Shane & Miriam's European Trip 2006

3-5-06
Knowing the only way we were going to fit in Stonehenge and Bath was by a commercial coach tour, I booked a day trip including Salisbury Cathedral with Golden Tours. The pickup point was to be a hotel about fifteen minutes walk from our hotel at 7.30am. We rehearsed the journey in the evening prior, just to make sure we didn't miss the pickup. I will now never forget where West Brompton is.

8.10 in the morning went by, but finally we were ushered through the road construction area to where our coach was waiting, unable to reach the hotel. A seemingly endless round of pickups from other hotels followed, until by 9.30 we were back at the tour office ready to board the actual tour. No time for a pitstop, rush rush rush.

At Salisbury the ancient cathedral impressed us with its immensely high spire, its many medieval tombs of knights and barons, and its splendid stained glass. We viewed an original of the Magna Carta, watched over and commentated on by a lady who may well have been there for the signing.

While the few passengers who had opted for a pub meal lingered awaiting their pre-booked lunches, the rest were let loose in the Salisbury shops. Here I was gladdened by an exceptional prawn and mayonaise roll and a just-right cappucino. Fresh, real food; a rarity on our long sojourn.

A short drive onwards to Stonehenge, getting briefed on the way in the varied theories of how it came to be there. The stones every bit as impressive as expected. Tourists can no longer get closer than a defined circular walk, with a good audio commentary to listen to when the cold wind whipping against your ears permits. One theory suggest the site was a refrigerator for keeping meat in ancient days. The prevailing temperature supported this hypothesis. It was damn cold.

As the coach drove away, Miriam saw many small white pebbles in the meadows, and commented that her grandfather had collected pebbles like that from near Stonehenge. As a misty rain gathered, we rolled in to Bath, for a quick squint at the town and in particular the Roman Baths.

The Baths were fantastically well preserved and gave a real insight into the life and leisure of the ruling Romans and their underlings. A tasting in the Pump Room showed the spring water to be similar to but milder than the mineral water of Keyneton in Victoria. Many of the friezes and statues from the site have been recovered and are displayed in well lit conditions on an interpretive walk. Just don't know why the Romans in Rome don't polish the treasures of their city.

The day had been huge and we were glad to be dropped off at Earls Court Road, a short walk to "home". A good rest and a leisurely packing of bags was required. For after an all too brief sleep, the HotelLink mini-bus was seeking us, it was 4.30am and we were on our way to Heathrow ready for departure to Dubai.

4-5-06

We were glad to have the opportunity to catch a few of the sights we hadn't had time to see previously. Top of the list was the Tate gallery, to finally reach total art overload. A quick tube ride to Blackfriars, and a leisurely stroll across the bridge delivered us to the Tate. Entry was free except to a couple of exhibitions that were of no interest to us anyway; we were here to see the core collection. More excellent Dali and other favourite surrealists such as Magritte, Matisse, asbstract stars such as Rothko, Pollock and more...

School children sprawled in front of the huge canvases and reproduced them carefully in their exercise books. Special mention must be made of the young girl who had carefully torn up pieces of coloured paper to make a very accurate small scale version of a Matisse collage, "The Snail".

After art exhaustion set in, we headed off to walk past StPauls Cathedral, joining the hundreds of Londoners eating sandwiches on the steps. Peeking inside, it all seemed grand but the entrance fee of something like fourteen pounds per person was somewhat exhorbitant, so we backed out. Finding ourselves in the theatre district and the Strand, we saw many familiar Monopoly street names. Continung randomly through the streets we came across Australia House, the only visible reminder of home that we encountered in the UK.

Before the afternoon ended we had visited Harrods, just to see the Egyptian escalators. From the statues of Dodi and Di to the top of the building, everything in sight is gilt and resplendent. Shopwise, it seems just like Myer used to be in its glory days. Lots of good but fully priced luxury goods, and many staff doing their best to be attentive to the customers.

