Many, many years ago Robert and I took our first European trip. Although we had many excellent adventures we learned quite a bit about travel. In ten days we visited London for five days and travelled by train to Bath, Glasgow and Edinburgh, which was altogether too much traveling. For our 50th anniversary in October 2025 we decided to do it right this time, spending eight days in London, just London.

Room and Board

We stayed at the Pelham Hotel in South Kensington. It was a lovely hotel in a great location, just across the street from the underground. The room was a little charming (although a little faded), a delicious breakfast, friendly, helpful staff, and a charming from parlor with an honor bar.

We also ate a several great restaurants:

• Colbert was a charming French restaurant a short walk from our hotel.

• Veeraswamy, an upscale Indian restaurant located in the West End, was a delight. It smelled wonderful when we first entered and the meal proved as good as the aroma.
• Wiltons, open from 1742, was a restaurant for seafood lovers and the site of our anniversary dinner.
• Real Greek is a chain but didn’t read as such. The food was fresh and delicious.

Out and About

We got to see some excellent theater in London. Although there were lots of musicals and such in the West End, but I wanted to see what we could’ve see in the DMV.

We saw Hamlet at the National Theatre. Every Hamlet I’ve seen Hamlet was mopey and sad and Ophelia was spacey and dreamy. In this version, both Hamlet and Ophelia were angry, very angry, which highlighted the psychological dynamics of the play and the family. And, the acting was top notch.

Besides Shakespeare, the other play I wanted to see was the typical British farce, The Importance of Being Ernest at the Noel Coward Theatre (they actually have a “ladies cloak room”). It was delightfully camp and the highlight was Sir Stephen Fry as Lady Bracknell.

We also visited the Victoria and Albert museum in South Kensington. I especially loved the ceramics collection, which made me swell better about owning five sets of dishes.

I also visited the Tate Modern, which was not as weird as I thought it would be.

On our first trip to London we toured the Tower of London. It was amazing to actually see a place where so much history took place. We went back and enjoyed the Beefeater tour again.

Transport

We took the tube and taxis and walked a lot. We found that the underground was a great way to get around London, but twice we couldn’t even get into the station (at South Ken and Heathrow Airport). We also found that Apple Maps was very useful for navigating the underground, even telling you what lines to take and transfer to and what exits to take. It wasn’t as good for pedestrians.

My favorite multicultural transportation experience was taking the Elizabeth Line. We took the tube to Paddington Station where we boarded the Elizabeth Line. It was royally posh from the seating to the stations. We got off at Canary Wharf, where indeed of Dalecks and cybermen, there were modern office buildings, restaurants and the wharf.