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Admiral Beez

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Tomorrow I fly home after nearly four weeks in London and Essex.

This three week trip is just London, though we did a train ride out to tour Highclere Castle (Downton Abby). Here’s what we’ve seen here in London on this trip, not including the shops like Harrods, F&M, etc. and a fun train ride out to tour and lunch at Highclere Castle (Downton Abbey).

Natural History Museum
British Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
Kensington Palace Tour (and high tea)
Museum of the Home
Cutty Sark
Royal Geographical Society’s Shackleton's legacy exhibit
Royal Observatory Greenwich
National Maritime Museum
RAF Museum
Thames river Uber boat
HMS Belfast
St. Paul’s Cathedral (climbed right to the top)
London Monument (great fire)
London Transport Museum
Woolwich Arsenal (had to see https://sumpmagazine.com/amc-plaque.htm)
Museum of London
Charles Dickens Museum
Science Museum
Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace
Greenwich Market
Portobello Road Market
Camden Market
Borough Market
Covent Garden Market
Little Venice (had coffee and a tart - not that sort - on a canal boat cafe)
Duchess Theatre (saw The Play That Goes Wrong | MISCHIEF)

I also spent a week with family in Essex. I stayed in a lovely cottage within easy walk of https://www.layermarneytower.co.uk/. Wasn’t supposed to be a week, but I caught Covid (mild cough) and had to isolate there for a week until I tested negative and could return to London. After two years of isolation and wfh in Toronto it’s no surprise I caught Covid here, as almost no one masks in England - I did on the tube. The entire clan here was previously infected so they didn’t mind joining me for country walks and garden pub pints and grub at the https://www.thehareandhound.co.uk/. If you have to recover from Covid this is a place to do it. Thankfully I was able to extend my work vacay and flight departure by a week.

A few notes on London. I saw very few bike lanes where I stayed (Kensington) and visited (see list above), and even fewer separated lanes. In fact, even though the weather is nice, I saw very few bicycles at all on the roads. Perhaps the excellent public transit system cancels out the need? In my entire time here in London and Essex I did not see a single stop sign, every intersection that’s not traffic light controlled is considered a yield, and it works. Pedestrians and drivers wave each other on. Next, everyone jaywalks, and it’s totally fine. The curbs are high to reduce car incursions onto the sidewalks. I returned to my childhood home in Lewisham and noticed that while it looks a little like my home in Cabbagetown, the entire SE neighbourhood has no trees, no front yard trees whatsoever, no canopy. What else? Almost no beggars, absolutely zero encampments, drunks or evident addicts in the parks across London I visited. And police actually on their feet! Walking the beat. When was the last time any one in Toronto saw a police officer (who‘s not on paid duty playing traffic cone) actually on their feet walking, not to a call, but just showing the flag, keeping the watch and engaging with passersby? Lastly, I love the public transit here, you have multiple options to get anywhere, for example I was in Woolwich and the DLR broke down and I walked to the British Rail station nearby and for no extra cost (due to the outage) I got myself to a tube station and home. Yesterday I just got on a bus, any bus and toured about. Lastly, there are far fewer EVs than I expected, I think 95-99% of the cars I see are ICE powered, even though curb side charging posts abound. There’s varying levels of vandalism on the tube, including scratchetti (sp?) but almost no panhandling at or near stations - though you do see the gypsy flower women chasing down tourists. The independent book stores are amazing, I spent at least an hour at Hatchards coming out with several purchases. Overall, this city just works well, getting around is easy, I always felt safe and at ease. The daily max fare on London transit is handy, as is the ability to pay with your phone or tap your credit card.

I skipped the Eye as a tourist trap (in 2019 I rode its copy in Singapore), war museum (too sad), and I’ve been to the Tower of London before, since I’ve a beatified ancestor there. So, I think I’ve done London. The weather has been lovely, not too hot but sunny most days - I sat in Hyde Park by the pond just to read a book, just sublime. Yesterday I walked for 90 mins listening to the BBC History Extra podcast from Westminster through the large parks all the way to my hotel, stopping for a tea by the pond - I wish Toronto had urban parks of this scale. My next trip to the UK will be to Yorkshire and Scotland. After a month away I’m ready to come home. My boss says sales are up since I left so I’m glad I could contribute to my company’s success, lol. Now back to work.

Today I’m attending the service at https://stjamespaddington.org.uk/ which looks beautiful inside. Then fly home tomorrow.
 
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Tomorrow I fly home after three weeks in London. Here’s what I’ve seen, not including the big shops like Harrods, Selfridges, etc.