2-4-6
Settled on spending two days in Miriam's ancestral lands, Dorset and Devon. Very limited options for a roof for one's head available by Net booking - this still being a relatively
low tech area. No wireless LANs visible around here! Selected the Hensleigh Hotel, Lower Sea lane, Charmouth, a glorified B & B that calls itself a hotel because you can get a drink.

Unfortunately to stay at England's only nationally significant geological site, famous for its Jurassic and Triassic strata teeming with fossils, a premium is imposed. Still, 200
english pounds is pretty savage for two days. Cleanliness and a modest degree of comfort, such as pillows thicker than 10 millimetres and a shower capable of washing the human body apparently create a much higher rate of gouging.

As for getting here, I found that buses were the only option, with several connections required. National Express busline is willing to sell you tickets through a phone call with ticketing details sent to your mobile by SMS, which you then show to the driver who waves
you aboard. Before departing from Victoria Coach Station (a short distance from Victoria Tube station), we had walked across London from the Kensington Edwardian, through the Royal Boroughs, past the Sloan Square yuppy shopping precint,where shop workers stepped around sleeping homeless men in the indented entrance to a high fashion retailer. With frequent monitoring of our progress on a detailed map, we made it to the coach station with an hour
or so to spare. Found that here you could actually buy food that didn't make you feel as greasy and befouled as the standard London fare. Particulary recommend the samosas available at the first store as you walk in the entrance.
Once aboard, the journey was soon underway but had not progressed more than a hundred metres before striking a total traffic gridlock, rumoured to be caused by some kind of boat race
happening on the Thames. No kidding, it took an hour and three quarters just to reach the M4 motorway and get above 5km/hr.Passed houses formerly lived in by Sylvia Pankhurst and
Hilaire Belloc. In fact many famous people had lived in this street, according to the profusion of circular blue plaques.

The bus drivers were in disarray, with following connections having to be rearranged on the fly. There was much discussion over mobiles between drivers and base, with buses being redirected to take passengers hither and thither. After one more bus change,we were dropped off at Dorchester. This ancient town is better known under its fictional representation in Hardy's "The Mayor of Casterbridge". It has wonderful ancient stone cottages, Keeps, walls that have stood for a thousand years or more. But the folk at the railway station didn't know where Charmouth, our destination, was located; it required a forensic examination of the atlas to confirm that if we walked 10 metres to the bus station and waited for the number 31, it would pass Charmouth in its journey.

As we pondered the lack of timetable, the lack of even a notice as to what bus line operated here, in rolled the alleged number 31, with a driver as jolly as an extra in a Hardy crowd scene. At one stop, a sour faced harridan climbed aboard and asked " You going to Weymouth?"
"No, I'm going to Axminster, that's why it says so on the front of the bus."
For three pounds 20 (you wouldn't have the 20p, would you?) each, this ride was a lovely panoramic ride into the past, through green rolling hills and splended vistas of the distant sea. Not being quite sure where to get off, and noting that in a series of towns there had been only one stop by the bus, I pressed the stop button as we rolled into Charmouth's town limits. As luck would have it, the turn off we needed was only a hundred metres or so further along.

After submitting to the rude financial discipline of the future Mrs Fawlty and being shown to our room, we strolled down to the windswept, pebbly Charmouth beach, watching the sea mists flailed by a constant gale against the soft and crumbling cliffs. This is an area where intact Ichthyosaurus heads and other fossilised bones have been found often, and you can see in local fences where many prize specimens have been pried out and ripped off by the unscrupulous. Once so common, the fossils are now not so easy to find, but the locals keenly promote visitors to come and enjoy them. The protective attitude is reserved for automobiles, with signs warning thieves that they may just find that the car in the car park they are intent on stealing is a police honey pot set to entrap them in the act.

