’d write about  a couple of the historic anecdotes our guide told us yesterday.  The first  person of note to be removed from the Tower and taken up to Tower Hill for public execution was one Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1381.  In addition to being the Archbishop he was also the Lord Chancellor of England.  Evidently he was largely responsible for introducing a poll tax and was therefore wildly unpopular.  Rebellious peasants destroyed some of his property and Sudbury sought refuge in the Tower of London.  Apparently the guards weren’t too happy about the tax either because they allowed the rebels through the gates.  The Archbishop was dragged from the castle, up Tower Hill and executed.  Clearly taxes weren’t any more popular in the 14th century than they are today, but we seem to have learned to curb our more violent instincts.

The second story Yeoman Warder Duncan told us is one of true love.  William Maxwell, the 5^th Earl of Nithsdale was a Scottish earl who was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death for his part in an uprising against the king.  On the night before the day he was to be executed (February 24, 1716), his wife Lady Winifred and two of her maids were allowed to make a last visit to him in the Tower.  Unbeknownst to the guards they had hidden a set of woman’s clothing beneath their own clothes.  The Earl dressed as a woman and left with the two maids leaving his wife behind in his cell.  For the next hour the Countess carried on a conversation ostensibly with her husband in case the guard was eavesdropping.  After she thought a sufficient amount of time had passed to insure her husband was out of the Tower she began to loudly wail and cry and asked to leave his cell.  She told the guard her husband wanted to spend the next hour in prayer because of his imminent death and she tearfully beseeched him to allow the Earl to be alone with his God for that time.  Unable to deny the crying woman the guard agreed and the lady left.  She met her husband  outside the Tower and they fled to Rome where they spent the rest of their lives.  We wondered what happened to the hapless guard when the escape was discovered.  Hopefully he didn’t have to take the Earl’s place.

Well, tomorrow we’re off on the next leg of our journey.  Barcelona, here we come!  More later.

London – The Tower of London and the Churchill War rooms with afternoon tea thrown in

After a good night’s sleep we awoke to what  looked like a drizzly day.  On our agenda were the Tower and the Churchill War Rooms for which I had bought tickets online.  Just a note, I wasn’t sure when I bought them if we could qualify for Senior citizen tickets since we were not UK residents, so I purchased regular ones.  It turns out we are eligible and I’ll remember that in the future.

Anyway, after breakfast we were off on the Underground to the Tower.  Another aside, we love the “tube.”  It’s easy to use and a great people-watching place.  When we arrived at Tower Hill it was misting, but that stopped quickly.  Eventually as the day progressed the sun broke out and it was quite lovely.  We decided to take a tour with one of the “Beefeaters” and it was great that we did. 

Our guide was Yeoman Warder (that’s their official title) Jim Duncan and he was a very engaging fellow.  Lots of people have been to the Tower and know much about the jewels, regalia and history of the place, but today we also learned a little about the Warders.  There are 37 of them and they must all be veterans of the British military who have served at least 22 years.  Our Mr. Duncan had 40 years in the service including time in the infantry.  We guessed that no one messed with him when he was serving there.  The Yeoman Warders are the ceremonial guardians of the Tower of London and members of the  Sovereign’s bodyguard.  Hence their red uniform bears the initials of the monarch on their chest (now E II R for Elizabeth II Regina).  They were formed in the 15^th century by the first Tudor king, Henry VII, so their badges still bear a Tudor rose.

Yeoman Warder Duncan

The Tower is a fortress built originally by William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. On that site though evidence has been found dating back to the Roman era.  The Tower has been a fortress, a royal residence and a prison.  One of its towers is the place where the two little princes, sons of Edward IV, were held and disappeared, many think at the hands of their uncle Richard III.  Through the water gate from the Thames, now known as the Traitors Gate, many famous captives came to the Tower and many of those didn’t leave alive.  Among them were two of Henry VIII’s queens, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard.  I learned today that most of those executed were not actually killed in the Tower itself.  Most were taken outside the walls and up Tower Hill to the public execution site.  Only the privileged few were allowed a more private execution.

Traitor's gate through which many prisoners arrived never to leave again

The Tower is the repository of the Crown jewels, including the largest cut white diamond in the world,  the coronation regalia, and a collection of weapons that will amaze anyone interested in the history of warfare. It’s  also the home to some of the Yeoman Warders and their families with about 120 residents.

