Day 40-42 – Scorching London

London is meant to be a cold, drizzly and grey place. It was completely the opposite when we landed at Heathrow. We felt it first when we stepped off the plane and were loaded into a non-airconditioned bus that took us to the terminal. Fortunately, the terminal was cool. It was very quick getting through customs. Similar machines to what we have in NZ and Australia.

We collected our bags and headed to the platform for the Piccadilly line only to find that trackwork was being done over the weekend. So instead, we were directed to the Elizabeth line. It is a new line and is well set up for taking people from the airport to central London, Paddington specifically. We had to take the District line from Paddington and I am sure that I managed to find the most difficult way to get to the platform having to carry our heavy bags down several flights of stairs.

We dropped our bags at the hotel and then took the tube into Central London getting off at Charing Cross so that we could go to the National Portrait Gallery which overlooks Trafalgar Square. Trafalgar Square was taken over by a Hare Krishna event so it was very busy and colourful with the Indian community crowding around stalls and so on. We stopped for a moment outside St Martin-in-the-Fields. There was some lovely music happening inside and I would have liked to have gone in and listened to it but Bev was not keen despite the allure of somewhere cool.

The National Gallery overlooks Trafalgar Square and we assumed that the Portrait Gallery is accessed through the National Gallery. I thought it was a great idea and it would be cool. The gallery is huge. We discovered that the Portrait Gallery was not in that part of the building. We decided to stay and focussed on the more modern artists but we had to go through a number of rooms to get to those paintings. The ones we saw were stunning. Several stood out with one being a huge painting of a horse called Whistlejack by George Stubbs that was painted around 1763. The colours were vibrant and horse seemed to almost leap out of the painting. There was another one by Manet which was of Archduke Ferdinand being executed by Mexican republicans who did not agree with him being made Emperor of Mexico. It had resonance as we had been to his castle Miramare outside of Trieste.

Later after having had some dinner we wandered down to Westminster Tube station. It was early evening with the sun setting making Parliament Buildings look rather pretty in that light.

Monday was another hot day. We planned the morning to go to Westminster and then to Covent Garden. It seemed like everyone else had the same idea. While it was warm it was not too bad. Like every other tourist we took photos of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. On the south bank we came across an area where there were thousands of pink hearts painted onto a wall facing parliament representing all those who had died as a result of COVID. It was sobering reminder of how much devastation to people and lives the pandemic had wrought.

COVID Remembrance wall

We wandered along the bank with day getting hotter and hotter. We found out later that Monday was the hottest ever day in May with the temperature getting to 35 degrees in Kew Gardens.

Looking down river - St Paul's the domed building

We crossed the Thames and found a place to have a coffee. The café was not air conditioned so it was cooler to sit outside in the shade than inside. We wandered around Covent Garden and went into the Royal Opera House. I had imagined a very old grand building but the area we entered was very new and is a modern attachment to the old building. We tried to see the main auditorium but that was closed and I think is part of a tour. As it was cool and lunchtime we had lunch there. The food was quite good and for London in that area remarkably good value.

Floral St

Lane off Floral St

We then walked to the Portrait Gallery and spent a couple of hours seeing brilliant portraits of a variety of people from around the late 19^th century to now. Again we only managed a fraction of what is in the gallery before we ran out of steam.

We had secured tickets to the musical Hamilton at the Victoria Palace Theatre. After returning to our hotel and getting into some slightly better clothing we went to Victoria Station. We found a pub nearby where we had a meal before going next door to the theatre. Hamilton has been playing for a number years in London and I would have thought demand would have dried up, yet on a Monday night it looked as if the whole theatre was full. The last time we were in London we had gone to The Book of Mormon and had really enjoyed it but I have to say that while the production was very professional, it was not something I enjoyed greatly. The music was ok but not great. Others who have been to it have raved about it but I certainly did not have the same experience. Bev said she felt the same way.

Tuesday was our last day in London. We were flying back to NZ via Singapore that night. After packing and storing our bags at the hotel we headed toward Buckingham Palace as Bev wanted to have a look. We disembarked at St James Park and began walking toward Buckingham Palace. We came to The Mall to find that there was a trooping of the colour rehearsal about to happen. The roads around the area were closed and there barriers all along the The Mall. While waiting I had gone to the toilet and when I got back Bev said they horses had gone past while I was there. All I could see was the back of them in the distance.

Buckingham Palace

Looking down the Mall to Whitehouse

After a walk through the park we found our way to the Ottolenghi Deli in Marylebone where we waited for quite a while for a place to come available. While there we chatted to an American couple and their daughter who came from Texas and South Carolina. I mention that because they are both Trump supporting states. I made the mistake of commenting about one of their children studying in the UK escaping the political situation in the US. The father said, “I quite like Trump” and suggested we not discuss him. I was very happy to avoid that conversation. I wasn’t going to convince him otherwise in ten minutes. They were rather nice people who had travelled widely although not to the southern hemisphere it seemed.

Eventually we had a seat and shared some very nice salads. While there I got some very expensive spices that I have not been able to find in NZ.

Our next adventure was to get to the airport. Earlier I had seen that the Piccadilly Line (which goes to Heathrow Airport) was closed due to a points failure (a result of the heat perhaps). As a result we planned on a slightly longer travel time to get to Heathrow via the Elizabeth line. Just as we arrived at Earls Court Station, I noticed people coming out of a lift that only services the Piccadilly line. I asked the station attendant if the line was open and he said it had just opened.

That was great so we made our way to the platform to find that it was very crowded. I took Bev to where the front of the train would stop was with hope that when it arrived it would be slightly less crowded. It was not to be. We managed to cram ourselves into the train and we were on our way. It meant that we got to the airport much earlier than anticipated.

Before we knew it we were on the plane heading for Singapore. For me it was a long flight as I did not get any substantial sleep despite being able to lie down. It was not that comfortable for my longish legs on the Singapore Airlines flight.

In Singapore we changed airlines and flew back with Air New Zealand. Some 30 hours after making our way to Heathrow we were on home soil. Alas, our plane arrived a little late due to the crew diverting away from some bad weather over Australia. We only had about 45 minutes from when we landed to getting across to the domestic terminal for our flight to Wellington. The bags were almost last off the plane and then we had to go through biosecurity before we could walk very quickly with our bags to the domestic check-in counter. We were probably about ten minutes too late. Fortunately, we accommodated on a later aircraft but that meant another 2½ hours in Auckland. At least we were able to hang out in the Koru lounge and have some decent coffee.

We were not the only people who were affected by that late arrival as number of people on the plane were in a similar situation.

It was nice get back to my own bed. Wellington greeted us with low cloud but virtually no wind. After 30+ degrees in London it was rather cool in Wellington!