Very light dinner: yoghurt and fruit and choc biscuits. Not willing to spend another 40 pounds for another over fatty meal with chips over everything. Brrr! Will have an early night in comfort and go for a long walk tomorrow to Lyme Regis.

3-4-6
Miriam awoke early, the sun was already kind of up, so we went for a quick walk down to Charmouth beach. Beautiful sunny day, perhaps the upside of global warming for the UK. What is hard to get used to is the sudden variability of temperature; when the sun goes behind a
cloud it is almost like a ghost has walked across you, you shiver and hurry to put on a jacket, and just as soon you are tearing it off in a hot sweat.

Signs warned of the danger of walking to Lyme Regis along the beach, with a huge area of clifftop having collapsed not so long ago, mudslides from the cliffs, and powerful tides that could cut you off with nowhere to go but into the drink. Decided to take the land route instead, of course preparing ourselves with a hearty breakfast prepared by Sybil Fawlty and her minions. I like a good coffee, but the cafetiere (so pompously described in the menu) was so loaded with caffeine that I was wide eyed and almost shaky.

Back to the beach to begin our walk, we checked out the fossils in the beachside shop.
There were some fascinating examples mainly of ammonites (ancestors of the squids of today), small fish like creatures, and the prize icthyasaurus heads, a crocodile like creature of the distant past). On the whole, though, the local fossils were outnumered by imported
examples from such non-local sources as Madagascar. Always check the provenance of your fossils, lads.

We set off on the signposted walking route, shortly finding that due to the mudslides mentioned above, the original route had been deviated from, lengthening the walk from 2 and a half to about 3 miles each waY. Walking through the cottage lined street out of
Charmouth, we encountered a village plod (policeman) sussing out a rather suss looking character who could have picked up a role as an extra in the Bill. Mr Plod glanced at us, dismissed us as mere tourists and went on his way. We saw him again a few minutes later
parked on the side of the road, and again on the road on our way back from Lyme Regis. I can't believe there is much crime going on here.

The path continued along the road, then turned into woodland lined with hundreds of years of leafmould, with a pathway mired in mud in parts, requiring careful navigation along the edge. Then across the Charmouth golf course, with many an elderly golfer kindly waving us
across the airway before wacking their tiny white balls.After the golf course, the path followed the roadways that seemed thick with diesel fumes making us gasp until turning again into quiet wooded pathways. We made our variation to the route deviation, tramping across some very muddy patches and glimpsing splendid coastal views. It really is a very pretty seascape.

Reaching the outskirts of Lyme REgis, we wandered through the old graveyard, surpisngly finding few graves older than the mid nineteenth century. None of Miriam's relatives in evidence. The town sits on several steep inclines that make it hard to see where you're going but we eventually found our way down the main street lined with houses built in the 1600s.

The street so narrow that cars are formally obliged to wait for the oncoming traffic to pass them before advancing. Liked the Hong Kong Chinese restaurant with its menu sticky taped to the ancient glass, the Chinese characters somewhat out of place against the architecture.Excellent lunch at a cafe overlooking the harbour, at last some green leafy salad, which had seemed elusive at most food vendors. Beneath the stonework of the main harbour front area, an innovative sewage water storage and treatment facility has been incorporated, preventing sea pollution and keeping up the venerable feel of the area. The streets full of tiny shops offering ice creams cornets, chips in paper cones, locally made fudge and lollies, small children darting around everywhere, lots of animation and colour.

We tried to commence the walk back to Charmouth along the beach, but the large pebbles that stressed our ankles as we walked, and the uncertainty of the tide - is it coming in or going out? - led us to retrace our steps to the land route.