This three week trip is just London, though we did a train ride out to tour Highclere Castle (Downton Abby). Here’s what we’ve seen here in London on this trip, not including the shops like Harrods, F&M, etc. and a fun train ride out to tour and lunch at Highclere Castle (Downton Abbey).

Natural History Museum
British Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
Kensington Palace Tour (and high tea)
Museum of the Home
Cutty Sark
Royal Geographical Society’s Shackleton's legacy exhibit
Royal Observatory Greenwich
National Maritime Museum
RAF Museum
Thames river Uber boat
HMS Belfast
St. Paul’s Cathedral (climbed right to the top)
London Monument (great fire)
London Transport Museum
Woolwich Arsenal (had to see https://sumpmagazine.com/amc-plaque.htm)
Museum of London
Charles Dickens Museum
Science Museum
Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace
Greenwich Market
Portobello Road Market
Camden Market
Borough Market
Little Venice (had coffee and a tart - not that sort - on a canal boat cafe)
Duchess Theatre (saw The Play That Goes Wrong | MISCHIEF)

I also spent a week with family in Essex. I stayed in a lovely cottage within easy walk of https://www.layermarneytower.co.uk/. Wasn’t supposed to be a week, but I caught Covid (mild cough) and had to isolate there for a week until I tested negative and could return to London. After two years of isolation and wfh in Toronto it’s no surprise I caught Covid here, as almost no one masks in England - I did on the tube. The entire clan here was previously infected so they didn’t mind joining me for country walks and garden pub pints and grub at the https://www.thehareandhound.co.uk/. If you have to recover from Covid this is a place to do it. Thankfully I was able to extend my work vacay and flight departure by a week.

A few notes on London. I saw very few bike lanes where I stayed (Kensington) and visited (see list above), and even fewer separated lanes. In fact, even though the weather is nice, I saw very few bicycles at all on the roads. Perhaps the excellent public transit system cancels out the need? In my entire time here in London and Essex I did not see a single stop sign, every intersection that’s not traffic light controlled is considered a yield, and it works. Pedestrians and drivers wave each other on. Next, everyone jaywalks, and it’s totally fine. The curbs are high to reduce car incursions onto the sidewalks. I returned to my childhood home in Lewisham and noticed that while it looks a little like my home in Cabbagetown, the entire SE neighbourhood has no trees, no front yard trees whatsoever, no canopy. What else? Almost no beggars, absolutely zero encampments, drunks or evident addicts in the parks across London I visited. And police actually on their feet! Walking the beat. When was the last time any one in Toronto saw a police officer (who‘s not on paid duty playing traffic cone) actually on their feet walking, not to a call, but just showing the flag, keeping the watch and engaging with passersby? Lastly, I love the public transit here, you have multiple options to get anywhere, for example I was in Woolwich and the DLR broke down and I walked to the British Rail station nearby and for no extra cost (due to the outage) I got myself to a tube station and home. Yesterday I just got on a bus, any bus and toured about. Lastly, there are far fewer EVs than I expected, I think 95-99% of the cars I see are ICE powered, even though curb side charging posts abound. There’s varying levels of vandalism on the tube, including scratchetti (sp?) but almost no panhandling at or near stations - though you do see the gypsy flower women chasing down tourists. The independent book stores are amazing, I spent at least an hour at Hatchards coming out with several purchases. Overall, this city just works well, getting around is easy, I always felt safe and at ease. The daily max fare on London transit is handy, as is the ability to pay with your phone or tap your credit card.

I skipped the Eye as a tourist trap (in 2019 I rode its copy in Singapore), war museum (too sad), and I’ve been to the Tower of London before, since I’ve a beatified ancestor there. So, I think I’ve done London. The weather has been lovely, not too hot but sunny most days - I sat in Hyde Park by the pond just to read a book, just sublime. Yesterday I walked for 90 mins listening to the BBC History Extra podcast from Westminster through the large parks all the way to my hotel, stopping for a tea by the pond - I wish Toronto had urban parks of this scale. My next trip to the UK will be to Yorkshire and Scotland. After a month away I’m ready to come home. My boss says sales are up since I left so I’m glad I could contribute to my company’s success, lol. Now back to work.

Today I’m attending the service at https://stjamespaddington.org.uk/ which looks beautiful inside. Then fly home tomorrow.

Very cool. I've only been over once and it was a working trip to London, Chelmsford and Manchester, so the only 'touristing' we did was the Tower and some wandering. I would have loved to see the Churchill War Rooms and a few others you mentioned. Our perspective on history and what-is-considered-old over here is much shorter. I remember going into a pub and thinking to myself 'a Tudor-style building then being told, nope, no "style" involved, it was really that old.

