Riding to Hampstead Heath

Saturday, October 21, 2017

Dave was having a  bit of trouble with one of his bike pedals, so our first stop today was CycleCare Kensington, just a short ride from the hotel. Although we were riding lowly Dahons and not Bromptons, the Rolls Royce of folding bicycles, we were treated with respect and the mechanic made quick work of the repair. He even checked my pedals to make sure they were securely fastened.








The bike shop is across from a police station, so as I waited I watched the police coming and going. I don't know why our police don't use smaller vehicles and brighter paint.

Pedals in good shape, we set off at a flying pace. We had two objectives today: visit Hampstead Heath and scout out Euston Station. While still at home, I purchased tickets to Bletchley Park on a train that leaves from Euston Station. So we wanted to make sure we would know how to get there when the time came. Although the temperature was about 15C, it  was blustery and raining off and on, so we were glad we'd brought good rain gear. 

We took the Holland Park path off Kensington High Street to go north, turning off about midway. Actually, we first rode to the bottom of this hill, at which point I realized we'd overshot the mark, so we turned around and rode back up to the correct street. It was a good test of the lower gears on our bikes.

When walking or riding around London, I always tr to keep my eyes open for interesting blue plaques. 

Jean Sibelius once lived in this house. 

I also watch for appealing architecture, above, and old churches, below.

We took a stroll through the cloister and churchyard of this one. 

 
The doors on the right are labelled; one is "Boys and Infants"and the other "Girls." 
Guess which is which? If you guessed that the big red door is for boys, you would be right.  









Another blue plaque, this one for Ezra Pound. 

  







We stopped off at Regent's Park and took a peek at the canal. (No cycling on the towpath here.) Somehow I missed this on my previous visit here:
















En route to Euston Station, we rode once again through Hyde Park, this time exiting at the Animals in War monument. Here we paused to take some photos for ourselves and to accede to the request that I take a mother and son photo for some strangers.

It was very windy, so the photos of me that Dave took here show me trying in vain to keep the wind from blowing my hair over my face!

We stopped in at an Ask Italian for coffee and a light snack... I wonder how hard it would be to take care of plants in an arrangement like this?

After checking out Euston Station, we headed north towards Hampstead Heath, stopping sort of accidentally at Camden Lock and Market.  Look at that blue sky! It didn't last long, unfortunately.

This is a pretty cool place, but definitely not for those who suffer from enochlophobia -- fear of crowds! It is also not great for velophiliacs (bicycle-lovers: I thought I made that one up, but it looks like it just might be a real word) as there was not much room to maneuver even our 16" folding cycles.

 And at last -- Hampstead Heath:

Staying with the words-of-Latin-and-Greek-origin theme, being a bit of an anglophile, at least when it comes to books and TV series, I've always wanted to see this place. When I imagined coming here, I pictured myself strolling along, or possibly cycling, enjoying a light breeze and watching people playing with their dogs or children. But alas, the light breeze of my imagination was a stiff and cold 45 km/hr wind, it was raining a bit and the heath was pretty much abandoned.  We took a short ride along the margins, but decided that we will have to come back on a future visit when the weather is a little more accommodating. 

On our ride back to the hotel, we passed what claims to be the world's first YMCA. Looks pretty modern for that, don't you think?



 







Another lovely old church and picturesque street corner in Kentish Town (another name familiar to me from storybooks and novels.) 

I could never manage to drive in London (or other European cities, for that matter) as I would always be distracted by the amazing architecture, especially when it is interspersed with normal everyday buildings.

By this time it was getting late-ish, so we made our way back to the hotel, passing through  Piccadilly Circus and making a brief stop at my favourite shop, Cath Kidston. Before we left for London, I had decided that I needed a new lunch tote and that only a C.K. one would do. I left the shop richer by one lunch tote and a few small gifts and poorer by not a few pounds. 

Our day of riding around town concluded with a delicious dinner at a Lebanese restaurant just off Earl's Court Road, a block or two from our hotel.

I'm not a food photographer, obviously. 

And speaking of our hotel, the staff there were super! They were quite happy to let us keep our bikes in a locked storage room, so each day when we finished with them we folded them up and stuck them in the room, where they were safe and convenient. We could have taken them up to our room, but as is typical in London hotels (at least the ones that fit our budget) the room was quite small and the bikes would have been a little bit in the way.

Returning to London

October 20, 2017

This is my fourth visit to London, the third one with Hubby.

We arrived at our hotel, somewhat disheveled and not a little exhausted, at about 2:00 p.m. The wait at passport control was much longer than we've experienced before, long enough that I almost seriously considered paying the £75 annual fee for the fast-entry option. But not really; you can eat a lot of good food, even in London, for £75.

The pub was decorated for Halloween

After checking in and quick look at the condition of our folding bikes (no visible damage -- whew!) we went for lunch at a nearby pub. Dave had steak and ale pie; I had fish and chips. Both were delicious, although mine was definitely excessive. I was hungry, however, so I managed to eat a significant amount.