Back at Charmouth, after a doze in front of the tele - remarkably free of American product - we chose to have an evening drink and a meal at the George Hotel, named after one of those

Georgian kings, I think Geo V, c. 1911? Enjoyed seeing some of the local folk, families

playing snooker, a man taking his mum's dog to the pub with him (fine dog you've got there, I said to him), old friends doing what they clearly do as a regular pastime. Friendly atmosphere, despite furnishings on the wall that looked like they might have knocked off a few heads in their time. Back to our digs for a relaxing bath, rang Miriam's relation in the Midlands to arrange a visit up there tomorrow. Iris, who has not even yet met us, proved delightfully welcoming and proposes to meet us from wherever we can get to near her

place by public transport tomorrow. Must be out of this joint by 7.15am tomorrow so early

to bed tonight.

4-4-6
Out on to the cold high street of Charmouth by 7.30 to await the 7.43 bus. It's that one, or

wait four hours for the next one that goes back to Dorchester Sth rail station. At the last

minute find I still have Mrs Fawlty's room key. With the bus drivers indulgence I drop it

off on the unattended counter of the general store, while the shopkeepers are busy out the

back with their baking for the day. Hopefully it will find its way back to Hensleigh House.

A picturesque misty early morning showed the green hills of Dorset dotted with black faced

and shaggy sheep, and we were soon standing in the frosty chill of the bus stop. Our

connection back to London arrived on time and delivered us safely to Victoria Coach stn

where we needed to figure our next move. National Coachlines offered Northampton as the

closest destination, but falsely supposed that a local train would take us the rest of the

way. In fact, once at Northampton the only option was the local double decker bus, that

weaved its way through stonelined laneways via a roundabout route, through standstill

traffic and with a couple of phone contacts with Iris eventually spotted her patiently

awaiting us at the bus terminus.

After a natter and a rest, Iris walked us down to the Canal Boat business before dark,

which was bigger in scope than expected, up to sixteen boats lined up along the stretch of

canal. She showed us the "Malvern" and explained she was happy for us to take it for a run

for a couple of days - to depart tomorrow morning. A brisk walk up to the pub for a hearty

dinner and a couple of drinks and we were ready for a kip. Iris kindly putting us up in the

most comfortable digs we've had so far in old Blighty. Best sleep, with back spasms almost

completely gone now.

5-4-6
Iris introduced us to son Tim, who showed me the ropes of skippering a narrowboat on the

canal. After ten minutes of tutelage, he seemed confident enough that I could handle it,

and jumped off onto the bank to walk back. I'd decided to head towards Napton on the Hill

because it offered a long stretch with no locks to navigate - and this proved a relatively

easy run. Diesel engine, forward and reverse, throttle, and a couple of ropes to secure the

vessel to the bank wherever one chose to stop.

Along the way we saw many different narrow boats, some painted up with folksy art and bright

colours, some with rough sheds and gypsy style dwellings on the banks. Plenty of boat

dwelling dogs, and even a few cats - one boat had mesh over the front of it, from where a

proud ginger moggy acted as the the figurehead of the vessel, while two big black dogs at

the rear of the boat confronted two large white swans who were not a bit concerned.

Thankfully Tim has tipped me off about the basic courtesies of narrow boating. If a vessel

is approaching, pull to the right. First one to a bridge has right of way. If you see a

potential trouble spot, like three boats entgering a narrow stretch and heading for a

narrower passage beneath a bridge, throw her into neutral and exercise some patience. So,

no "canal rage" incidents, which do, apparently, happen now and then.

After about three and a half hours we reached Napton, where the sign for the "Folly" Pub

indicated "Last Pub for Five Hours".
Beyond, we would have had to go through seven ascending locks and after being at the tiller

for some time I was feeling knackered and ready to stop for the night.

The way of the canal appears to be that you park your boat in line with all the other visitors to the locality, within an easy walk of the pub. Some retirement age couples seem to drift around the canal system much like in Australia people take off in their motorhomes and drive around the whole nation.

As the afternoon wore on Miriam started feeling chilled and in respiratory distress. She went to bed and slept fitfully for thirteen hours, giving me time to read an entire novel that was in the end not worth reading but passed the time. Cooked up a Croque Monsieur in the galley but M could not eat anything.

