Thursday, Aug 11, 2011   ---   The Triumph of the 17 P’s

We got to sleep in today !!! We had no specific plans other than to see the sights of London that we hadn’t had a chance to see to date. These included Westminster Abbey, the Cabinet War Rooms, the Tower of London and St. Paul’s Cathedral. It was an aggressive plan in that the Abbey and War Rooms was about a mile from our hotel, but the Tower of London and St. Paul’s were about 3 miles away. We needed the 17 P’s to kick in big time !!

The plan was as follows:

             breakfast at 8;

leave the hotel at 9;

get to Westminster for a 9:30 entrance;

done with Westminster at 11:30;

arrive at the War Rooms at 11:45 and done at 12:30;

then to the Tower of London and done by 4:15;

then to St. Paul’s before 5PM when it closed.

Well, as a famous general once said, “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy,” we experienced the corollary, “No tourist plan survives contact with the British.”

Everything was going well with the plans for leaving the hotel. We walked through some drizzly rain, but thank goodness for the parks and the trees which gave us some cover. We had to get in line for entrance to Westminster Abbey and had to stand in some light rain while we did (Note: do you realize how dangerous it is to your eyes when you are walking around crowded London streets and standing in a crowded line when everyone has an umbrella ?!?!?). Let me just say that Westminster Abbey is very much like a museum. It is very crowded with tombs and memorials to famous clergy, royalty, military and civic leaders (it seems that there was an inordinate number of Generals from the East India Company and campaign – read that as subjugation of people in India during the imperial days). The place really is amazing in many, many ways, but here are just a few:

>> The Chapel in back of the altar has an amazingly decorative ceiling and was known as a “wonder of the world” in its day.
>> The tomb and throne of King Edward II; he was crowned in the late 1200’s and that the exact same throne is used to this very day for all coronations of Kings and Queens of England;
>> The stained glass windows are stunning, especially the two rose windows above both transepts;
>> The Poet’s Corner, which houses such ancient and recent giants as Chaucer, Dickens, T. S. Elliot and many, many more;
>> A slab of slate in the ground for the burial place of Charles Darwin; and
>> A very large monument to Sir Isaac Newton (you may have seen this in the movie The DaVinci Code).

Unfortunately, we could not take pictures inside so we are left with some post cards and an external view.

We left Westminster Abbey at 11:29:41 a mere 19 seconds ahead of schedule. We moved quickly to the Cabinet War Rooms where Churchill and other government/military leaders conducted their strategic planning in WW II. It is a fascinating sub-basement under some government buildings that were very close quarters. Perhaps the most amazing piece of info we learned was in the map room, which had actual maps that were used in the war effort. On VJ Day (victory over Japan, which officially ended WW II), the news reached the military people in the map room. They all cheered and celebrated for only a moment, then (literally) took their things, turned off the lights and went home for THE FIRST TIME IN 6 YEARS !!! When people returned in the 1970’s to turn this place into a museum, they found many things left undisturbed just as they were decades earlier.

We emerged from the War Rooms at 12:30:01 – a mere 1 second behind schedule and an amazing feat even for 17 P’s planning theory.

Now we were a bit leg weary from our whole week of walking, and we were faced with a 3 mile hike to the Tower of London. Furthermore, we were getting a bit hungry and we were faced with a crucial decision – eat now and then head for the Tower or head for the Tower and eat when we arrived there. This was a great example of impromptu flexibility for folks steeped in the 17 P’s. We quickly decided to travel first, but we knew that a 3 mile hike was not reasonable at this stage.

Do you know how many naïve American tourists it takes to read a London public transit schedule? Keep in mind that the postings include buses of all types (city, tour, etc.), subway and trains. Well, Steve ended up going to talk to a security guard in front of one of the government buildings for some help. Unfortunately, and I am remiss to say this, the guard was trying to be very helpful, but he had a stutter with a heavy British accent. I was able to get “green” and “district” for the “tube” and we went underground to explore. We had heard about the Oyster card that gave discounts for tube travel. So, we all lined up in front of an Oyster card dispensing machine that required our credit cards and after repeated fiascos with getting the machine to work, we all had our cards and were on the Green/District line to the Tower of London tube station. Once there, we ate lunch and proceeded to the Tower entrance at 1:45:32. We were not sure what to expect in terms of duration, but we knew we wanted to get to St. Paul’s.

Based on a random conversation with another tourist and a tip from said tourist, we looked for the Yeoman’s Tour just inside the Tower Gate. It started at 2PM and was FREE (a very unusual circumstance). The Tower is actually a very large fortress with multiple rings of walls protecting what is essentially a modest sized village inside the fortress.

We met our Yeoman and learned a great deal in a very entertaining format. The Yeoman are the people who care for the Tower and actually live inside the fortress. We saw towers, moats, town squares where people were beheaded (I think the yeoman said there were 1000 or so over the course of 5 centuries). We also saw the Chapel of St. Peter Ad Vincula (St. Peter in Chains – just like the cathedral in Cincinnati). Inside this chapel is the burial place of many beheaded (I found it odd that people were beheaded but then given a burial place in the chapel on the grounds). Perhaps the most notable person therein was the honorable Sir Thomas More – the statesman and scholar who refused to go along with King Henry VIII’s desire to divorce his wife and break from the Catholic Church and the Pope.

We then went on to see the Crown Jewels, which are housed in the most secure confines in London. The jewels date back many years and were involved in many coronations. Of course, they are strikingly beautiful masterpieces of gold and jewels – crowns, swords, scepters, rings and more. I thought the most stunning piece in the collection was an enormous gold punch bowl – I mean enormous like 3 feet in diameter and 2 feet deep. It had very ornate, decorative reliefs all the way around the bowl of pure gold. It was accompanied by an equally large gold ladle. Apparently, the royals get quite thirsty at their parties. As always, there is a certain amount of awe balanced by amazement about the opulence of royalty. BTW, has Bill Gates talked to them about giving away half their wealth?

We stepped out of the Tower on the Thames River and got a great shot of the Tower Bridge (i.e. this is NOT London Bridge).

We emerged at 4:15 and had about a 3/4ths mile walk to St. Paul’s. We arrived at 4:50 (on schedule), entered the church in time for Evening Song (a service of prayers and music by the choir). The church is cleared of tourists and is for worshippers only. We happened to walk in just in time to get seats in the first row!! The service lasted for about 40 minutes, and we felt honored to participate. Of course, for me, I was also gawking at the astounding architecture (thanks, Sir Christopher Wren), ornate ceilings, mosaics of Christ’s life as well as the sheer size (I’ve heard it is the 2^nd largest in the world). We learned that Charles and Diana were married here with 3500 of their closest friends. As with all of these spectacular buildings, it is impossible to describe the size and beauty without seeing it for yourself. Unfortunately, we could not take pictures inside so we are left with some post cards.

We “tubed it” back to our hotel.

We walked a short distance to dinner and returned to the hotel bar to a table that had become “our table.” The staff had come to know us to the point Tim just ordered “the usual.” The rest of us experimented with English desserts and drinks, and Chris and Debbie both got a real amaretto sour (recall Chris’s previous debacle). It was at these times that we did some collective blogging and Michele used her iPod to get to Wikipedia so that the group could have in-depth discussions about the history of the royal family (marriages, scandals, etc.). It is amazing how much people write about this dysfunctional family.

In the end, our time in England was very well-spent. We covered a lot of ground, saw many fabulous sites and learned a lot – but the guys successfully blunted any attempts to get to Harrod’s for shopping.

Stay tuned for “Tales from the Links.”