It was time for yet another adventure. First we spent over a week visiting London again, then we took a cruise around the British Iles which stopped briefly in France. Then we stayed on the same ship for a repositioning cruise which stopped in Norway, Iceland and then went across the Atlantic to Canada and then, very conveniently, ended in New York (Brooklyn to be exact). Well, that was the theory. It didn’t quite happen as planned. If you continue to read this, you find out what did happen. Don’t worry, it wasn’t a disaster or anything like that.
Author's note: Since a lot of our time was spent onboard a ship, there's a significant amount of stuff below that's just sort of a shipboard diary of our cruising experience. I have chosen, for your benefit, to display the potentially less interesting parts in a different color.
Obligatory User's Manual
Click on any picture to see an enlarged version.
We had the usual start - it took an hour and a half to get to JFK - about average.
Since we were spending our kid's inheritance by flying in a premium cabin, check-in was fairly quick and easy and we had access to the Delta One Lounge which was very, very nice but very crowded and where we had an excellent dinner in the Lounge Restaurant - completely complimentary - steak, wine, and Basque cheesecake, which we first had in Bilbao and loved. It was the best airline meal ever, possibly because it wasn’t actually on a plane.
Happily, our gate was changed to one very close to the lounge, so we didn’t have the usual long walk to our plane. Most of time when flying, it seemed that our gate was the last one in the terminal, miles from check-in and security.
The flight itself was uneventful (yay!) except it took 45 minutes from the gate to takeoff. We didn’t partake of the onboard meal. We have learned.
Our pre-booked limo driver was easy to find in Heathrow once we finally got our bags - very late. The hour long drive to our hotel in Leicester Square was fine.
The hotel would best be described as adequate. We were booked in for eleven nights. The room was very weird. There were a lot of little annoyances that annoyed me. Donnie says I annoy easily. Possibly this is true.
This was supposed to be a four-star hotel. Ok - enough grouching.
Otherwise, the hotel was great (sarcasm)! Alright - it was in a convenient location and was clean and quiet.
We were too tired to go out right away, so we took a short nap. Then a fire alarm went off. We quickly started grabbing stuff when it stopped. It was a drill, but we hadn’t been informed beforehand.
We went out around 2:00 and walked around Leicester Square and Chinatown. Leicester Square is very touristy - full of fast-food joints, e.g. a Burger King, a McDonalds, a Pizza Hut, a place called Slim Chickens, and also a Lego store, an M&M’s store, movie theaters, gambling casinos, touristy trinket shops, etc.
In the center, however is a nice little park with a statue of Billy Shakespeare (William to be more accurate) and a dancing fountain. Around the outside of the little park were statues of: Harry Potter, Mary Poppins, Mr. Bean, Bugs Bunny, Charlie Chaplin, Paddington Bear, Laurel and Hardy and Gene Kelly. Supposedly, more are being added from time to time. Most of them were not really good likenesses - still, they were fun.
On the plus side, it was within easy walking distance to a lot of places we wanted to go to - many, many theaters, many restaurants, Covent Garden, Piccadilly Circus, Westminster, the Thames, etc. The National Gallery and The National Portrait Gallery were just behind our hotel.
We went back to the hotel around six where we relaxed and went out again about seven. We walked around the Leicester Square area. Donnie wanted to buy water so we went to a convenience store where we found the Scottish national soft drink, “Irn Bru”. We had tried it the last time were were in Scotland and liked it a lot. In Scotland it’s more popular than Coca Cola. It’s sort of vanilla-y and citrus-y.
I’m reluctant to admit it but were too tired to find a nice restaurant so we had burgers for dinner at Sh__e Sh__k, which was a block away. It was better than the nearby competition.
Amazingly we stayed up until ten! Jet lag be damned!
Instead of trying to find breakfast, we just had coffee in the hotel. It was expensive and pretty tasteless. The small nap in the afternoon and staying up late the day before prevented any serious jet-lag. Great!
We walked a few blocks to Westminster because we had pre-booked a tour of Westminster Palace, otherwise known as the Houses of Parliament, which is only possible when Parliament isn’t in session.
Educational Information - skippable if you already know everything.
Big Ben is actually the nickname for the Great Bell of the Great Clock of Westminster, although now many people use the nickname for the clock tower that stands at the north end of the Palace of Westminster.
