2018 TRAVELS

So far this year we have been to London, Italy, Oahu and The Low Country, IE the sea shore of So. Carolina and Georgia.

I just did a quick count of the countries where I've been. North And South America, Asia, Europe and Australia. By most people's standards that's a lot of destinations, but one of the few places that I haven't been and wanted to see was The British Isles. 

So off we went in March we boarded Wow Air an Icelandic budget airline and headed off to Gatwick airport in London.  After a quick change of airplanes in Reykjavik we continued on to London.

England in general and London in particular was a bit of a surprise. I wasn't expecting the go-go sixties but I thought that it would be somewhat behind the USA in terms of modernization. Not so, London is almost like the US except they do have this annoying habit of driving down the wrong side of the street. It took me at least a week to learn to look both ways before stepping off of the curb to cross the street. There is so much to see in The UK the two weeks we were there was not nearly enough. We went to Stonehenge of course and Greenwich of course where we boarded Cuttysark and Portsmouth the home of The Royal Navy where we boarded Victory, Lord nelson's ship. The was basically my A list. We stayed at The Millennium Hotel in Kensington which was very centrally located and took the underground, subway, to get around using our Oyster cards. We walked to the Victoria and Albert Musium and to The Royal Albert Hall. We took coach tours to Dover, Stratford Upon Avon, Cambridge, Bath, Leeds and Highclere Castle where Downton Abby was filmed. We found the hop on-hop off bus tour a very good way to see what you wanted to see and avoid the crap. We went to Harrod's and Selfridge's Department stores. The Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul's and Westminster Abby were all on our itinerary. Big Ben was a disappointment. After 157 years of continuous service, the tower is clad in construction scaffolding. You could barely identify it. 

I'd heard that English food is very bland, and it is, but because of the cosmopolitan atmosphere in the city almost any ethnic foo was very close by. We found the halal places had some of the best food to be found. We went to pubs and had fish and chips and on Sunday we ate Sunday roast which is traditionally roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and creamed spinach. The UK is a beer drinkers paradise. The beer in Germany and Belgium and Holland is better but in London there is an amazing variety of brews to sample. When a bartender heard my accent, they offered me an American brew. "Mate, we have Budweiser on drought". Thank you but no thank you.
We will have to return to the UK soon as we only hit the highlights and now need to explore further.