6-4-6
Prepared to commence the journey back with Miriam not in a good way. Apart from handing a cup of coffee up to Captain Shane at the tiller once, she again fell into a feverish sleep. Once back at Braunston, Iris rang the local medical centre and we took M to get some antibiotics, as the doc confirmed a lung infection. She is now sleeping peacefully and hopefully will be right again in a day or two. But is she well enough to cope with going further north, to Scotlan? Mmmmm.... just don't know yet, and yet I will have to make some kind of forward bookings. Anyhow, the focus for the time being it to get M well again.

We decided another day in London would be needed to see anything like a decent sampling of a city that is overwhelmingly large and diverse. Although our hotel concierge made a couple of calls to his buddy around the corner who has a similar establishment, we needed to find somewhere to stay for the night. Tracked down an Internet cafe upstairs from Earls Court Rd, enquired about connecting by wireless. "No wireless" declared the young African lady guarding the entrance to this crowded little cyber space. "Cable?" I countered.
"OK. One pound an hour." And soon I was busily and increasingly anxiously viewing some very expensive hotel options, and was about to give in when I found one place just a few hundred metres away that was actually a fiver cheaper than where we had been staying.

The new place styles itself as an Edwardian hotel, which is probably the era in which it last had a refurbishment. It is part of a graceful row of high terraces and backs onto a charming old cobblestoned mews. And, several unsecured wireless access points declared themselves as I started up the laptop, making me feel like it won't be so hard to plan our next move tomorrow. On presenting our visages at reception, the on-line deposit I had paid by credit card had not even reached their system, which was down for the count.
Fortunately, although I had not been able to print the receipt, I had saved it on my laptop, so fired it up then and there and managed to convince them that I had a legitimate booking, albeit at a cheaper rate than they seemed to expect. Lesson: take stock, calm down, research the options, before taking a less than optimum choice.

Relieved at sorting out a room, in the early afternoon we headed off to check out the recreation of Shakespeare's Globe theatre, on the south bank of the Thames. This is really worth seeing, made from a thousand oak trees held together with wooden pegs, and with a roof made of Norfolk reeds that birds just don't like to sit on. Now as long as you could fashion a wig from that stuff the statues would not suffer as much from bird attack. The details of the theatre's construction , from the heavens to the area in front of the five foot high stage where the "groundlings" paid their penny to drink and carouse through the performance.

Further along, Tower Bridge and London Bridge came into view, the Tower surprisingly beautiful to look at despite its grim history. We kept our distance; the crown jewels remained intact, although I realised that my belt was fully undone and had been for a couple of hours since I had last heard the cry of nature. A long search for somewhere to eat that had some vego options ended with giving in to a fish restaurant tucked behind a cathedral and beside a steel roofed open market much like South Melbourne market in appearance. Food again badly cooked and expensive: 50p more than a room for the night. You can eat at modest price in London, but you will be living on sandwiches, prepacked and infested with the evil and omnipresent "salad cream". The cafes are run by non-English predominantly, but they have caved in to the demand for "chips wiv everything". Go to Tesco and get some fruit at least, the EU provides a good range of real food and the English just don't seem to get it.

Both of us now almost adjusted to being on the far side of the world, though Miriam very tired tonight after going for an early morning walk. I will stop now, as I think my keyboard pecking is stopping her from settling. Come to think of it, I might just join her. Tomorrow I may even manage to upload some pictures of the journey so far. Goodnight for now: in the land of Oz you are probably about ready to get up and start your day.

After a nonchalant goodbye from Liam and Sean and a trip out to the airport courtesy of seasoned travellers Chris and Sandra (who did their own European Trip last year at almost exactly the same time of year) we checked in to get our boarding passes. First sight of an Emirates staff member - who seemed to have an extremely multicultural crew. The red pillbox hat with a piece of fabric hanging off one side seems a silly compromise with the cover-up approach to the human face; it conceals nothing and seems to get in the way of working, leading to a testiness of attitude among the hostesses several hours into the flight. Several staff members seemed to be happy to remove the hatgear and wear only a red scrunchie to maintain order on the back of their heads.

