Friday night dinner was Indian – You can’t spend any amount of time in London  and not eat Indian.  We chose Marsala Zone on Earls’s Court Road, just a stone’s throw from our hotel.  We both had the “Grand Thali”, mine with lamb, Elaine’s with chicken.  Very nice and spicy, accompanied by some garlic naan and a bottle of wine.

The Grand Thali

Equal to a starter and main course combined. It comprises a Canapé,  a choice of  curry, 2 vegetables (one green and one root), Dal (lentil), Raita (yoghurt), Indian salad, Papadum & Chutney, freshly-made whole wheat Chapatti (Indian bread) & Rice.

The drizzle was gone by late in the day yesterday (Friday).  For our last day in London we decided on a light day – a guided walking tour of Quirky London – to maybe learn a few more new things about this great city.  (Yes, we abhor tours, but what the hell!)  The tour began at Covent Garden, the London equivalent of Quincy Market in Boston.  I’ll let the pictures tell the story of our walk which ended up in Trafalgar Square.

Tomorrow (Sunday) we were supposed to take a taxi to Paddington and then the Heathrow Express (train) to Heathrow for our flight home.  Not so fast!  Work stoppage on the Heathrow Express  no trains on Sunday.  We considered going by tube, but with bags, it would be a hassle.  So we have a car picking us up at the hotel at 9:00 AM.  We fly to Boston where we will stay overnight at the Airport Hilton and then fly home on Tuesday morning (US Air) to Phoenix.  We’ll be home by 1:30 PM on Tuesday.

[addendum]  The Heathrow Express work stoppage was cancelled, so it ran.  But I had already requested a refund (and got it).  The car cost 1/2 as much as the Heathrow Express when you factor in the taxi needed to get to Paddington and was twice as convenient.  The Heathrow Express is often cited as being the most expensive train ride in the world (for the 15 minute experience).  You can fly London to Madris for less.

Dinner Thursday night was at a little French restaurant called, of all things, a Little French Restaurant (emphasis on little – maybe seven tables).  French cooking, eastern European staff, and Italian house wine.  Eclectic but good.  Elaine had Vichyssoise (hot – I thought it was always cold) for a starter while I had chicken livers in a red wine reduction.  We both has coq au vin for our mains and apple pie (tart really) with ice cream for dessert.  Everything was delicious except the ice cream which was icy.  Total bill including two Kir Royales, a bottle of wine, and gratuity:  £55 – extraordinarily reasonable in London.  Cash only.

Friday broke cloudy and we had scattered sprinkles (nothing serious) but bright sun by mid afternoon.  We continued our search for new things to see in London by taking the tube to Russell Square:

First stop: the Charles Dickens Museum where Dickens and his family lived for part of their lives.  He wrote here and produced a bunch of children.  Very well done museum.  We had hot chocolates in the cafe for breakfast.

Second stop: the Sir John Saone Museum.  An architect, Saone was a collector, and his collections are displayed here.  Really quite a remarkable home.  It is located at Lincoln Inn Fields, a lovely park, so we bought picnic stuff at Pret A Manger and ate at a bench in the park.  No pictures allowed in the museum.

Third Stop:  the Old Curiosity Shop immortalized by Dickens.  Actually this isn’t the place he wrote about, but why quibble – it’s cute?  We viewed from outside but did not enter.

Fourth stop:  the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons.  All you ever wanted to know about surgery and more.  You could spend hours here.  We would have spent longer but we were rousted out by a fire alarm.  Did you know surgeons in the seventeenth century did not have a college education but rather were apprenticed?  They were joined in a professional society with barbers.  Things change with time.

Fifth and final stop: a walking tour of the Lincoln Inns of Court, an active and thriving society of lawyers with a very long history, situated in a tranquil enclave of some 11 acres in central London.  “Lincoln’s Inn” thus refers both to the Society and the place.  Think Rumpole.  The tour was led by a spry old lady who had a brilliant sense of humor.  Great fun and very educational and entertaining.

