Our Trip to England PART SEVEN (On to London)

We bid farewell to Yannon Towers early Saturday and headed up north to London. It was a 3-4 hour drive. When we arrived, we spent a good hour driving around trying to find somewhere, anywhere, to park our rental car. Sheesh! If only I'd known how ridiculously easy their public transportation is, we would not have rented the car (note to self for next time). Anyway, we finally found a place, parked our car for 16 pounds (ouch!) and then headed over to The Royal Academy of Music museum. Bianca was excited to see an original Stradiveri viola and they also had two Stradiveri violins. She had been waiting this whole vacation until we got here to pick out her one souvenir. She chose a blue and green silk scarf with violins and other musical instruments printed on it.  We got on the underground and went to Westminster Abbey.

There were SO many people here (they were having a big championship soccer game—Wembley—between Manchester United and Barcelona that night, so there were a lot of singing fanatics everywhere we went. Seriously, everywhere we went there were the jolly voices of men singing for their team.) We passed Big Ben on our way. At Westminster Abbey (no pictures allowed), we saw the tomb of Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scot (an ancestor of mine) and my favorite was the poets corner, where they had plaque for so many of my favorite writers—Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Brontes, Thomas Hardy, George Eliot. It was breathtaking to be surrounded by so many great writers. I could go on. They also had Handel’s tomb there.

The hotel was a hotel. Nothing special, except for the swimming pool that the girls were ecstatic to see (and jump into) and the plumbing--the wonderful plumbing of London. Also, what's the deal with no flat sheets in England??? At first I thought it was just Yannon Towers, but no flat sheets here either. I don’t love the crowds and the queues (oh, how I wish I'd looked that word up before I left the US) in London. I know I wouldn’t have been happy had we spent the entire time in London. I’m so grateful for our time spent on the coast and realize how much I loved our simple, provincial time better.