August 28-31, 1998

August 28-31, 1998

Aimee is half Irish with lots of brogue-talking relatives, her mother included. She has been to Ireland a couple times and would love to go again so we plan a trip there. We add a stopover in London to add some variety. Landing in Gatwick airport south of London we take the train into Victoria station. When I did this in 1984 we were met by a guy hawking hotels. Not this time. I have to do some work to find accommodations. We eventually find a hotel down the street. On the plus side it is near a neighborhood of row houses all decorated with flowers. Very pretty!

Aimee has never been to London so she makes me repeat some of the highlights I have already seen. We start down the street at Buckingham Palace. Aimee loves everything about the British royalty. On the backside we walk through the Royal Mews (Stables), which has a collection of royal carriages. We then walked through St. James Park towards Parliament, but stopped at Horse Guards on the way. This building has ceremonial guards because it was the entrance to the Palace of Whitehall across the street. Whitehall was the home of the Tudors until fire destroyed most of it in 1698. Only the Banqueting House remains. Famously Charles I was beheaded in front of it in 1649 by Cromwell during the English Civil War. We then continued on to the Thames so Aimee could see Big Ben towering over Parliament.

We spent a couple hours in the British Museum. This was my idea. I had fond memories of my visit in 1984. It contains a lot of interesting historical archeology from Britain that were accidentally dug up over the years. But the museum is most famous for the treasures that the English collected from all over the world. This includes the Elgin Marbles off the Acropolis and the Rosetta Stone that provided the key to translating Egyptian Hieroglyphics.

The next day we visited the Natural History Museum. It is housed inside an ornate Victorian building with a beautiful central hall. It has some famous collections, like those of Charles Darwin. I especially like the exhibits on dinosaurs and the evolution of humans.
For lunch we take a break at Harrod’s Department store to see their amazing collection of “everything” for sale. We had lunch in the basement at the sushi bar. It is pick a plate off a continuous sushi conveyor belt.

We also walked by Trafalgar Square with its Nelson Column protected by four huge lion statues. The square is a memorial to Lord Nelson who died during this famous naval battle of 1805. It is overrun with pigeons fed by tourists.

London has a theatre district as famous as New York, so we get a pair of last minute tickets for tonight's performance of “Rent” at the Shaftesbury Theatre. I can’t say I was impressed with the show.

The next morning we took the train west to the Royal Botanical Kew Gardens. This World Heritage Site has huge collections of plants from all over the world. It also has a number of historic structures, including the Palm House, a Victorian greenhouse of glass and wrought iron. My favorite was the Waterlily House that contained giant lily pads. They reminded me of Tarzan lazily floating downriver on one. Unfortunately my bubble is burst when I learn they are from the Amazon of South America, not Africa.

In the afternoon we walked by Kensington Palace, which is the home of miscellaneous members of the royal family. We almost became TV celebrities. We were wondering why there was a huge pile of flowers spread all over the iron gate when Aimee realizes tomorrow is August 31, the one-year anniversary of Princess Di’s tragic death. At that moment a journalist asks us if we came over especially for this event. Without thinking I blurt out “No, you have to be kidding”. He then tells me he is with one of the tabloid TV shows and wants to film an American couple visiting Diana’s memorial locations. This could have been our fifteen minutes of fame! Oh well, I didn’t really want it to cut into my tourist time. To reinforce that notion, I dragged Aimee back to the British Museum for a second session.