Inside of Parliament every surface was covered by elaborate wood carvings, gilding, mosaic, tiling, frescos, sculpture, paintings, etc. There was probably a trillion man-hours of highly skilled craftsmanship - a photographer’s nirvana. Unfortunately, except in two rooms, one of them almost bare, photography was prohibited (sigh). We spent about an hour following the confusing tour direction signs and Donnie tried to follow the audio guide directions. I didn’t bother with the audio guide - mostly it was a boring history lesson. Later, a staff member explained that when Parliament is in session they have to take the tourist signs down, so there aren’t many of them. Interestingly, the House Of Lords meeting room, called the Lord's Chamber is much more elaborately decorated than the equivalent for the House of Commons - it figures.
We foolishly decided to have lunch at a “Pub” across the street from Parliament, a very, very touristy area - right in the middle of the major tourist Mecca in London. Right near Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Bridge, and, across the bridge, The London Eye. The area was jammed with tourists. The food at "St. Stephen's Pub" was not very good. We will try not to make that stupid mistake again. Don’t eat at restaurants near very touristy areas.
We took the Tube to Leadenhall Market, a lovely old Victorian covered market but now containing many modern ethnic food places where we took a lot of pictures and stopped for tea and brioche’s at a French pastry shop.
Afterwards we took the Tube back to our hotel to rest for awhile. Fortunately, the Leicester Square Station was only two blocks from our hotel. Between Apple Maps and Apple Pay Transit, using the Tube was very easy. We used it frequently. The Tube in London is very extensive, and surprisingly clean for a system so old. The New York subway is much dirtier and not as easy to navigate.
We had a light dinner at “Hungama Indian Street Food” - a tiny little hole-in-the-wall place around the corner from our hotel. Food was served in paper containers with wooden utensils. Despite the very casual ambiance, the food was excellent! I probably don’t need to point out that there are a HUGE number of Indian/Pakistani restaurants in London - many serving really authentic food.
It was a rainy day. Today was the day we had booked a tour of Westminster Abbey - a must-do in London, even though we had been there many years before. It was crowded, but beautiful and impressive. We took a gazillion pictures, which was great since the last time we were there photography was prohibited.
We marveled at the graves and monuments to the most famous people in history, science, and literature.
Educational Information - skippable if you already know everything.
The people buried in Westminster abbey include
and many others.
More recent dead queens and kings are no longer buried there but in Windsor instead.
In addition to actual burials, there were memorials to people not buried in the abbey including
and many more.
Quite a list!
We had Fish and Chips for lunch in the Abbey Cafe and took a London double-decker bus back to the hotel. Donnie loves the double-decker busses, especially if she can ride on top.
In the evening we attended a concert at the famous St. Martin-In-The-Fields church, which, very fortuitously, was only about two blocks from our hotel. Anybody who had listened to WQXR, the eternal, renowned Classical Music radio station in New York will have heard of Sir Neville Mariner and the Academy of St. Martin-In-The-Fields who must have made a zillion recordings.
At the concert we heard some of the most beautiful music ever - Pachelbel’s “Canon in D”, Bach’s “Air on a G String” and Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons”, all by (electric) candlelight. The acoustics inside the little church were perfect - a very wonderful and memorable experience.
We had a dim-sum dinner at Xi Home Dumplings Bay, a great little restaurant we had frequented on our previous stay in London. The dim-sum were extremely delicious. My wontons in hot oil were excellent.
Today we had a late start. This is becoming more frequent as we get older. We walked to Piccadilly Circus and went into the historic and famous Fortnum and Mason store. It was nice but not as impressive as Harrod’s food hall. We wandered around a bit, but my back was hurting and there was no place to sit. We attempted to have “Afternoon Tea” but the famous tea-room was full and we didn’t want to wait a long time. We didn’t actually buy anything in the store. In hindsight, we probably should have gotten something.
Educational Information - skippable if you already know everything.
Afternoon Tea in Britain is served in the afternoon, obviously, around three or four and consists of a pot of tea and a multi-tiered tray almost always containing scones with clotted cream and jam, small savory sandwiches and some pastries. It is not called High Tea.
High Tea is actually the term used by some parts of England for what we call dinner.
We had just ordinary tea nearby.
Then we went into the Burlington Arcade - a covered shopping arcade in Piccadilly. It was very attractively decorated and impressive with lots of very high end shops. Donnie saw a sweater she liked from a Mongolian Wool clothing shop. It was only $2000. For some reason, she didn’t buy it.
Donnie got some take-away for dinner from Ciccaro, a cicchetti restaurant to eat back in the hotel. Later she said they weren’t really cicchetti and not that good. Cicchetti are little bite-sized open-face sandwiches on Italian bread slices with various toppings that are a local delicacy in Venice. We had enjoyed them during our last visit there. The Venetian locals love them also.
