London Trip 2002

Going to London

During 2001 I decided I wanted to spend a week or so touring London in the fall. I'd never been there and it seemed like an intriguing city. My wife Penny was unable to travel with me because of health problems, so I planned to travel alone. But then Penny learned that our good friend Elaine was also thinking of travelling to London during the same time frame. Penny suggested that Elaine and I travel together. So we made our plane and hotel reservations for an October trip.

Then 9/11 happened. Air travel became unreliable and nerve-racking. We ended up postponing the trip.

We finally rescheduled the trip for September 27 through October 9, 2002. This web site contains pictures of the trip and a brief narrative.

See photos from our second day in London
See photos from our third day in London
See photos from our fourth day in London
See photos from our fifth day in London
See photos from our sixth day in London
See photos from our seventh day in London
See photos from our eighth day in London
See photos from our ninth day in London

First Day

We departed on the redeye from Dulles International Airport. After a sleepless night on the plane, we arrived at Heathrow at about 0700 on Saturday. After clearing Immigration and collecting our luggage, we took the tube (the Underground) to the nearest station to our hotel - Victoria Station.

We were able to get our rooms in the Dover Hotel in the morning. The Dover Hotel is a tiny B&B on Belgrave Rd., Victoria. The rooms are tiny, but have private baths. Not much of a hotel, but the price was right.

The front of the hotel. The Calvados Hotel next door is actually the other half of the Dover Hotel - the owners of the Dover bought it and combined them. Elaine and some hangers-on are in front of the hotel.

My room in the Dover Hotel.

We got our rooms and rested awhile, and then went looking for lunch. There were plenty of restaurants in the neighborhood, but vegetarian food was hard to find. We finally chose an Indian restaurant that had a few vegetable dishes on its lunch buffet. It turned out to be pretty good.

We had planned a walking tour for the first day but we were much too tired to walk, so we bought tickets for a bus tour of the city. The tickets are good for 24 hours, offer hop-on hop/off privileges, and include a boat ride on the Thames. The busses are double-deckers with open roofs, and at least one route, the one we took the first day, includes a live guide. Following are some pictures from that tour.

Buckingham Palace from the bus.

Westminster Abbey.

Another shot of Westminster Abbey.

The Houses of Parliament.

The River Thames.

Another shot of the Thames.

Heraldic Dragon marking the boundary between the City of London and Westminster.

St. Paul's Cathedral.

The Tower Bridge.

Our first day bus tour was cut short. That was the day that about 100,000 people descended on London to protest any war against Iraq. Traffic got totally snarled and the bus was rerouted twice before the guide announced that they were going to leave us at the Tower of London, from where we could catch the tube back to our hotel. To make up for it they extended our tickets to 48 hours.

The anti-Iraq-war protest on the Victoria Embankment.

Elaine in front of the Tower of London after we were marooned there.

We made our way back to the hotel, rested, had dinner, and finally, finally got to bed. A welcome end to a very long day.

See photos from our second day in London