Remembering London

I have had several people ask me what I thought about the trip to the UK. I give my answer here based on what little of the UK I have seen and even the little of London I have experienced.

I found London to be very fast-paced. London is a busy city! We stayed only in London. I never got to wander in the country, the countryside is what I love to see whereever we travel to. I think that is where the real locals live.

The first time I went to Hawaii, I went with my husband, his brother and his wife. We had 14 wonderful days there which we began in Maui. We all loved Maui! The last week of our stay was in Waikiki. We left Maui and arrived in Waikiki. The hotel room was not as nice. The area was crowded. It was so commercial!

That evening we wandered out on our own ways discovering the streets of Waikiki. We walked on wide busy sidewalks and browsed in the many, busy, noisy, pushy shops. When we ran into brother and wife I was surprised when she just stood there and cried. She did not like Waikiki that much! If we had traveled to Hawaii and only visited Waikiki without experiencing Maui's slower-paced beaches, her opinion of vacationing in Hawaii would have been seriously tweaked!

"You are staying in the best area of London" said the shuttle-taxi driver. We stayed in Chelsea Harbour. The area is well-kept and had extra security too. The hotel was beautiful and the service was excellent, but very spendy. We were not real close to any of the sights one would want to see while in London. At first, we took taxi's here and there before we decided that was just too much money! The last few days we bought day passes for the city bus which worked out great and was actually fun.

If you love to shop - London definitely has the shops. I saw a lot of big name clothes shops on Sloane Street. Gucci, Christian Dior, Prada, Jaeger, Valentino and more I can't remember. I saw many bookstores too, so if you like to shop books, London has it. Shoe stores? Yup, lots of those too! London is a great place to spend money.

Beautiful building architecture is all over in London. I stood still in wonder beside many buildings imagining the people that did all that work! We went to church on Sunday (the day we arrived) at St. Paul's Cathedral. What a beautiful church. Painted ceilings, tall columns, sculptures, and stained glass artwork kept my eyes busy during the whole service! Oh, the choir sounded very angelic as their voices wafted throughout the whole building! (I have never heard angels sing, but Doug says he can almost hear them while biting into a fresh-baked, warm chocolate chip cookie.)

I loved the earphone's available while you tour buildings and historical places. You get it with a purchase of an admission ticket. Hold it up to your ear and listen to your own private tour guide. Interesting to watch others wandering around with them held up tight to their ears.

New archeaological discovery in the Ukraine that some think may be another Stonehenge.

This is the last bit I have to say about our trip "across the pond." Did I love London and would I return?

I can't honestly say that I loved the huge city, but if I could get a place that had easy access to more countryside, a car to ride in wherever we wanted to go, and not so much security going on at the airports (which I know ---they are protecting me, and thank you all so very much), yes, I would return to London to do more exploring.

Looking back, even though we saw a lot of countryside from the tour bus and even though we walked and walked 'til our feet ached, we barely saw London.