A day late and several dollars short(er), we finally made it to London. The train was an easy 90-minute express run from
Derby ... and the cab from the station to the hotel cost almost as much as my train ticket! Welcome to the big city!The Daily Diary of a Wandering Restaurateur
Bright Lights, Big City ... Finally!
A day late and several dollars short(er), we finally made it to London. The train was an easy 90-minute express run from
Derby ... and the cab from the station to the hotel cost almost as much as my train ticket! Welcome to the big city!
We're staying at the Dorsett Shepherd's Bush, a decent enough hotel with a relatively central location. Hotels in London are notoriously expensive so it was nice to find a clean, well-reviewed place that wouldn't double the cost of the trip in four days! With luck, we'll only be in the room to sleep and shower, but time will tell.
Margene is hanging in there, but schlepping bags is not her idea of a good time (mine neither, for that matter) and by the time we finally got to the hotel, she was whipped and spent the rest of the day in the room resting. Had we opted out of the hotel a day earlier, we could have canceled without a penalty, but we were obligated to pay for the full four days, so I suppose it doesn't matter all that much where she rests ... and having a few hours off gave me a chance to get caught up on my delinquent trip reports.
Our arrival point in London was St. Pancras International Station. It was originally opened in 1868 and was considered one of the wonders of Victorian engineering. It is a masterpiece of Victorian Gothic Architecture and one of the most elegant stations in the World. St. Pancras was seriously damaged by bombs during the London Blitz and by 1966, British Rail wanted to tear it down to build something that would most likely be modern, efficient and boring. But a few dedicated souls led the fight to save it, got it listed as a historic landmark and the building was saved. The exterior remains as it has been for 150 years but the interior is all clean and modern. If you take the Eurostar (Paris to London) train through the English Channel tunnel, you will begin or end that trip at St. Pancras.
We have two full days in London before we head back to the US on Tuesday but no firm plans on how we will spend them.
Decisions like that can only be made after we see how Margene feels in the morning. We've already decided we'll have to come
back to England sometime soon, and I suspect London won't change a lot between now and then, so there's no rush to see it all
and do it all on this trip.
I'm finding that extended walking is causing my right knee and foot to swell, so the new knee seems to feel worse now than it
did before we left. That might also be from not having it elevated as much as I do at home, but I can see a week of ice packs
in my near future!
OK, folks, that's it for today. Tomorrow you get more pictures but for the moment I am totally current on the trip report
project. I think I'll take the rest of the day off!
© 2015 Restaurant Doctor
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