We traveled over 9 hours straight on a bus from Glasgow to London. The trip was over 500 miles! When we got to London we walked to Victoria Station and then got on the tube to Heathrow. Now another bus at Heathrow to our hotel. We are now sitting in the bar/cafe having a glass of wine and a panini – the only things they had left. We both have early flights tomorrow. We can’t believe it is time to come home. We have had such fun time has flown by. We will be in Tampa Oct 10th at approx 6:30pm. It is now midnight and we have to be up at 5;00am. We will be happy to see everyone, but you all should have come with us.
Category Archives: England
Veitsch, Austria to Bristol, England
We took a train from Veitsch to Vienna. In Vienna we boarded an Austrian overnight train to Frankfurt. Nice train and we shared the compartment with 3 very nice women. The conductor woke us up and brought us breakfast. Breakfast was a piece of bread, a croissant, butter, jam and tea or coffee. We changed trains in Frankfurt to go to Brussels. In Brussels we got the Chunnel Train to London via Lille, France.(Recap of countries- Austria, Germany, Belgium, France and England.). Once we were in London we had to take the subway to the train station that would take us to Bath, England.
But I got ahead of myself. We had about 6 hours to spend in Vienna. We had prepaid for a hotel so we checked in for a few hours. Naturally we went walking around and found a mall – see pic. We also decided to eat because we knew we would be traveling for a long time. See pic of our last meal in Vienna.
Back to Bath, England. When we got to Bath we could not find a place to stay for the night. Apparently there was some Jane Austen celebration going on and it was packed. We then got a bus and traveled on to Bristol, England. We found a place to stay and went to look for food since we were tired and hungry. We lucked out again. We fond an Italian restaurant that had really good food. Marsha had bruschetta and I had pâté for appetizers. Marsha had spinach and ricotta ravioli and I had penne with spicy sausage. See pics.
In the morning we went back to the bus station to explore our options of getting to Ireland. Again we were lucky! We could take a 10pm bus (that includes the ferry) and arrive in Dublin at 10:30am. That left us with the whole day in Bristol. We headed out to see the town. See pics. After we walked the entire downtown we decided to have an early dinner since we would have a long night of travel. We went to a restaurant called “Slug and Lettuce”. Marsha had a veggie burger and I had Thai tikka chicken. All was good. We are now in the hotel lobby after retrieving our luggage waiting to go on the short walk to the bus station.
I almost forgot!!! I had my first English breakfast at the hotel in Bristol. It had toast, croissants, muffins, crumpets, baked beans, baked tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms, scrambled eggs, sunny side up eggs, ham, sausages(bangers), various cereals, yogurt, 2 kinds of fruit salad, coffee, tea and juice. I had my first crumpet and banger here in Bristol.
Also, as we were walking around Bristol we came upon a 5 lane bowling alley. Of course we had to bowl a game. The lanes are much shorter than the ones in the US.
It is now 2;45am and we are on the Irish ferry headed to Ireland from Wales. The ferry has wifi so I can send this message.
London – Day 3 pics
London – Day 3
We are still running all over London. Today the weather was beautiful. We first went to the Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace. We picked out our carriages (see pictures). Then to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard. Notice the crowds. See picture of Marsha and Barbara. Then we walked to Trafalger Square where there was a gay pride event going on with bands and all kinds of events. We met Marsha’s friend Suzanne at Trafalger Square and we walked to Coventry Garden for coffee. Suzanne is a great London tour guide and we had a nice visit. Marsha and I then hopped a bus to St Paul’s Cathedral. The Cathedral closed early because of a wedding being held there. So we walked to Kensington Palace and did that tour. See picture. After Kensington Palace we walked thru Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park to Harrods. Harrods has a “food court”. In reality it is a giant gourmet Mecca. It is worth going there just to see the all the great food and wine from all over the world. The cheeses (Stilton & Gorgonzola) I thought were very reasonably priced. The chocolates and cakes and breads looked out of this world. Mind you this “food court” is huge. No pictures allowed of the food cases. By this time we were hungry so off to dinner we went. Italian again. See picture of appetizer. Again we were to hungry and started eating before I took a picture. I have to also mention the London Underground (subway) really is very far beneath the surface. Some of the tube stops have lifts to take every one up several levels and at others there are escalators that are 2 to 3 stories tall and you need to take 2 of them. That does not include stairs. We made it home early tonight. I’m writing this at 10:30pm. I love seeing all your comments. Tomorrow we are off to Belgium on the Eurostar again.
London – Day 2
We woke up to cold and rainy weather, so we decided to do laundry until it stopped raining. We met all kinds of interesting people in the laundromat. We met a couple from Australia who are traveling around the world with their 3 kids. We also met a woman who was traveling alone and she just came from India and Turkey. I need to add that we have met so many people from Australia that the country must be empty. While we were doing the wash the rain let up a little. We decided to go to Hampton Court (palace). It’s about 30 miles outside of the city, do we headed to the train station and took a train there. See picture. The place was a wonder. We could have spent a week there it was that interesting. We came to London and had a great Italian dinner. Go figure Italian in London. We were so hungry I forgot to take a picture. Then off to the Globe Theater to see the Tempest. We had the cheap standing seats, but enjoyed it so much we stayed for the whole 3 hours. We walked across the Millennium Bridge to catch the tube and I got some nice pictures of London at night. There’s another bridge, St Paul’s Cathedral and the Shard. I have more pictures on my camera. Yes, I can see you messages, but would like your permission to post them, because they would be in the public domain. Making plans for tomorrow. The days are flying by. I can’t believe I’m writing this at midnight.