Although several people had recommended Emirates on the basis of superior service, I only saw this being extended to the business class passengers. These included remnants of the SCottish commonwealth games athletes and officials, some Braveheart sized giants among them, and one could only conclude that they might have staged a rebellion if they had been forced into the seats we economy class people languished upon. On the other hand, compared to the boredom of listening to Qantas staff gossip amongst themselves, the entertainment options provided by Emirates is pretty good. Each seat has its own small LCD screen (image quality not too bad, but every screen I looked at had more dead pixels than there ought to be), and a panoply of choices of audio and visual entertainment. Before absolute fatigue took over, watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Recommendation: stop the series now before it gets any worse. Our hero needs to be pre-pubescent not awkward adolescent.
Instructions for the screen were difficult to understand, but the seat and a half worth of dour scot to the left of us reached a paw over and stabbed at a button that enlivened the screen. After that, I could figure out the rest.

After about seven and a half hours we reached Singapore, which was then a steamy 28C, but seemed ever so much more oppressive than I have ever felt 28c to be. While Miriam enjoyed a cigarette in the (inside) smoking lounge, a long, long walk from the transit lounge, I went to the toilet. A uniformed guard stood inside the entrance, giving a hard look at every person coming in. I took a leak in a cubicle and soon understood what was happening. This was the Toilet Police. Every time someone came out of the cubicle, his job was to step into the cubicle and verify that flushing had been performed. I remember reading somewhere that it is a finable offence to leave a public toilet unflushed, and here is someone earning a living from this legislation. Memo: Centrelink should be informed of the job creation possibilities for our own country. Strange introduction to Singapore's attitude, which seems to be even more than ever that the individual must be controlled and badgered into conformist ways. It is now on my list of less than preferred destinations.

BAck on the plane and my back is now aching badly, courtesy of a foolish dare-take to see how fast I could pedal on an exercise bike with the brake on quite hard. Aggravated an old injury and now suffering especially since confined to the airplane seat. No comfortable position possible, so from time to time have to get up, walk down the aisle, do a few stretches, find out how quickly several hundred people can befoul the toilet facilities, and marvel at the sheer length of the flying machine taking us across the world. Looking along the aisle, it seemed certainly well able to accommodate a cricket match.

Whatever the hour of the day or night, the policy seemed to be to rigidly deliver meals to the passengers as a means of keeping them captive in their seats. The Non-carnivorous passengers were always fed first - up to an hour later those with no special dietary needs were fed. And once a tray was in place, no-one beyond that point in the row could possibly get out. Then the dirty tray would be left with the, say Vegetarian, until the carnivores trolley had been wheeled out to totally block the aisles. So basically you were trapped, unable to even get out to the toilets, for over three quarters of the journey. Attempts to leave one's seat earned rebukes from cabin staff who later informed us they were stuggling with three staff members under complement, and many of the rest very recent starters who had not been adequately trained. Stephanie, if you are reading this, although a wide range of "special dietary foods" are available, what was presented to Miriam was inedible and basically bailed out of her body at the earliest opportunity. And for the meat eater, the story was not much better. All in all, the reality remains: airline food is very, very bad and virtually impossible to digest. And as you cannot carry foods with you because of quarantine laws, I don't know what option you have. I spent an hour on the phone a few days prior to leaving trying to get through to the Emirates office to specify Vegetarian meals for Miriam, but despite that the meals came out addressed to Mr M Gregory.

