At long last-First Day in London

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Our first full morning in London began under the bluest of skies with warm temperatures, which, according to our tour guides, are not typical weather conditions this time of year. It’s usually still a bit rainy. We’ve been very fortunate, then, since the only rain we’ve encountered was in Dublin right before our ferry departed Ireland for England.

Sunday would mean the city would be abuzz with activity, though most of the shows in the West End were dark – meaning that no performances were scheduled – other than a matinee for “The Lion King.” Still, it was going to be neat seeing an alive capital city, and trust me, there was plenty to see and do!

A bus tour of the central city was to be the dominant activity for the morning. Departing our hotel, the Copthorne Tara in the trendy Kensington borough, we headed east along Kensington High Street past Kensington Palace, Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, which at 750 acres, is one of the largest urban parks in Europe. The route we followed was the same route taken by Princess Diana’s funeral procession from Kensington Palace to Westminster Abbey. Our tour guide, Bob, informed us that following Diana’s death in 1997, the flowers lined the outer walls of Hyde Park along the funeral route and were more than 3 feet thick outside the walls of Kensington Palace, which was Diana’s London home.

Hyde Park, Bob explained, would likely be full of people given the sunny weather and warm temperatures today. The park contains numerous sites, including the Princess Diana memorial gardens and fountain, as well as the Prince Albert Memorial, which stands in the park just opposite Royal Albert Hall. Prince Albert, who was Queen Victoria’s husband, became famous for staging the Great Exhibition of 1851, which brought huge amounts of artwork and culture into Hyde Park. A century later, in 1951, to commemorate the Great Exhibition, the Festival of Britain was held in the same location. The Albert Memorial is simply beautiful, with its gold gilded features and statue of Albert himself, with one foot atop the catalogue for the Great Exhibition. Also named for Prince Albert, Royal Albert Hall is considered to be Britain’s premier concert hall, with an auditorium seating 5,000 people. A performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Requiem” had been held there Saturday evening, and concert performances of the Tim Rice-Benny Anderson-Bjorn Ulvaeus musical “Chess” was scheduled for Monday and Tuesday nights.

Continuing down Kensington High Street, we soon got a glimpse of the famous Harrod’s Department Store before reaching the Wellington Arch, which is located at an intersection called Hyde Park Corner. The arch is named for the Duke of Wellington, a statue of whom stands nearby with him atop is beloved horse, Copenhagen. We then move further down to what’s referred to as the Marble Arch, which had been constructed as an entrance to the Buckhingham Palace grounds, only to be ordered removed to its present location at Park Lane at Oxford Street by order of Queen Victoria, who did not like it.

Working our way through the Mayfair area, we soon arrived at Grosvenor Square, which is often referred to as “Little America” because the U.S. embassy is located there. Grosvenor Square contains a memorial to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose efforts, along with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, are seen as having helped saved Britain from the Germans during World War II. Grosvenor Square also contains a memorial to the Eagle Squadron, a group of more than 250 American pilots who came to help defend Britain as part of the Royal Air Force during the German onslaught in the early days of World War II before America officially joined the war.

From Grosvenor Square, we soon moved to Berkeley Square in the Mayfair area. An interesting fact about the Mayfair area is that a significant amount of property there is owned by the Duke of Westminster – more than 100 acres, to be exact. That makes the Duke, who has countless other holdings, the wealthiest landowner in Britain.

Moving down to Piccadilly Street, we soon pass the Fortnum and Mason department store, which was established by a former Buckingham Palace porter and his friend. The unique clock outside the store is somewhat akin to a cuckoo clock, only that statues of Messrs. Fortnum and Mason emerge from the clock and bow to each other every hour on the hour. Today, however, we would not get to see the statues emerge, though we had arrived in front of the store right on the 9 o’clock hour.

