London Paris 2019

No alarm had been set for this morning, and we slept longer than planned. It was dark until almost 8 AM here in Paris this time of year. After breakfast and getting ready, we didn’t leave the apartment until 11 AM. Our first stop again was a photo op at the Hotel de Ville. The weather today was completely different — sunny with no clouds, but still cold — no complaints. We continued on to Notre Dame and this time went in. The impressiveness of this place is the archectural achievemnent and the stained glass windows, especially the three rose windows. Otherwise, it is not overly adorned with decorations.  We walked around but were a little constrained by the mass that began at noon. I enjoyed seeing a mini recreation of Bethlehem including a crèche, still on display after Christmas. We continued on to the Sainte-Chapelle. This was really amazing. We had been here in 1994, but Rob didn’t remember this visit. This church was completed by St. Louis in 1248 to house the relic that he ...

Today we left London and took the Eurostar train through the "chunnel" to France. We rose at 6 AM and left the flat at about 8:20 AM.  Roy couldn’t figure out how to call for a cab on the cell phone, so we hit the street and found one for hire at Warren Street. He took us to St. Pancras station, which seems all new — this is not where the Eurostar used to depart from. We were super early, so we sat on cold seats (station not heated). Then Roy had an Americano, while Rob got a poppyseed bagel with a schmear. At 9 AM, we checked in and went through security (like an airport), then sat and waited for the platform to be announced (heated in here!). The train seemed brand new, and when we left at 10:24 AM, we were shortly thereafter served a nice unexpected lunch! It was sliced cold chicken with some type of salad, bread and butter, an apple dessert and a small cookie. Wine was offered, but we had Coca Cola Lights. Roy tried to fool the attendant into thinking that he spoke Fren...

Today we had a later start, and the weather was not cooperating. It was a cold and drizzly Sunday. Our plan was to go to the Knightsbridge/Kensington area to see the sites. We rode the tube to Knightsbridge and followed the signs for Harrod’s, where we thought we would eat at the Harrod's Cafe. There are numerous places to eat in Harrod’s. I thought this looked good, but it was only okay.  The feature there is the “braffle,” combo brioche and waffle, served many ways, including Benedict. When we got there I decided to get the croque monsieur instead —again it was okay. Rob got a tuna sandwich, also just okay. Harrod’s is an enormous store, but the highlight for us was the Egyptian escalators — so beautiful. The whole store is actually really beautiful, if a bit confusing to get around. We were not really in the mood for shopping, so we continued on down Brompton Street to the V&A museum, another free museum in London. The V&A was really busy, but that was not a problem. W...

Today we have pre-booked tickets to tour Westminster Abbey. We have visited here before, but are looking forward to seeing all of the old tombs of kings and queens. We have also planned to take a guided tour, which should be very informative and will also grant us access to the Shrine of Edward the Confessor, which is not open to the public. We rose early to arrive at the Abbey by opening time, 9:30 AM. We took the Northern line from Warren Street to Embankment, then transferred to District/Circle line west to Westminster. The weather today was clear and sunny for a change, but quite cold and breezy. We arrived on time only to see a very long line of people to buy tickets. Fortunately, we were able to bypass this line since we had pre-purchased our tickets online. We also were able to spend the additional five pounds each for the tour, which began at 10:30 AM, so we had some time to wander around on our own. Right away, we saw and walked on the grave of Charles Darwin. We would later...

We were up early to catch the 9:30 AM train to Oxford. We caught a cab on the main road north of Fitzroy Square to Paddington Station. The train was very modern and nice, and there were just two stops before Oxford, which was only a one hour train ride. The train would have been nice except for the hen party behind us —they talked so much! In Oxford we proceeded east from the train station to the center of town to try to find the tourist information center. This turned out to be just a place to book a walking tour, but we did get a map. We decided to tour on our own. We were prepared with our travel guide from the Fodor’s book. The weather threatened to be drizzly, and we stopped at a bookstore cafe for a cup of coffee to fortify ourselves. We began our tour by going up St. Giles Street, passing the Ashmolean Museum, then we passed a statue for the three people who had been burned for religious reasons by Queen Mary (Tudor), including Archbishop Cranmer. After that we paused to ...

We got a later start today and then rode the tube to St. Paul’s Cathedral. Unfortunately, it was not open to the public on this day, since there was a special service for school children. We had arrived at about 11 AM. However, the person outside told us that the doors would be open to the public at about 4:15 PM for another public service. We could come back then. As a result, we continued on across the Millennium Bridge to the South Bank to visit the Tate Modern art museum. The museum is just on the other end of the bridge. As with most museums in London, it had free admission. We entered and decided right away that we would pay the entry fee to see the special exhibit — a retrospective of impressionist painter Pierre Bonnard — wow, was it good and very lengthy, which was a very good thing. His use of color was amazing, and he really liked to paint the view of his garden from inside the house. A few paintings showed his dachshund (Poucette) of which he had six over his lifetime (all ...

Up again with the alarm at 7:30 AM. Today was drizzly and feeling very cold as a result. We walked down to the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square and enter into the new Sainsbury wing. We toured the entire museum which has free admission (but two pounds for the map). There was a lot of older religious art. Highlights of the museum — see the pictures that were taken. Our favorites were the newer paintings:  Monet, Van Gogh, a Finnish impressionistic artwork (Lake Keitele by Akseli Gallen-Kallela), great Klimt, and others. We had a light lunch (very dry tuna sandwiches with a cookie) in the museum cafe. We left at about 2 PM. The rain had stopped, but it was still cold and damp. We then walked back to the flat, stopping at a Marks and Spencer food market on Tottenham Court Road for food and wine. Tonight we had an early reservation (back) at Joe Allen's for a pre-theater dinner. For starters we both had a delicious beet salad and for our mains we both had salmon with mashed pot...

After sleeping fitfully, the final three hours before rising provided us deep sleep, then we were up at 7:30 AM, trying to force ourselves to adapt to our new time zone. We then had coffee and breakfast in our new London flat on Fitzroy Street in the Fitzrovia neighborhood!  It was located at King Regent's Place, 12-16 Fitzroy Street, Flat 41. Our plan today was to do a lot of walking. We walked first to Piccadilly Circus where there is an official London tourist office, where we bought a city map for 1 pound (and learned that our coins saved from previous trips to England are no longer used — oh well). We made a few wrong turns but enjoyed walking down Regent’s Street. Then we walked to Pall Mall, Trafalgar Square, the Queen’s Household Division Charity (where she keeps her local horses), next to the Household Cavalry Museum. This was where we saw the changing of the horse mounted guards on the "parade" open space, where they do the trooping of the colors on the Quee...

Leaving today! The Napa airporter car service picked us up at 12:00 noon. The driver was chatty and felt compelled to take two shortcuts (San Pablo Ave. to Gilman St.), even though traffic was not too heavy on Martin Luther King Day. We arrived at SFO at 1:35 PM. We had to wait until about 3 PM for the Virgin Atlantic counter to open to check us in. After check in, we went to the Virgin Atlantic “Club House” lounge, which was unusually pre-security. We had a few glasses of wine with peanuts and chips — all table service, the left at about 5 PM to go to our gate for a 6:55 PM departure. The flight was very nice, the “cubicles” were not as spacious as we have seen on other airlines, but we both managed to get about 4 hours of sleep. We landed shortly after 1 PM London time. Then we took the Heathrow Express to Paddington Station and then a cab to our unit. No troubles. The remainder of our day involved shopping at Sainsbury, then dinner at Sergio’s — fantastic rigatoni with meat sauce ...