I got the sense that traffic/pedestrian interplay was more of a shared 'let's all survive the chaos' together' type of thing. Roads go all over the place, but side streets are really narrow and none of the more major roads struck me as wide as over here, which seems to support the theory that narrow roads slow traffic. I agree that I don't recall seeing a whole lot of cyclists either.
 
A few other observations. I really like how freely accepted dogs are here. In Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens where I walked the most dogs were running freely, with no leash laws I could see, and every dog seemed well behaved. And when I met my uncle just now for dinner at a pub in Greenwich, there were dogs under the tables, no worries.

On transit. Every Londoner knows you don’t talk on the tube. But man, you notice it when someone didn’t get the memo, especially now that Wi-Fi is available. Usually it’s someone in a foreign language shouting into a video chat, somehow oblivious to the otherwise silent passengers around them. When in Rome I like to say, so if the tube is dead quiet, so am I.

On air quality. It’s much improved since I was born here in the 1970s. In 1994 I visited with my then girlfriend, now wife and I’d borrow her astringent to wipe the soot off my face. But with the seemingly end of Diesel engines here the air is much cleaner.
 
I would have loved to see the Churchill War Rooms and a few others you mentioned.
I saw those in 2002 on my wife’s birthday. She doesn’t let me forget it.

It is interesting that London doesn’t really have a museum celebrating the British Empire. Certainly one can cobble together ones own museum to the Empire by visiting several of the museums here, but overall the largest Empire the world has ever known is either forgotten or treated as a national embarrassment or shame.

This is the longest I’ve ever been away from work. Most of my international travel has been for work, with intensive meetings and schedules in Singapore, Korea, China, Taiwan, etc. I’ve never been this bum idle, and I definitely need a hobby if I retire in ten years. I had a nice final dinner with family at https://www.ashburnham-arms.co.uk/, excellent Yorkshire pudding, roast beef, horseradish and veg.
 
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Ah nice! I visit London every now and then as I have a friend living in the outskirts that I can bum free lodging from. The ~1hr train ride into London isn't bad at all. Both times I went to St. Paul's it was too windy to go all the way to the top unfortunately. My favourite places in London:
  • South bank - it's fun just walking along it, and there's so much to see, and usually they have street food lined up at a particular section
  • Tate Modern
  • British Museum
  • Hunterian Museum - currently closed for renovations, https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/museums-and-archives/hunterian-museum/
  • Both St. Pauls and Westminster
Day trips I've enjoyed:
  • Cambridge/Oxford
  • Cotswolds
  • Hampton Court Palace
It (London) is one of those places that I love to visit, but wouldn't want to live there (even if I could afford it). Would love to do Scotland one day, rent a car and do that circle road trip or something like that. And maybe even champing! https://www.visitchurches.org.uk/visit/champing.html
 
I loved my week in London a few years back. Wish I had taken more time and gone through it a bit slower. Found I was rushing too much to see everything in business hours, because the museums are open only 9-5 and it takes me an entire day to thoroughly tour and "digest" each one.

The Tube was great in terms of station coverage, but I found I was often choosing to walk rather than taking a quick hop on the train because the place is so walkable. But the trains were quite dingy. Other than the DLR, I found much of the Tube in worse shape than the TTC. Once I got on a bus going the opposite way because you Brits drive on the wrong side of the road LOL

The city itself felt safe; at night I would have a solid drink and explore the streets well after dark and late into the night.

As the Admiral found the acceptance of dogs in public surprising, that was my reaction to alcohol: openly sipping a beer or wine was very widely practice in public parks.
 
Would love to do Scotland one day, rent a car and do that circle road trip or something like that.
That’s on our to do list, combined with Yorkshire. I’m 51 now, so my wife and I are accelerating our vacation planning. I’m healthy, but the kids are away at university and we want to get working on the bucket list.
The Tube was great in terms of station coverage, but I found I was often choosing to walk rather than taking a quick hop on the train because the place is so walkable. But the trains were quite dingy. Other than the DLR, I found much of the Tube in worse shape than the TTC
Some lines were better than others, but the Central line is particularly worn out. After a week on the tube I couldn’t take the banshee-like screeching as it roared along. The operators must go deaf. I started taking buses everywhere instead wherever I could. The Northern line on the tube up to the RAF Museum in Hendon was fine, as modern as the TTC.
 
Interesting read. My family was thinking of heading over for a couple of weeks this spring. All that's stopping me is the fear of spending half the time, in a hotel in Covid isolation.

It's not the Covid that worries me ... it's the 4 of us stuck in a room for a week trying not to kill each other.

BTW, where did you stay?
 