A pint at a pub and back to the hotel by 5:00 PM – a long day.  No reservations tonight, so we will venture out and find somewhere to eat.

Dinner last night was at The Orjowon, a Lebanese restaurant a short walk from the hotel.  We had the set meal offering and a bottle of wine, and it was all grand!  We booked a table for Saturday night, our last night in London.

Thursday started out and stayed just beautiful – all sun and 70 degrees.  Having been to London so many times, there was no need to see Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s, the Horse Guards, Churchill’s War Rooms, Piccadilly Circus, et. al.

That said, we decided on a walking tour that began at St. Paul’s.  So we used our Oyster Cards from our last trip, which still had some value on them, and took the tube to St. Paul’s station.  Amazingly, they now charge £15 ($22) just to get in the cathedral.  We viewed the outside and started our walk, stopping in order at:

• The Millennium Bridge over the Thames.
• The College of Arms where Queen appointed heralds record and keep track of coats of arms.
• A Church now converted into a bible school and/or a tea room.  We had hot chocolates and a oatmeal raspberry muffin.
• The Guildhall (official headquarters of the Lord Mayor of London since the 12th century.  Boris didn’t come out to greet us.  Bad form on him.  We visited the art museum here.  The clock museum is being moved to the Science Museum and won’t reopen until October, so we couldn’t see that.
• St Lawrence Jewry at the Guildhall, the Mayor’s official church
• We briefly viewed Mansion House, the Lord  Mayor’s residence.
• We stopped in at St Stephen Walbrook church designed by Sir Christopher Wren, a predecessor of St Paul’s.
• The Bank of England and it’s museum
• Leadenhall Market, which dates back to the 14th century, and is now a popular meeting spot for locals working in the financial industry and needing a cup of tea or a pint of lager.

We also stopped at Waterstone’s so I could buy a new book.  (Remember when Waterstone’s had the best bookstore in Boston in the Back Bay?)

I had  a beer at The Swan while Elaine did some shopping at Marks and Spencer.  Some of you will remember having beers at the Swan with us in London.  (You know who you are!)  Well, this is a different Swan.  There are at least three pubs named the Swan in London, probably lots more.

Then we topped up our London Transport Oyster Cards and took the tube back to Kensington, had a brew at the Courtfield Pub where we chatted up some locals, and ambled back to the Nadler for naps.  It was a great day!

CLICK PICS TO ENLARGE IN A NEW WINDOW

The sail from Dublin to Southampton was bumpy and the bars and dining rooms were relatively empty as lots of folks were suffering from sea sickness.  Luckily rough seas don’t bother us and we rather enjoy the rocking and rolling.  Despite the weather, we docked on time in Southampton (referred to locally as Soton), and we skipped breakfast and disembarked at 8:00 AM after the luggage had been offloaded.  We quickly claimed our bags and found our driver to London waiting for us.  The drive took a bit over two hours in some rush hour traffic.  Fortunately our room was ready at the Nadler Kensington, and we settled in before heading out to lunch.  Our room is at the back, so there will be no noisy traffic and street noise at night.

The Nadler is in the Earl’s Court area of London.  We wandered down busy Earl’s Court Road and picked the Blackbird Pub for lunch.  I decided to try a real cask ale and chose Fuller’s London Pride.  Cask ales are served at room temperature, so they are an acquired taste for Americans.  It’s nice for a change, but not really to my liking.  We both had pies for lunch – mine was White Texel Dorset Leg of Lamb Hotpot Pie with red wine, rosemary, and mint gravy , Elaine’s was ham hock, leek, and chicken in tarragon cream sauce.  With chips they hit the spot.

We did a bit more walking around, then stopped at another pub, the Courtfield, for beer desserts, and went back to the hotel for a rest.  Tomorrow we’ll be a bit more adventurous and will get some pictures.

