There was no web log post last night because we ended our day about 11PM ... having started about 7AM it was a fairly "ambitious day" as one young English girl termed it as we were waiting in a mass of humanity for a bus in downtown London yesterday morning ...
As I mentioned in the previous post we had been warned by TV reporting and web announcements that there would be a "day of action" by what serves as the main transit union in London. When 7.5 million + tourists depend on mass transit and it suddenly gets significantly reduced in capacity ... it has an impact.
Because
Windsor Castle was going to be unavailable for sight seers Tuesday (today) we decided to make our tour of that spot on Monday. Unfortunately that coincided with the transit strike ... it was also the day we had bought tickets for the play
Wicked and that wasn't something we could reschedule. So ... since Windsor castle is a 45 minute train (vs Tube) ride outside of downtown London (Paddington Station) ... we had to get to the train as early as possible ... that meant riding the tube spot on with all of the millions of downtown commuters trying to deal with the transit strike ... this is NOT a happy thing to ponder!!! But with no real choice we joined the fray and found it fairly miserable ... as advertised the "tube" underground railroad was working at somewhere around 40% capacity ... so 60% of the commuters had to find an alternate way to work/school whatever ... that meant we could ride the tube part of the way, then hop on a couple of buses and finally make our way to Paddington station where we could then take two trains to arrive at Windsor Castle ... do our Windsor tour ... repeat the travel plan in reverse ... get back to the guest house ... change clothes ... get back to the tube station ... ride the tube (still running at 40%) back into the heart of London to the theater district, have a quick bite to eat and get to the theater in time to secure the tickets from the will call window and see the play and then ride the tube back to the guest house ... geeze I'm exhausted just writing that down!!!
Amazingly we managed that whole plan with very little difficulty ... the tube in the morning was incredibly crowded ... as in thousands of people trying to jam onto already full trains and buses ... riding standing up literally jammed together in an underground train is not a pleasant experience for so many reasons ... figuring out "on the fly" what trains and buses were actually working and which of those would get us nearer our objective ... all executed without fatality ... we did really well!!
So ... we arrived at Windsor and did a tour guided by handy "audio guides" ... Windsor is really a pretty amazing place and the largest "inhabited" castle on the planet .. take a look at the Wiki link I provided above and you can get an idea of the size ... we were told there are approximately 150 full time residents and of course the royal family when they choose. I'll post a couple of pictures here but they really don't do justice ... the gallery has more ..
Sadly photos were not allowed inside the castle and that is where things were really spectacular.
So we did in fact make our way back to the guest house, change and get back down to the theater district to see
Wicked ... this play has been running at this theater for four years ... the production was spectacular! Our seats were
4th row center!!! And I'm telling you it was absolutely outstanding!!
We got 'home' pretty late ....
Our plan for today called for a
four hour tour ... in fact a four hour bike tour of downtown London ... we decided this would be a good way to cap off the trip and get to see some of the high spots of downtown London ... it really was an enjoyable tour, not too strenuous but we will all feel it tomorrow ... it's really a good way to see some sights and get to experience 'being out among the London experience' ...
A parting shot of 'our' tube stop ...
SO ... our bags are packed, we've scheduled a 'van' for 5:45am tomorrow morning ... the wake up call is set for 4:45am ... and we are ready to head home ... it's been an incredible 23 days of travel seeing things we never expected to see ... the companionship was terrific, the food was almost always really good, the people we met were always friendly and genuinely glad to meet Americans. We look forward to a safe journey home with hopefully none of the travel hassles always possible ...
The book is closed and the tale is told ... if you followed along I hope you found it enjoyable ... I may add a postscript or two but for the most part this web log is finished ... cheerio!!
Bade
Excuse me, sir, no photos in the theater!
ReplyDeleteSafe travels!
Indeed, safe travels!
ReplyDelete