The White Tower, the central keep of the Castle, built by William the Conqueror

Just one more tidbit we found interesting.  During WWII, the second highest ranking Nazi, Rudolph Hess, who was captured  in  Scotland in 1941 on what he hoped would be a peace mission, was held prisoner at the Tower for 9 nine days.  He was then moved to the countryside somewhere to be held safe from the blitz.  After the war, he was tried as a war criminal at Nuremburg, found guilty, and imprisoned for the rest of his life in Spandau prison in Berlin.  What does this have to do with anything?  Our guide Yeoman Duncan was one of those who guarded Hess in that prison  before his death in 1987.  We found that fascinating. 

Well, we looked for the ravens at the Tower of London and they were scarce because of the weather.  Al caught a glimpse of one but couldn’t get a photo.  There are seven of them and legend has it that if the ravens fly from the Tower of London, the monarchy and the kingdom will be lost.  Ravens or not, we enjoyed our visit there and we see that we could have spent an entire day seeing all there is to see.

Our next stop was the Churchill War Rooms museum.  These are the underground rooms very close to Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament that were a British command center during WWII.  The rooms were used from the outbreak of war in 1939 until VJ Day in August, 1945, when they were abandoned.  At some point people realized the significance of the complex and they have been restored to precisely the state they were in during the war. It was interesting to see the cramped quarters in which some of the staff lived for days on end below ground and without knowing what was above them as London went through the bombing blitz.  There was a board posted to tell people there what day it was and what the weather was because they were apt to lose track of those things.  It was there I thought we might see an Enigma machine, the device used to break the German codes,  but we didn’t.  Instead we saw the then super secret transatlantic phone room.  Only a few people knew that there was a phone line connecting London with Washington.  The door to the room was disguised as the entrance to what the staff thought was the only flushing toilet in the bunker accessible only to Churchill and other top staff.  It was instead the room from which the Prime Minister held some phone conversations with Franklin Roosevelt.

Churchill's bedroom in the complex

After getting our fill of history (and telling you more than you ever wanted to know), we decided it was time for a traditional English tea.  So off we went and enjoyed delightful scones, luscious pastries and some wonderful finger sandwiches accompanied by tea, not from a bag, but actually brewed.  It was a wonderful way to conclude our day of sightseeing before heading back to the hotel.

A good way to end a day of sightseeing - a proper English tea

Tomorrow we’re going to try a Thames River cruise and then we’re off to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Hopefully our feet will hold up.

London - We made it!

After an uneventful and fast flight across the Atlantic we arrived close to half an hour earlier than scheduled.  After collecting our luggage and clearing the border and customs, we quickly checked in to our hotel.  After a shower and a nap we felt relatively human again so we set off to London on the Underground.  It was pouring rain at every aboveground station we passed through.  We decided we would make our first  stop of the day Harrod’s rather than marching around in a deluge.  When we emerged from the Knightsbridge station next to the store, it had nearly stopped raining.

We rode the Egyptian escalator all the way to the top and then began exploring the floors.  What a fascinating place!  We were here earlier last year and they hadn’t yet begun to gear up for Christmas.  No so today.  There were so many ornaments it was mind-boggling! We wandered through the sections selling art and lots of decorative items for the home.  Some were beautiful; most were outrageously expensive.  We saw a life size woman made of thousands of pieces of gold art glass and sitting in a chair.  She cost a mere 168,000 pounds.  Al wondered if the chair came with her for that price.  (We didn’t buy her.)  Our last stop in Harrod’s was the Food Hall.  What a marvelous place it is!  The breads and pastries and chocolates are incredibly tempting.  As we had done in the past we bought some coffee and tea and we discovered a wonderful thing; Harrod’s knows our four favorite shopping words when traveling – Charge It, Ship It.  So our purchases will make it home before we do.

By the time we left the store the sun was coming out.  We walked up Brompton Road.  It was along there that we saw these buildings which are in such contrast, the very modern glass towers next to the more Rococo buildings. 

We loved the visual combinatio

As we approached Hyde Park Corner and the Wellington Arch, the sun broke through and lit up the sculpture at the top of the Angel of Peace descending on the chariot of war being pulled by four beautifully sculpted horses. 

We walked past Green Park along Park Lane and then Piccadilly until we got to the Wolseley  This café-restaurant is operated in the tradition of grand European cafes and is famous for its afternoon tea service. We  had eaten there last year and enjoyed it so much we needed to revisit.  It was just as good the second time around. We were a little late for tea so we had an early dinner.  We had some of the best oysters on the half  shell and Scottish salmon we’ve ever eaten.

  

Hard to see, but this is the doorman of the cafe.

After a nice meal we walked to the tube station and headed home.  It turned out to be a grand day despite the rainy start.  Best of all we managed to stay up pretty late so by tomorrow we should be pretty well acclimated to the time change.