 

Surprise posting using the ship’s internet after leaving Dublin on Monday night!  

Yes, Jane, we knew Beckett was Irish.  The Samuel Beckett bridge is near the ship dock.  (See, we do read the comments.) 

It was mostly overcast with occasional drizzle (typical Irish weather) today.  Once again we took the shuttle into town.  We started off with a walk around Trinity College.  The Book of Kells (Google it!) is on display here.  We had seen it on prior trips so we didn’t brave the long lines of people waiting for a glimpse.

Having been shut out of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral twice yesterday (before 12:30 because there were services in progress and again after 2:30 because of more services – who says religion is dying out?), we yet again walked to Saint Patrick’s using a different route.  Hooray, we got in!

Now all churches are nice inside, but sometimes they all begin to look the same.  Saint Patrick’s, however, the National Cathedral and Collegiate Church of Ireland (Anglican), is especially historic and photogenic.  It, more than any other building in Ireland, embodies the history and heritage of the Irish people from the earliest times to the present day.  Saint Patrick himself is said to have baptized converts at a well that once existed alongside the Cathedral.

Jonathan Swift himself was Dean of Saint Patrick’s from 1713-1745.  Swift and his closest friend Stella (Esther Johnson) are buried here.  Stella died young at age 46 in 1728.  Swift was heartbroken and moved out of his usual rooms so as not to see her funeral lights in the Cathedral’s windows.  Swift himself was 87 when he passed away in 1745.

Another highlight is the display of the actual chair that King Willian III used in 1690 when he came to Saint Patrick’s to give thanks to God for his victory over King James II at the Battle of the Boyne.

Also in St. Patrick’s  is the Door of Reconciliation.  It was the door to the Chapter House in the Cathedral behind which the Earl of Ormond had barricaded himself and his followers in 1492.  His longtime enemy, the Earl of Kildare, cut a hole in the door, extended his arm through the hole to offer his hand.  Ormond took Kildare’s hand, and the feud was officially over.  Reconciliation had been achieved.

As we left it started to drizzle, so we searched out a picturesque pub with wi-fi (so I could do the previous post).  Picturesque pubs with wi-fi are all over the place in Dublin.  We picked Bruxelles Pub where Elaine drank her usual (Harp Lager) while I had mine (Guinness).  Guinness does indeed taste so much better in Ireland than it does anywhere else.  I had Shepard’s Pie while Elaine had Fish & Chips, but we shared.

Then it was back to the shuttle bus stop, but we just missed one, the line was long, and another wasn’t due for 25 minutes.  Instead we flagged down a taxi and were quickly back on board for a nap.

It’s now Tuesday morning, a sea day, and the seas are rough.  The Atlantic was like a lake, but the Irish Sea is acting up.  We love it!  Tomorrow morning we arrive in Southampton where we will disembark at 8:00 AM, gather our luggage, and find the car we have reserved to take us to London.  Back at you from the Nadler Kensington on Wednesday night or Thursday morning.

So, weather has intervened with our cruise schedule.  Saturday night as we were leaving Belfast, the Captain announced that bad weather was forecast for the Irish Sea and the English Channel for Monday and Tuesday, the days we were to dock in Holyhead (Wales) and anchor & tender at the Isle of Jersey (in the Med).  Holyhead is a notoriously difficult port in which to dock in rough seas and tendering is always difficult in bad weather.  So the decision was made to extend our stay in Dublin to two days in place of Holyhead and then to spend a day at sea rather than trying to anchor at Guernsey.

That’s all OK with us.  An extra day in Dublin is never a bad thing, and there is essentially nothing to see in the town of Holyhead.  It’s a great place for tours to nearby northern Wales, but we were there on our car trip last year and did not plan on anything beyond a trip to a pub.  We’ll miss Jersey, but we saw it’s sister island, Jersey, two years back, and it is very similar.  We will miss the chance to see Barb & Kris passing us on their cruise which is scheduled to go from Southampton to Guernsey on Tuesday night – literally it would have been two ships passing in the night.  Hope you make it into Guernsey, girls!