Our tour then passed through Piccadilly Circus and on past Trafalgar Square, known for its huge fountains and the statue of Viscount Horatio Nelson that sits above a column 172 feet high. The four sculpted lions at the base of Nelson’s column were sculpted by Sir Edward Lanseer. Nelson died during the British military defeat of the French and Spanish at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1843. The square is a memorial to that battle and to its heroes, Nelson chief among them. A popular gathering spot in London, many of us would return on foot late in the day to find the square packed with people. Trafalgar Square is also home to the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, which are located on the square’s north end. In the northeast corner of the square is St. Martin’s-in-the-Field Church.

From Trafalgar Square, we move on through the street known as the Strand and onto Fleet Street, passing the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Bush House and the Royal Courts of Justice along the way. We continue on to St. Paul’s Cathedral, which was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and is considered his architectural masterpiece. Built from 1675 to 1710, St. Paul’s was also the site of the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and then-Lady Diana Spencer. The cathedral, in recent years, has undergone a massive exterior cleaning that has returned its façade, in the words of our tour guide, “to sheer brilliance.” We continued through some other areas of London near St. Paul’s, learning about the great London fire of 1666 that helped bring about the end of a terrible bubonic plague that had claimed thousands of Londoners, though some four-fifths of the city burned over 5 days.

Our bus tour then crossed the River Thames on the London Bridge, providing us with a spectacular view of the river and of the British destroyer HMS Belfast, which is now permanently moored in the Thames and used as a memorial to honor the British navy forces who served in World War II. The Belfast, was the first British Navy ship to open fire on the French coast of Normandy during the D-Day invasion in June 1944. After crossing the London Bridge and making our way through a warehouse district along Tooley Street, we then crossed the Thames again over the famed Tower Bridge, passing the modern London City Hall before reaching the Tower of London on the other side. The Tower of London, now home to the Crown Jewels, as we reached the other side. Its first section erected in 1098, the Tower of London has served as a palace, fortress, state prison and execution site. The Tower of London has a long anecdotal history with numerous British monarchs.

From the Tower, our tour moved west along the Embankment Street, passing such buildings and sites as Queen Victoria’s Embankment Gardens, the Ministry of Defense and Scotland Yard. We also received a spectacular view of the London Eye, which has now become London’s most visible landmark. Built to commemorate the millennium, the Eye is akin to a Ferris wheel some 450 feet tall, but with 32 gondolas in which up to 25 people can move around comfortably. Rotating in at a rate of .85 feet per second, the 30-minute ride in the Eye provides a bird’s-eye view of the city, and it’s said that on a clear day, one can see more than 40 kilometers away.

We then turned west at the Westminster Bridge and into Parliament Square for a close-up view of the famed Big Ben clock tower, the Houses of Parliament and the breathtaking immensity of Westminster Abbey. The original foundations for the massive Parliament building housing the House of Lords and the House of Commons was laid in 1295. Having survived an attempt to blow it up in 1605, most of the buildings were destroyed by fire in 1834. Based upon plans by Charles Berry and detailed designs by A.W. Pugin, the Parliament building today stands as a masterpiece of Victorian Gothic architecture.

Westminster Abbey as it stands today was begun in the 11th century under the direction of King Edward the Confessor on the site of the modest Benedictine abbey church of St. Peter, which was consecrated in 1065. The Gothic Abbey is one of the largest churches in the world and has served as coronation site for all British monarchs since King William I. The architecture here, along with the stained glass windows, is simply exquisite. At Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, we were given a half-hour off the bus to take pictures up close.

From there we proceeded to St. James Palace to prepare to watch the changing of the guard at Buckhingham Palace. One regiment typically leaves the Friar’s Court at St. James then proceeds down the Mall past St. James, around the Queen Victoria monument and through the gates into the front gates of Buckhingham Palace. Today, we watched the Royal Malaysian Regiment and the Irish Honor Guard conduct the changing of the guard. Buckhingham Palace, located at the junction of St. James Park and Green Park is immense. The crowds gathered outside the palace were a testament to the popularity of the guard changing.

At Buckhingham Palace, our formal tour ended, and we were then given free rein to explore London on our own, with many of us visiting pubs for lunch before stopping at such sites as the London Eye, the British Museum, the Natural History Museum, and Winston Churchill’s Cabinet war rooms from World War II.

One more day to go!

BLH