Well, tomorrow is another day.  We’re off to see ravens and enigmas.

On our way!

Well, we're on our way.  Our driver picked us up on time and we had an uneventful drive to Dulles.  Now we're just killing time here in the Virgin lounge.  Al has started writing his e-mail updates and sending them out.  Our plane is across the way from us.  The planes all have names painted near the nose and he was disappointed that the one we're flying on is not named the Indian Princess.  Last year on our way home we flew on that aircraft and played Scrabble most of the way across the Atlantic.  At some point he lost an "E" tile.  He said if we were on the same plane he was going to look for his letter. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately since he won't feel a need to crawl around) we're going to be on the Lady Stardust.  Nothing else to report for now.  

Where would we be without iPads?

Less than 7 days!

At this time next Saturday we’ll be somewhere over the Atlantic.  We originally were flying out on the 22^nd of October but at some point Al said perhaps we could fly earlier and spend a few days in London on our way to Barcelona.  Nothing was available until last weekend and then, lo and behold, some seats popped up!  I scooped them up and we’ll be on our way on the 19^th.  There are so many things we want to see in London that we’ll have no trouble filling our days.  The only downside is that I have to pack earlier (not my favorite).

I’m getting a little excited about the trip.  I booked a few shore excursions.  Usually we have something planned for every place but we’re taking a more laid back approach this year.  Nonetheless, the ones we are taking are things I can’t wait to do.  We’re going to Marrakech!  In my head every time I say that I hear the song “The Marrakech Express.”  Shades of my youth!  At another stop we’re taking a camel ride.   We’ll see if we post pictures of that one.   

It’s been more than a year since I’ve written.  Life has gone on here at home with some highs and lows.  Our daughter was married, received her PhD from UNC, and got a teaching position at a university.  Those were good things.  A few health issues were worrisome but seem to have settled down now.

Dr. Katie & Stan on graduation day at UNC

We’re a month away from our next cruise on the Seabourn Quest.  It occurred to me the other day that we will be travelling almost exactly 30 years to the day from our first cruise on the M/V Sunviking.  Back then I had avidly watched “The Love Boat” and when we boarded the Sunviking in Barbados I expected to see a cabin like those I’d seen on the TV show.  It was a little shock to see our teeny-tiny inside cabin with its fixed twin beds and postage stamp bathroom.  Nonetheless we had a great time and so began our  cruising.  We sailed another three times on the old Sunviking  - in the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal and in Asia.  She was a lovely ship despite not having the amenities people expect today. 

After sailing on many larger ships we’re trying something more like the first ship.  The Quest is only a little larger than the Sunviking but it carries far fewer passengers and has more to offer.  When we began cruising only a few ships had balconies whereas now most ships have many cabins with them.  Dining on the Sunviking was in one dining room with fixed seating.  Entertainment venues were limited and there was no casino.  There were four slot machines outside the entrance to the dining room.  I remember being chewed out by a lady who was evidently playing all of them at once  and I dared to try and put a quarter in one.

That first cruise we sailed from Barbados to Miami.  The cruise line routed us with a night in Miami on our way down.  I remember vividly the flight to Barbados because we were several hours late leaving from Miami and our flight down took many unexpected and unexplained twists and turns.  We later learned that it was because the flight path was altered so as we flew over the Caribbean we wouldn’t see the invasion fleet gathering for the invasion of Grenada.  Back in those days there were no TV’s with satellite news or internet service onboard.  Our news came in a mimeographed sheet slipped under the door each night with a few headlines.  When we arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and went to the fort of El Morro we saw the flag at half mast.  We asked the Park Ranger why and he told us it was in memory of the people lost in the bombing of the Marine Corps Barracks in Beirut.  Two days later while we were still at sea the invasion of Grenada occurred and we had no clue about either while on the ship. Times have certainly changed since now there are 24 hour news channels and internet connections available.  It’s nice being able to stay in touch, but I’m not sure that there isn’t something to be said for getting away completely as you could do back then.

Well, this year we’re flying to Barcelona (one of our favorite cities).  We’ll spend a few nights there and board the Seabourn Quest for a transatlantic cruise ending in Rio de Janeiro.  Almost all our ports are new to both of us so it will be an adventure.  One exciting thing I found when I did some research is that we’ll be off the coast of Africa on the day when there is a solar eclipse and we’ll be in prime viewing area for it.  I think that will be an interesting thing to see and I hope we have a picture perfect day so it will be clearly visible.  We’ll post as we go along.  Until then…

Seabourn Quest