Sunday morning we arrived in Dublin on time at 8:00 AM.  It was mainly sunny skies with some clouds and a chance of showers.  We caught the shuttle bus from the dock to downtown and had a long walkabout.  We’ve seen much of Dublin, so we walked from the drop-off point at Trinity College through St Stephen’s Green to St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  It’s Sunday for it was closed for services until 12:30, so we continued to the Christ Church Cathedral (Church of Ireland – Anglican).  Closed for services until 12:30.  Oh, well, the walk was nice.

We continued on along the River Liffey to O’Connell Street, Dublin’s main shopping thoroughfare and saw the newly installed spire.  (At least I thinks it’s new as I don’t remember seeing it before.  Further up O’Connell we visited the very interesting Dublin Writer’s Museum where we took the very informative recorded tour.  (OK, we all know about Brendan Behen and and James Joyce and Jonathan Swift and Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw and, of course, Yeats.  Who out there knew Bram Stoker of Dracula fame was Irish?  I didn’t.)

We adjourned down the road to the Parnell Pub – lager for Elaine, Guinness for me.  Then we walked through Dublin’s pub and nightclub district, Temple Bar.  We were hungry and some what incongruously, we dropped in at McDonald’s for fries and a coke.  Then we were back at Christ Church Cathedral to check out the inside.  The catacombs were closed, but we walked around the cathedral proper.  Luckily we heard an organ and choir rehearsal that was nice.  We saw the tomb of Strongbow, the Anglo-Norman who led the capture of Dublin in 1170.  Unfortunately we could not see the mummified cat and rat (literally) that were trapped in an organ pipe in the 1860’s because they are located in the closed crypt.

Meanwhile St. Patrick’s had closed again for afternoon services, so once again we missed seeing the interior.  At that point we hopped a taxi back to the ship.  As luck would have it, it started to rain just as we got in the cab, so our timing was fortuitous.

It’s Monday now, the beginning of our second day in Dublin.  It’s a bank holiday here, so the streets will be teeming was tourists and locals again like yesterday.  It’s a bustling city.  My next posting won’t be until Wednesday night when we are ensconced in our hotel in London.  See you then!

The ship didn’t dock until 1:00 PM, so the normal thing to do would have been to have lunch on board and then venture ashore to see Belfast.  But who said we were normal?  Having been to Belfast before, our number one thing to do was to pay a return visit to the little Mourne Seafood Bar for lunch.  The dock is isolated, so we took the shuttle downtown and quickly found the Mourne.  There was a short wait but we got in quick enough.

Elaine wasn’t hungry, having just finished a late morning “French Classics” cooking class with my stand-in, Len.  So she had a Belfast Lager and a Bowl of Seafood Chowder (“The best seafood chowder ever!”).  I had six scrumptious local oysters followed by a delicious seafood casserole (sort of like a bouillabaisse). My beverage was Mourne Oyster Stout.

Then we just walked around.  We had missed Belfast Cathedral (St Anne’s – Anglican) on our last visit here so we made a stop.   Then we walked to the Belfast Clock Tower which has always been the ultimate Belfast sight (at least until the Titanic Museum opened a few years ago – been there, done that).  The clock tower had been shrouded in scaffolding the last time we were here.  The other place we wanted to see was White’s Tavern, Belfast’s oldest bar (1630), but we hadn’t a clue where it was.  As we walked back toward the shuttle bus, I noticed an innocuous little sign pointing to White’s Tavern down an alley.  We stopped in and had pints of Harp.  Elaine made a new friend, Jim Kenner.

Then it was back to the ship in time for 5:00 PM canapés and cocktails.  Dinner tonight will be casual in the Terrace Cafe.  We sail at 11:00 PM for an 8:00 AM arrival in Dublin.