London, Finding our Way Around episode 1

The decision was made, it was time for us to start exploring some of the great attractions that London has to offer. We had to find out how to purchase and use an Oyster Card, the public travel card that offers cheap travel around inner London. Together we decided our route for the day, heavily influenced by yours truly!! Underground to Westminster where we would find Big Ben and the Houses or Parliament, Westminster Abbey is just across the road so that would be our starting point. From there it’s just a hop, step and jump to Churchill’s War Rooms. A 5 – 10 minute walk along Parliament Street, which changes names to become Whitehall, would take us past the Banqueting Hall on the right and the Horse Guards and the Admiralty on the left and finally to Trafalgar Square, St Martin in the Field and The National Gallery. That ought to do us for the day! What an optimist!

First stop was the local post office to rid ourselves of some of our luggage, booklets pamphlets and a few bits and pieces that we didn’t want to lug all over the place. That stop cost several quid and about an hour! Next back the way we’d come to Queensway underground to purchase our Oyster cards and find out how to use them, all this mucking around took us to around 11am and we hadn’t even left our local neighbourhood! Michael had worked out where to change trains and where to get off. We set off confidently through the gates. Validate the Oyster Card, hmm, now that was easy! We were on our way. Change trains at Bond Street and through to Westminster, navigating lifts, the longest steepest escalators I’ve ever seen (keep to the right!) and those bloody stairs, the trip took about 20 minutes. Probably not much different time-wise as walking if we were fitter.

We alighted at Westminster, once outside we stood for a few minutes gawping at Big Ben. It was like walking into a travel brochure, we needed a few minutes to soak it in and absorb where we were and which way to walk, a bit like being country kids in the big city!! There was a living statue at the subway exit, I got Michael to pay a few coins so I could take his photo (it’s bad etiquette to snap without a donation!) the guy grabbed Michael to be in the photo, then motioned to me too!

We stepped out of the station and there was Big Ben!!

The Living Sculpture that posed with each of us for photos then returned to his original  pose!

Across the road to St Margaret’s church and Westminster Abbey. Photos are allowed of the outside only, as you are not permitted to take them inside. As if you’d have time, there is so much to see. As part of the entrance fee you are presented with an audio guide that works a bit like a telephone. You press the numbers on the key pad that correspond to the numbers on the wall and hold the gadget to your ear like a phone to get the corresponding information. This gadget is very easy to use, you can go at your own pace, skip forward or back with ease and start where ever you wish.

St Margaret's Church, stands alongside Westminster Abbey.

Approaching Westminster Abbey, North Transept and Ambulatory

a grotesque that houses spouting over the North Transept doors

 The fan vaulting in Henry VII’s Lady’s Chapel is beyond description, absolutely awe-inspiring. There is a small mirrored table in the centre that allows you to view it without straining your neck. Along the sides of this chapel are two rows of stalls each side with small stalls on which the occupant can perch. This is also where the Most Honourable Order of Bath, an ancient order of knighthood still observed today, is installed. Only 36 members of the order are installed here at any one time, usually a vacancy is created by the death of a sitting Knight. At such time his banner and carved crest, which overhang his stall, are removed and presented to his family. His occupancy however, is marked for all time by an enamelled plate of his crest fixed to the wall of his stall. Lord Nelson’s stall plate, among others’ can be found here. The effigies of Henry VII and his Queen, Elizabeth of York are also here, in an elaborate caged mausoleum.

There are inscriptions on the flag stones underfoot that either commemorate the passing or mark the burial spot of important people from centuries gone by. Some are almost walked smooth and are difficult if not impossible to read. Caskets hundreds of years old hold the remains of royalty that we know from stories and history lessons.

We visited Poet’s corner where the tomb of Geoffrey Chaucer, it is said, started the tradition of commemorating men of letters here. There is an elaborate monument to Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas is remembered with a few lines of his poetry. There is a bust of Australian, Adam Lindsay Gordon an on a pillar inscribed on an elaborate cartouche a memorial to poet laureate Sir John Betjeman who died in 1984, I love his verse. There are too many to mention but names that we all know from our school books or our adult preferences.

The Cloisters, Westminster Abbey

The Cloisters

Aged columns, the Cloisters

Outside in the cloisters, where it was freezing, I was once again allowed to run riot with my camera and of course I did. There is, out in the cloisters, a souvenir kiosk and a Coffee Club refreshment stand. We decided hot soup was the order of the day. Spicy squash, mmm, just the thing to warm us up. There is also an Abbey museum and gift shop at one end of the cloisters. We had entered the Abbey through the North Trancept near St Margaret’s Church. The end of the ‘tour’ ushers you from the cloisters back inside to the Nave, where you can look back through the length of the Abbey to the High Alter. The grave to the Unknown Soldier commands the central position and to the side, the Union Jack that covered the coffin of the Unknown soldier hangs from a pillar. The coronation chair is also here, at the moment, behind glass where it is going through a restoration process. This piece was made in1297 and is the oldest piece of furniture in Britain still used for its intended purpose. History really looks you in the face in this hallowed place.

Release from the Abbey is into an outside fenced in area that shepherds you through the Gift Shop. Damn it! We just replaced all the weight we had shed at the post office this morning!!!