Day -01 - London Walk
Because we did the city tour yesterday, we had all day Saturday free to do what we desired. We ended up listening to game 6 of the World Series from midnight until 3am so we weren't in much of a hurry to get up early. Our only deadline was the 11am cutoff for the hotel buffet breakfast that was included with our tour. We were able to enjoy breakfast and then headed out to walk to Trafalgar Square which is about 4 miles from the hotel in the Kensington District. We learned that the Kensington district is one of the most expensive places to own property in greater London. A small one bedroom 1,000 square foot apartment sells for over the equivalent of $1.5 million dollars or more!
Our first stop was a little hardware store across the street from the hotel. Jack's Hardware has a small storefront, but once inside, the store is deep and has a basement. I was looking for another latch for our daughter and the clerk quickly found it after I showed him a picture of the packaging from my previous purchase in Southampton at a big box store. The price was the same at this little store and saved me much time in going back to the original store in Southampton to purchase a second backup that our daughter requested.
We walked through Kensington Park which includes Kensington Castle which is a home to British royalty. It also houses a museum and is open to tours. This park is HUGE and we walked in it for just under an hour before reaching the downtown area. In front of the Auto Club was a display of modern cars and the vintage cars that we saw yesterday. Those vintage cars are all pre 1905 and virtually all of them are not American brands with the exception of a Cadillac and a Stanley Steamer. There was certainly lots of brass on display.
Our walk led us by Trafalgar Square where there were some protests regarding Gaza, Iran and other issues. We walked further east to the Novello Theater where the Mamma Mia musical was playing at a 3pm matinee. We purchased two 75£ tickets in row 4 of the first balcony. I had tried to purchase 2 tickets in that section online last night, but the closest seats for that price were in the last row of the balcony. If you are interested in seeing a West End performance and you can determine that seats are available, I recommend checking the box office the day of the performance. Prices seem to be flexible on the day of the performance.
Before the show, we found a Thai restaurant nearby and enjoyed some spicy Thai flavors for a late lunch. Back at the theatre we found our seats and they were fabulous. They had great sight lines and were center of the row with nobody beside us. The performance was probably the best musical that I've ever seen. We, of course, know all the words to all of the songs, but we were instructed to NOT sing along during the stage show and no photographs or videography was permitted. However, during the encore, a few songs were re-sung with enthusiastic audience participation.
Leaving the theatre the streets and sidewalks were wet from rain showers. So we decided to not walk back to the hotel, but take the subway or "tube" as it is called here. It took a bit to find the proper Underground station, but once we did, we just used our credit card to tap on and tap off which makes it very easy to use the subway. The cost was under $4 each and the exit station was across the street from our hotel.
There was a group dinner in the hotel ballroom at 7pm for the over 300 persons in our travel group. We sat with our friends and met some other new folks. The meal was very good and the promoter, Alan addressed the group. Afterwards Angela and I went across the street to pick up some snacks for our bus trip to Southampton tomorrow.
Our plan was to listen to game 7 of the World Series which started at midnight. But that plan was upended by something that happened at 1am. I'll write about that in tomorrow's blog. Are you curious?
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