We went back to the hotel for a while. Then we wanted to see the special 100th anniversary Marilyn Monroe exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery but their website said it was completely sold out all week. I thought it would be a waste of time but Donnie insisted so we went there anyway and plucky Donnie asked if any tickets were available and there were some. Ok, so she’s never wrong. I admit it.
We had 45 minutes before our entry time so we wandered around the main portrait gallery. The main gallery was sort of interesting but the Marilyn Monroe exhibit was great. She was good friends with many of the most renowned photographers of her era, and they all said she knew exactly how to act in front of the camera. We then went back to the hotel for a while.
We went out in the evening to go to a recommended Italian pasta restaurant but there was a long wait so we went back to Xi Home Dumplings Bay - once again excellent.
Today we decided to take the Big Bus Hop-On Hop-Off tour around London. We sat on top of the double-decker bus so we could take pictures but the bus moved so fast it was basically impossible. We went around many neighborhoods we hadn’t seen before and then we got off the bus at the Sherlock Holmes Museum.
We didn’t want to pay to visit the museum upstairs, since it was really just a tourist trap, but I had to be able to say that I had been to 221B Baker Street, even though the address was really fictitious, so we shopped briefly at the shop. I bought a Sherlock Holmes profile pin.
In the evening we went to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre to see “Much Ado About Nothing” - in one word - magnificent. Ok, two words - magnificent and stupendous. Ok many more words - never mind, you get the idea - it was great - a William Shakespeare play, played by actors with British accents, played in a replica of his theatre - what a treat! We have seen several Shakespeare plays at home but somehow Shakespeare done with an American accent isn’t quite right.
Another very late start. We discovered that the line at Haldiram’s was gone so we had to have lunch. Haldiram's was a vegetarian Indian restaurant right next to our hotel which ALWAYS had a very long line outside, almost entirely occupied by Indian people which said something.
I ordered Choley Bhature. Donnie had Raj Kachari. I can’t really explain what they were but both were very good.
After lunch we went to the Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology which I had read about online before the trip. It was a huge collection of objects in a small museum which was part of the University College of London, It was wonderful! It contained 80,000 fascinating objects including a linen dress over 5000 years old! It was a little gem. The museum is named after Sir Flinders Petrie, a very renowned early 20th century Archeologist.
Educational Information - skippable if you already know everything.
Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie was an English Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and the preservation of artefacts. He held the first chair of Egyptology in the United Kingdom, and excavated many of the most important archaeological sites in Egypt.
We were close by, so we walked to the British Museum where we first wanted to sit and have a beverage. We went to the Great Court restaurant but they were only serving Afternoon Tea, so we indulged. After tea, it was late, near closing time, so we just visited our friend, Ramses The Great, the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles before the museum closed. We were tired so we splurged for a taxi back to the hotel.
In the evening we went down to the hotel bar and had some drinks. We had some discount vouchers we had been given at check-in, but they only covered a part of the cost. Since we were stuffed from the late Afternoon Tea, we skipped dinner.
Late start again - a continuing theme. We took the Tube to the Sir John Soane's Museum where we had to wait outside in a queue (British for a “line”) for about a half hour.
Sir John Soane was one of the foremost architects of the Regency era, a Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy, and a dedicated collector of paintings, sculpture, architectural fragments and models, books, drawings and furniture.
Inside, the museum was chock full of these architectural objects, sculptures, reliefs, and other amazing objects of every kind. No square inch was empty. It was mind boggling and wonderful. Once again we took a ton of pictures. Thank heavens for smart phones. Because of them, the museums and galleries that used to ban photography have given up. This and the Petrie Museum are two little gems that are not on the usual tourist path.
Afterwards, we discovered that our go-to pie-and-mash restaurant was only a two minute walk from the Leicester Square station so we had lunch at Mother Mash. It’s a little place with tiled walls. The menu is simple. First you choose your main from a selection of meat pies, or sausages, then you choose your mashed potatoes, and finally you choose your gravy.
I had Cumberland sausage bangers with bubble-and-squeak and Donnie had steak and porter pie with bubble-and-squeak. For you uninitiated, bubble-and-squeak is a traditional old English recipe containing fried mash potatoes, cabbage, peas and onions. I love the names of some British dishes - bubble-and-squeak, bangers and mash, toad-in-the-hole.
The couple sitting next to us had Sticky Toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream so we thought we might go back some other time and have some. We have actually had Sticky Toffee pudding from a British store near where we live and we like it so we wanted to try the authentic thing. (Spoiler - we never got back to try it. Oh well, maybe another time.)