Interesting read. My family was thinking of heading over for a couple of weeks this spring. All that's stopping me is the fear of spending half the time, in a hotel in Covid isolation.

It's not the Covid that worries me ... it's the 4 of us stuck in a room for a week trying not to kill each other.

BTW, where did you stay?

Especially now that the UK is seeing record high Covid numbers. Number of UK patients in hospital with Covid highest since February 2021.
 
Interesting read. My family was thinking of heading over for a couple of weeks this spring. All that's stopping me is the fear of spending half the time, in a hotel in Covid isolation.
No, in the UK if you’re positive you don’t have to isolate in your hotel. You don’t even have to wear a mask, but you should. There are near zero restrictions in the UK now. I went to a show (before I caught Covid) at the Duchess theatre and that‘s the only time I had to do a Covid questionnaire and attestation that I was negative and without symptoms. Otherwise, go wherever you want with Covid. That’s how I caught it, I was on a train to Essex and a whole unmasked sneezy family sat beside me. Bastards, but I got a two week extension to my vacay and got to spend more time with my cousins, so, thanks I guess.
 
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Interesting thread. I'm from Brampton and I'll have been in London for four years (!!!) this August. Some thoughts/clarifications/etc on some of your thoughts here.
A few notes on London. I saw very few bike lanes where I stayed (Kensington) and visited (see list above), and even fewer separated lanes. In fact, even though the weather is nice, I saw very few bicycles at all on the roads. Perhaps the excellent public transit system cancels out the need? In my entire time here in London and Essex I did not see a single stop sign, every intersection that’s not traffic light controlled is considered a yield, and it works. Pedestrians and drivers wave each other on. Next, everyone jaywalks, and it’s totally fine. The curbs are high to reduce car incursions onto the sidewalks. I returned to my childhood home in Lewisham and noticed that while it looks a little like my home in Cabbagetown, the entire SE neighbourhood has no trees, no front yard trees whatsoever, no canopy. What else? Almost no beggars, absolutely zero encampments, drunks or evident addicts in the parks across London I visited. And police actually on their feet! Walking the beat. When was the last time any one in Toronto saw a police officer (who‘s not on paid duty playing traffic cone) actually on their feet walking, not to a call, but just showing the flag, keeping the watch and engaging with passersby? Lastly, I love the public transit here, you have multiple options to get anywhere, for example I was in Woolwich and the DLR broke down and I walked to the British Rail station nearby and for no extra cost (due to the outage) I got myself to a tube station and home. Yesterday I just got on a bus, any bus and toured about. Lastly, there are far fewer EVs than I expected, I think 95-99% of the cars I see are ICE powered, even though curb side charging posts abound. There’s varying levels of vandalism on the tube, including scratchetti (sp?) but almost no panhandling at or near stations - though you do see the gypsy flower women chasing down tourists. The independent book stores are amazing, I spent at least an hour at Hatchards coming out with several purchases. Overall, this city just works well, getting around is easy, I always felt safe and at ease. The daily max fare on London transit is handy, as is the ability to pay with your phone or tap your credit card.
1. Bike Lanes: The council in charge of Kensington and Chelsea is notorious for being anti-bike lane. Most of the pop-up bike lanes that came about during the initial year of the pandemic have stayed everywhere except K+C, where the council have bowed down to the whims of the very wealthy people here and taken them out.
2. No stop signs in England at all (not sure about the other parts of the UK). It still freaks me out. Even in the most car-loving cities (cough Coventry), drivers will stop for pedestrians.
3. "No drunks", well, considering the UK's drinking culture, you were probably not out after 11pm in certain areas. There are things like portable/street urinals that they plop up in areas like Shoreditch and Soho to prevent some of the grosser drunk behaviour. And the Night Tube can be....mildly entertaining at 3am...
4. Limited EVs - There are only 2.6 million cars registered in London...to 8.9 million people. There are some holdouts with people. Black cabs (taxis) are encourage to convert to EVs, but the lobby there is not pleased about that.
5. Re: paying with transit with your phone/card. The pandemic has basically obliterated cash use in London. A lot of places simply don't take it anymore. I take out maybe £20 a month to pay for two local club nights...and that's it.
A few other observations. I really like how freely accepted dogs are here. In Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens where I walked the most dogs were running freely, with no leash laws I could see, and every dog seemed well behaved. And when I met my uncle just now for dinner at a pub in Greenwich, there were dogs under the tables, no worries.
The dog laws are pretty much everywhere in the UK, not just London. And IMHO as someone who doesn't quite like dogs, dogs are better trained in the UK and I find myself tolerating it a lot more than some of the leashed dogs back in the GTA.
 

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