The Trimmier Life

I’ve never really been interested in history and I used to blame that on my lack of imagination – I could never envision the likes and times of the stories and facts being told in history books or even in movies.  I got my Henry the Firsts mixed up with the William the Fourths and my Elizabeth the Eighths mixed up with the Mary Queens of wherever they came from. From as far back as I can remember, I preferred puzzles to fairy tales and to me, history was merely a tale about something I couldn’t actually see, touch or solve.  But now, I know that ‘seeing is believing’ and all I ever needed to keep the facts straight and to enjoy the story was a ‘walk’ through history and that is exactly what I got on our recent vacation.

I’ll start with London and save Scotland for another post (the 2 were such different experiences).  London was everything I thought it would be and a little more.  During the day it had the hustle and bustle of New York City, but at night it became quite the sleepy town.  Everything in London was monumental – in more ways than 1.  First, there were literal monuments to commemorate everything…the number of plaques, statues, memorials and mausoleums in this town were too numerous to keep up with.  Upon walking around town on our first day we realized there was no way to see them all, so we stuck to a few that we knew we couldn’t miss and had to save a lot of them for the next trip.  Second, everything was monumental in size…the statues were the tallest I’d ever seen, the memorials more grand than I could ever capture in words, even the pigeons were of proportions I had never seen before (HUGE!). I’ll try to capture some of the history and character of London in this post, but there’s no way to accurately describe the grandness of it all…here’s how our sightseeing went…

Day 1

We arrived at our apartment around 11am (5am Texas time) and met our friends Nick, Chris and Keridon there. Nick had done the research on finding us an inexpensive place to stay and he hit the nail on the head with our flat located right on the Thames river at the end of Lambeth Bridge and just one block up from Westminster Bridge.  We were on the 18^th floor and our view gave us a great vantage of the city skyline.

Although we wanted to push through the time change and kick off our trip in full sightseeing mode, our eyes just couldn’t stay open after having been awake for almost 24 hours.  We quickly grabbed a bite to eat and then napped for a few hours.  The good thing about napping until 4pm was that even though it was late afternoon, we still had 6 hours of daylight left!!  The sun in that part of the world rises around 5am (I’m talking fully risen with dawn breaking close to 4am) and doesn’t set until a little after 10pm!  By this time, the group was ready to eat and we ended up at a little pub near the flat and had some authentic and delicious fish & chips.  One thing that surprised me about the pubs was that they were really small – most of them we visited in London were upstairs and the size of about 1 or 2 large hotel rooms (not ballrooms, actual rooms)…they had 15 to 20 tables at most, but all had a great selection of beer   On our walk to and from our flat that night we saw the Palace of Westminster (aka the Houses of Parliament) and Big Ben.  Both of these sites were magnificent in their size, Victorian Gothic construction and dominance in this part of the city.  To try to explain their grandeur, Parliament has 1,200 rooms, 2 miles of corridor, 100 staircases and a river facade 320 yards long.  Big Ben’s dials are 23 feet long!

Day 2 was a whirlwind that trekked us all over the streets of London.  By the map, we estimate that we walked over 8 miles this day from noon to 8pm (this might not seem like much, but taken that we stood or walked through all of our sightseeing stops that day, it was enough to make our feet, backs, knees and hips ache!).  First stop of the day was Westminster Abbey, the tallest Gothic church in England that was built starting in 1245!  It’s hard to imagine how such a magnificent building was constructed so long ago and this adage magnifies its mystique.

One thing I learned (and didn’t expect) about the churches and chapels in London was that they often contain multiple monuments (the large ones have hundreds) and separate chapels within them as well as the tombs of well-known kings, queens, authors, architects, and historians of the time.  Westminster Abbey for instance has 9 different chapels dedicated to different memorials and effigies, over 600 monuments and is the resting place for over 3,000 people!  Statues and tombs at the Abbey celebrate Sir Isaac Newton, Henry VII, Edward I (also known as Edward Longshanks), Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots (Elizabeth the movie is so much more appealing now , Chaucer & Shakespeare!  The monuments within the chapels, often several feet high with large inscriptions and death masks (an actual plaster impression of the person’s face after they have died, usually used on their effigy) of the commemorated, are just as elaborate and imposing as the churches themselves.

The coronation of the king or queen also takes place at Westminster Abbey with each initiate using the same coronation chair, constructed in 1297!  The chair was first used in the coronation of King Henry IV in 1399 and is the oldest piece of furniture in Britain still used for its original purpose (we saw the actual chair!)!

Our complete tour of the Abbey took nearly 4 hours and we were lucky enough to be there during Evensong (an evening prayer and meditation service in which the choir performs – magnificent).

Second stop was next to the Abbey at St. Margaret’s Church.  This church, although much smaller than the Abbey, had beautiful stained glass windows.

Next on our tour, Tower Bridge (which is technically not London Bridge), built in 1886 to help relieve congestion on the other bridges crossing the Thames.  The highlight of our tour of this Gothic styled bridge was walking to the top of its spires giving us expansive views of the Tower, City Hall, and the rest of East London.

Along the walk home that night we passed Shakespeare’s Globe Theater (not the original, but built where the original once stood and using drawings from the period to recreate the very likeness of what used to be), the London Eye (similar to a ferris wheel, but each car is enclosed…we didn’t go up in it since we had already gotten such great views from the Tower Bridge) and Jubilee Gardens.  London has so many nice manicured gardens and parks that were filled with people the entire time we were there.  We took time out to rest and relax in Jubilee Gardens before heading back to the flat.

Day 3 was again packed with lots of walking and sightseeing including the Tower of London & the crown jewels, Trafalgar Square, the West End, the Texas Embassy, Piccadilly Circus, and Buckingham Palace.

Day 4 found us winding cramming in the last of our tours with what we consider the best stop on our trip in London.  After watching some of the BUPA 10K from a small café near St. Paul’s Cathedral, we stepped inside the church for a ‘quick tour’.  This tour turned into a 3 ½ hour awe-struck expedition through one of the most bravura buildings we’ve ever stepped foot in.  Upon entering the nave and looking down the choir into the high alter, we knew we were in for a treat.  The church (the 5^th to sit on this site, England’s only with a dome and constructed from 1675 to 1711) houses stunning grisaille frescoes (painted in the early 1700s), glorious glass mosaics (added in the 19^th century by Queen Victoria), and the tombs of Sir Christopher Wren (the only architect of St. Paul’s) and the Duke of Wellington.  We visited the American Memorial Chapel (added after World War II) which is directly behind the high altar and climbed 440 stairs to the Whispering & Stone Galleries.

Overall, our 4 days in London gave us time to feel the city and to see some pretty spectacular sights.  If we had to sum it up in 1 word, you guessed it, MONUMENTAL.  To see all of our pictures from London, click here.