Note - "pudding" in British usually means "dessert".
We walked around a little and suddenly realized that we were in Covent Garden, only about a five minute walk from our hotel. So we went back to the hotel to rest and recharge before heading out to the theater for the play “My Neighbor Totoro”.
“My Neighbor Totoro” was the most imaginative stage production we had ever seen. The only word that is necessary to describe it is “masterpiece”. It had amazing sets, amazing puppetry, amazing costumes, amazing everything. It’s based on a wonderful Hayao Miyazaki animated movie of the same name.
In Japan, Totoro is a cultural icon. Possibly many other places also. After the play, I had to buy a Totoro pin.
The best part was the HUGE Totoro - ten or twelve feet tall and almost as wide. If you don’t know Totoro, Google him. Then find a copy of the movie. It will warm your heart.
We went to a Pret-A-Manger for coffee and croissants. It was better than we had expected.
There must be about a million Pret-A-Manger’s in London. Seriously, there seemed to be one on every block. Every time we turned around, no matter where we were, there was one. It reminded us of Starbucks in Manhattan, but I think the Pret-A-Manger’s in London are even more numerous.
Today was our day to tour Buckingham Palace. I’ve become bored with palaces. During our travels we’ve been to dozens. Photography. was prohibited, of course. We did see a few nice Canaletto’s, Rembrandt’s and a couple of Vermeer’s. The rest of the place was over-the-top - not my cup of tea. I kept thinking of the vast staff that had to vacuum and dust. Regrettably, most of the priceless art belongs to the Royal Family, not the country. A shame really.
We went briefly back to the hotel, then to Selfridges where we had lunch. Selfridges is another huge, old, famous department store. They had a restaurant called “The Brass Rail” which didn’t really convey the fact that it was a Jewish Deli. The menu included such highfalutin’ British dishes as corned beef, pastrami, latkes, and matzo ball soup - Salt beef (British for corned beef) on rye for me, salad for Donnie. Amazingly, the British corned beef on rye was pretty good. Not up to Katz’s standards, but close enough.
We walked around inside Selfridges briefly but it was just a normal, modern, large department store - nowhere near as impressive as Harrod’s. We took a double decker bus back to Leicester Square, stopping at Ole & Steen, a Danish bakery chain, for a light takeaway sandwich dinner.
We went out in the evening and walked down to the Thames and along the river for a while and stopped for cold soft drinks.
We checked Uber and several other car services and discovered that the day we needed to be driven to the cruise terminal there would be a major road closure and we couldn’t get a car until after noon. So we scrambled around and booked a hotel In Southampton and an Uber on Sunday instead of Monday and told our hotel that we would be checking out a day early. It was fortunate that we had checked the car services beforehand.
After all the trouble it was late so we decided to go to the National Gallery, even though it wasn’t in our plans since we had been there on our last London visit. It was right behind our hotel. We spent about three hours there and then we went back to the hotel to recuperate.
We had a delicious dinner at Colonel Saab, a beautifully decorated Indian restaurant that we had been to before.
We then attended a play - “Jeeves Takes Charge” where Sam Harrison played twenty-two much-loved P. G. Wodehouse characters including Jeeves, Bertie Wooster, Florence Craye, Gussie Fink-Nottle, Bingo Little, Uncle Willoughby, Aunt Dahlia, and many more. It was very funny and entertaining and Sam Harrison was wonderful.
Educational Information - skippable if you already know everything.
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse was an English writer and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His creations include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Jeeves.
Another late start, of course. We took two long Tube trains to Kew Gardens. Fortunately it was a sunny day. Donnie particularly wanted to see all the Henry Moore sculptures on exhibit in the gardens. We wandered and briefly went into one of glass houses where the palms were but it was hot and humid inside so we didn’t stay there long. Then we had a light lunch in one of the garden cafes. We took the garden explorer tram around the gardens for a while. Eventually we got off, wandered around some more and took the trains back to the hotel.
About six we went out for dinner. The streets of London were chock full of people. More crazy than anything we had ever seen before. Every restaurant was packed. It was intense. Somebody said it was the first nice weekend in a while and that Londoners were back from their summer holidays.
We tried to get into several restaurants with no success. Finally we went to a pizza and pasta place called Sartori. The pasta was pretty good.
We threaded our way back through the unbelievably crowded streets to the hotel where we had to do the dreaded packing. I have to be honest - I’m bad at packing and Donnie is a champion packer, so she very generously packed my suitcase for me.
Copyright © 2026 by Jeff Kravitz