By the end of the second leg of the journey, a refuelling stop in Dubai, we were feeling wrecked. Here we were clearly the foreigners, and we were among a cultural milieu of which we had little knowledge and less understanding. Here the smoking lounge was a small area holding a large machine breathing in the smoke from exhaling smokers, while the non-smoking world went on around them. Miriam and a few other western ladies entered this tiny sanctum with a tight crowd of swarthy gentlemen puffing avidly on foul smelling fags.

Beyond, columns of palms inside the building, gilded everything, and duty free stores bulging with alcohol and luxury goods completed the picture. It would be helpful to know a little Arabic here, as the English signposting on TV monitors tends to show Arabic only - not helpful for reading flight numbers and gate numbers especially.

Anyhow, London awaited us, and after about 27 hours travelling time from Melbourne, with about two hours sleep between us, we staggered out of heathrow almost hysterical from tiredness. Found our way down the ramp to the railway station and used our credit card to buy tickets direct to the city, including the tube connection to get us to Earl's Court, the closest station to our hotel. The ride was fast, clean, and safe, with a conductor who comes around and checks tickets- giving anyone who hasn't a ticket the chance to buy one on the spot. Full marks to London Transport. Connex, send some of your useless managers over here to see how well run a mass transport system can be.

The hotel I had picked from an Internet search, the West Cromwell Hotel, had given clear instructions on how to walk the several hundred meters from the station, and we soon found our way there. It is when you have to carry your bags up several flights of narrow stairs at the tube station that you confirm your resolution to keep the contents as light as possible was correct. They seem to have doubled in weight since the beginning of the journey. The tiniest elevator I have ever travelled in took us to the third floor of what is basically a large terrace house among a whole block of similar buildings. Our room, number 16, overlooks a severely truncated old tree in the backyard of the hotel, and a much nicer garden in back of the house next door. Different birds sing, some sweetly, despite the general lack of trees or any vegetation. The streets are lined with building all of three to five or so storeys, like Legoland, the designs are limited and repeat themselves from block to block. You can clearly see the architectural approach in the way Sydney's inner city is laid out.

The room itself is small but adequate, with a panel heater in front of the window on all the time. The fluctuations in temperature here seem to happen suddenly, so you are always putting on or taking off clothes trying to get it right. A layered approach, as for Melbourne in the springtime, is probably the best option. At about four or five PM London time, we felt so knackered we layed down, and a Panadeine or two knocked me out enough to calm the muscle spasms in my lower back. We woke a couple of times, but before we knew it the sky was lightening and we were ready to see a bit of London.

The "Continental Breakfast" of juice, cornflakes scooped from a communal bowl, and tea and toast, was just about all we wanted. A mezzanine floor squeezed above the ground floor lets you sit and eat breakfast while peeking out the fanlight above the front door.

Hyde Park and the Serpentine lured us to stroll along to see the Peter Pan statue paid for by JM Barrie, and we enjoyed a decent coffee at the Lido pavillion at the water's edge. Continuing towards the city centre, we found ourselves amid the crowd at the gates of Buckingham Palace, waiting for the changing of the guard. Apart from one guy with a machine gun, security seemed quite lax. Plenty of Metropolitan Police yelling instructions at the tourists to get back, though. Satisfied with a glimpse of the Buck Palace Gates, we continued on through St James Park (courtesy of Henry VIII), past Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, and across the Thames.

Fortified by a cup of Miso and Bean Curd and a few spring rolls, we ventured into the Dali Exhibition which was quite fascinating and tiring to engage with, there being about 500 works to view. Classics including the Lobster Telephone, large bronzes such as Venus des Tiroirs (Venus with drawers pulled out from the head and body) and works from a wide range of media were featured. Dali classic icons like the melting watch, the spindly legged elephant, and ants were everywhere. Then downstairs, if you hadn't had enough art, there was an exhibition of several phases of Picasso's evolution. Some lovely pieces from the earlier Blue period, and some ceramics that could have come out of the local CAE class.

Now back at the hotel having a wee rest before deciding what to do next. So, more later!