UK Trip Report April/May 26- Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4,
London- 1 night
Hotel: For our final night in the UK, we stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn near Heathrow. Its proximity to Terminal 3 made it a convenient choice before our flight home. The hotel suited our needs well for a one-night stay, and we enjoyed dinner in the rooftop restaurant, although the prices were decidedly airport-hotel level.
Food: Our only food experience in London was afternoon tea at Fortnum & Mason.
Highlights: London Canal Museum is a small but jam packed museum about the history of canals in the UK. This was a great conclusion to our canal-themed travel. Another unexpected highlight was a bus ride across London from the Canal Museum to Fortnum & Mason. The journey took about an hour and gave us a wonderful window into the city. We saw neighborhoods, landmarks, and everyday London life that we would have missed had we traveled underground. Another positive: We stored our luggage at a Stasher site right near King’s Cross and it worked very well.
Challenges: As I have mentioned (probably more than once), we are not city folk. The pace is not enjoyable for us. The main reason we decided to spend a day in London was to go to the British Library. While researching about Lindisfarne, I came across references to the Lindisfarne Gospels. This is an illuminated manuscript from around 700AD. Since we had missed seeing the Book of Kells during an earlier trip to Dublin, I was especially excited to view the manuscript. However, the manuscript is not at Lindisfarne but in the British Library Treasures collection. Some quick research revealed that the British Library is very close to King’s Cross station where we would be arriving from York. It is free and the Treasures collection had some other things of interest to us from Beatles to Beowulf. A plan was hatched to spend our final day in the UK in London at the British Library, the London Canal Museum and having afternoon tea at Fortnum and Mason. However when we got to the British Library we discovered that the Lindisfarne Gospels was on loan in Scotland. Despite our disappointment, we did really enjoy our time in the Treasures room. Our lovely bus ride across London was preceded by a less pleasant transportation experience. We attempted to use the FreeNow app, which cycled through dozens of drivers without anyone accepting the fare. Eventually we gave up, walked to a bus stop, and headed on our way—only to receive a message later saying “our driver” had arrived. We never connected with the driver but were charged anyway. Another challenge was not so much a challenge but a slight disappointment that the Afternoon Tea at Fortnum and Mason did not live up to our expectation or the reviews we had read. The services and surroundings were splendid but it really wasn't worth the cost compared to other afternoon teas we had enjoyed. The final challenge in London was returning to King’s Cross. We decided to take the “step-free” tube line, which ended up having stairs and was super crowded. Give me the bus any day. And then there was Heathrow…that story doesn’t bear repeating. Just a little sliver of it was 3 hours trapped sitting on the plane waiting for a fuel pump to be replaced before taking off for an 11 hour flight. We had upgraded to Premium Economy, so after all the hassle at the airport and the delay, we had a comfortable flight home.