London
L--O--N--D--O--N A Photo Blog
Posted by Sanjeev Bajaj
We flew into London’s Heathrow airport after a heady eight days in Greece. The cab driver who picked us up from outside Terminal 5 was a Pakistani from Lahore. He had a rather poor impression of his host country, we found out in the next one hour, as he drove us to our hotel in Central London. Seventy percent of the kids lose their way, he told us, and he preferred to keep his family in Lahore and make annual visits himself. Though we had been prepared beforehand we found the Asian presence in London phenomenal and we didn’t even visit Southall ! I may be marginally wrong but I think that there are about as many people whose primary language is Hindi/Urdu in London today as those whose mother tongue is English.
We had earmarked eight days for London, but we knew straightaway that this was never going to be enough. There is simply too much to do out there and there is a deep sense of not having done full justice when the allotted time comes to an end.
The day after we arrived, we took a bus excursion to Warwickshire.The Warwick Castle was sold by the Warwick nobility to the Madame Tussauds’ Foundation in 1978, who have done an excellent job of reconstruction and upkeep. The major attractions here are the Kingmaker Exhibits dating back to the 1450s when the then Earl of Warwick Richard Neville, nicknamed the ‘kingmaker’ planned his political machinations, the six hundred year old Mill and Engine which used river power to grind grain, Ceaser’s Tower built on the orders of Thomas de Beauchamp, and several Staterooms and Halls.
Warwick Castle
Warwick Castle another view
Inside the Castle
Gift shop at the Castle.
Our next stop was the house in which Shakespeare was born in Stratford-Upon- Avon also in Warwickshire. This is a double storied house, now owned by the Shakespeare’s Birth Trust. It holds documents, pictures and household treasures and also has a room at the back where John Shakespeare (The Bard’s father) had his manufacturing facilities for the leather gloves he made for a
living.
.
Entrance of the Bard's birthplace
Shakespeare's backyard
We visited Oxford University and its grandest college, Christ Church, alma mater of more than half of British Prime Ministers thus far, including the present incumbent Gordon Brown. This college is also associated with Alice in Wonderland and her creator Charles Dodgson aka Lewis Caroll who was first a student there and then a lecturer and remained associated with the institute till his death.
Christ Church College
Dining Hall at the Christ Church College where Lewis Caroll consumed 8000 meals.It has also been the inspiration for Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films.
The Tower of London is the icon tourist attraction of London. Built on the orders of William the Conqueror as a fortress it has been both a residence for the rulers as well as a place where prisoners were held and executed (Sir Walter Raleigh, Guy Fawkes, and Anne Boleyn were some of the most famous ones). It really houses twenty towers and interestingly none of them is individually named the Tower of London. The closing time is 5.30 PM and we only managed to see about half of them including the White Tower, Jewels Palace ( this houses the Crown Jewels including the Imperial State Crown and the Coronation Regalia), St. Martin’s Tower, Beauchamp Tower and the Bloody Tower. The Warders who have traditionally guarded the towers are known as the Beefeaters.The head warder carries out forty minute briefings for visitors in the Chapel, which should not be missed. The tales of the Tower are full of pain and passion, treachery and torture and are delivered very captivatingly. Nobody knows why the warders were called Beefeaters, the most popular theory being that they were initially paid their wages in beef.
Beefeater on duty
A view of the Tower of London
Inside the Tower
Inside the Tower
Among the other important places that we visited were the outside of the Buckingham Palace, the Tower Bridge, the Big Ben, the outside of the British Parliament, the Hyde Park, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, and the London Eye, which is really a giant ferris wheel which loops about 450 feet above the River Thames.
A London visit would be incomplete without taking a few of the famous London Walks. Regrettably, we could manage one because of the constraints of time. These are ninety minute excursions over several routes( about fifty to choose from) and are shepherded by experts. The one we took was labeled as ‘ the champagne cocktail of the best address in London’ i.e Mayfair (this area has consistently been the most expensive real estate in the world ever since the Tokyo property market bust more than twenty years ago) and has been home to Somerset Maugham, Clive , Earl Mountbatten, Disraeli, Handel, Sultan of Brunei and Dodi Fayed. It also houses the main Ladbrokes office and ‘ a village within a village’ the Shepherd Market with an eighteenth century atmosphere. Our guide Russell had a rather dry sense of humour which kept his audience perpetually in titters. The area also had the world’s classiest ‘ladies of pleasure’ and in this connection had a Jeffrey Archer angle. Russell incidentally held Archer in extreme contempt. When I remarked that Archer wrote nifty stories he told me to take him to India with me and keep him there as nobody wanted that ‘dodgy’ character in Britain. Though I didn’t know it then Archer was visiting Lucknow on that date.
The evenings were reserved for roaming aimlessly on the streets near our hotel and savoring the street food. We visited several pubs and took an extreme liking to the traditional codfish served with chips and tartar sauce and downed with generous gulps of lager. We also visited the priciest store in London i.e Selfridges on Oxford Street but everything out there was completely out of reach. My initial reaction in the sunglasses section was that the prices would have been reasonable had they not forgotten to put the decimal points in the appropriate places !!
It would have been sacrilege to have visited London and to have missed the opera. We went to two musicals, ‘ The Phantom of the Opera’ and ‘ Mamma Mia’ but these should really be the subject of independent blogs.
And now for some street smart gyaan :-
a) There is no need to subscribe to a Matrix simcard or to get international roaming activated on your cell phone as these cost upward of Rs.60/- a minute of talk time to India. Scratch cards available at roadside kiosks cost five euros apiece in Athens and Paris and five pounds in London and yield eighty to ninety minutes of talk time to India, and can be used at public phones which are all over the place.
b) When in London shop for provisions, like bottled water, soft drinks, sandwiches, snacks, fruit, wines and liquor at a TESCO store (there will always be one close by). For example, a chilled half liter bottle of mineral water(identical brand) will cost 50 pence at a TESCO store, eighty pence at a roadside kiosk and one pound fifteen pence at the Victoria Coach Station ( a fancy name for a really dirty bus stand).
c) Always buy a travel card or a daily pass for commuting by the tube( London)/metro ( Athens/Paris). This is valid in buses too and costs 3.2 Euros in Athens and between five and seven pounds (depending on the number of zones you wish to travel within) in London whereas, a single journey costs 1.6 Euros in Athens, 1.5 Euros in Paris and an astonishing four Pounds in London.
d) Use your credit card only in emergencies. The conversion rate charged is a rip off. The best option is the vishwayatra card issued by the State Bank of India which is available in euros, pounds and dollars and the conversion rate is marginally lesser than the prevailing rate on the date of issue. These can be swiped everywhere ( even for local train tickets) and can be used at ATMs too. They can also be replenished by your kin back home, in case you run out of cash on tour.
And finally the JNU professor we got talking to outside the Indian YMCA on Fitzroy Square advised us not to leave U.K without visiting and spending a few days in Scotland. God willing there will be a next time for that and much more.
Mommy's baby
Selfridges Show Window