... and with traditional pub decor

Steak and Ale Pie

Cod and chips

After lunch, being anxious to test out the bikes, we went back to the hotel and set them up. Everything looked good, so we set out for a ride to Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, touching on Kensington Palace, the Albert Memorial and the Serpentine.

We then went to Harrod's. In my ESL class we had done a listening exercise about this famous store and I'd promised the students I would buy some candy from the food hall. But first I had to show Dave the Egyptian room and the Egyptian escalator. While in the Egyptian room, I spied my sister-in-law's doppelganger. An eerie feeling.

True to my word, I bought two tins of candy for my class, as well as bars of chocolate for the daughters-in-law. As it was getting dark by this time, we hopped back on the bikes and rode through side streets back to the hotel. 

I was quite tickled, when riding down Mallord Street, a totally charming street in itself, to spot a blue plaque stating that A.A. Milne had lived there. I regret not taking a photo, but found these on an English heritage website.

I neglected to mention that our flight from Calgary to London was surprisingly pleasant. We were on the Dreamliner - the Boeing 787-9 -- and it was almost empty. The plane is more comfortable that many planes, as it is, and because there were so many empty seats, we had room to stretch out and move around. Not only that, but I'd totally forgotten that when booking the tickets I had requested a fruit platter instead of the normal meal. Score! I enjoyed this so much more than the regular airplane meal that I will do this all the time in future.

Madrid -- the palace and a ride in the park

We started the day by pulling our suitcases about a kilometer through several plazas to our next hotel. We had tried to get this same hotel for three nights, but it was full, which is why we had to switch hotels. It was early in the morning and not busy yet, so it was an easy walk. Since our room wasn't ready yet, we stashed our luggage in the hotel's luggage room and then hit the streets. Madrid has a bike rental system called BiciMad, similar to the London cycle hire system, except that the bikes are e-bikes. 

Well, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to try those, and there was a bike stand close to the hotel, so we went straight there. It took a bit of time to figure out how to sign up as tourists, but once we did, we took the bikes and rode to the Royal Palace of Madrid.

Photos are not permitted, so I was a good girl and didn't take any, but I thoroughly enjoyed touring the palace. The royal family does not actually live here anymore, so it is strictly a tourist site. A couple of interesting things -- teachers get free admission to the palace, so if I had brought my ATESL membership card, I would have saved 11 euros. Next time. The other interesting tidbit is that the king of Spain is 6'5" tall. There's a family portrait in the first room you enter, and he towers above mom, dad and his siblings. It is really quite weird. 

These photos are not my own, so I've linked to their websites.

Royal Palace of Madrid

Throne room

The room below, the Porcelain Room, was one of the most interesting. The entire room, walls and ceiling, is covered in porcelain.

And I really wish I would have broken the rules and taken a photo of the Sphinx table. Not the legs, which are sphinxes, but the table top, which is inlaid with various stones and is simply breathtakingly beautiful. If you enlarge this photo (which shows the king signing away his right to the throne so that his giant son can take over) you can see some of the detail, but I couldn't find a photo just of the table top.

After wandering around the palace, we were ready for another bike ride, so we found another bike stand and rode to El Retiro park. This is a large park on the east side of the city centre. It dates back to the 1600s. There's a large pond where you can rent boats (we were enjoying the bike ride, so we didn't go on the water!)

and we rode past a big grove of almond trees, which were in bloom. 

I didn't stop to take a photo, so had to borrow this one:

The grass was green and the sun was shining, and we could totally forget that back in Edmonton there is snow on the ground and the temperature was minus 10 instead of plus 15! The path we took through the park was a fairly steep uphill, so we had a chance to test out the battery assist on the e-bikes. Pretty cool!

Madrid

February 25th -- Saturday

We had planned to take the train to Madrid, thinking we could book tickets the day before. Wrong. Well, technically, we could have gotten tickets, but they would have cost us over 250 euros. The cheap tickets were all sold out. Wow. So, we decided to fly instead -- much cheaper and about the same time, when you count airport transfers.

Planning to take the Aerobus, we walked back to Universitat stop where we had been dropped off, only to find out that the bus doesn't pick up passengers there. We had to walk another kilometer or two to Placa de Espagna. When we got there, the bus was waiting, so we were quickly on our way to the airport.

The flight was short and uneventful. From the Madrid airport we took their version of the Aerobus -- called the Airport Express. This bus was not nearly as nice as its Barcelona counterpart. It was so crowded that most of the passengers (including us) had to stand -- fortunately it was only about 30 minutes. We got off at the Plaza de Cibeles, and this was the sight that greeted us:

From this square it was a 1.7 km walk to our hotel, just off the Gran Via. The hotel room was beautifully decorated and had a gorgeous marble bathroom, but the room smelled of smoke, so badly that even after opening the window and turning on the built-in fan system, I still had to ask at the desk for a stand-alone fan. This was a one-night stop, as we had another hotel booked for the next two nights, so we were glad about that. 

The view from the hotel window was pretty constrained, but we could see this amazing old church. We tried to visit it the next morning, but it was closed up tight, with cast-iron gates and everything. 

After getting settled into our room, we decided to go out and explore, walking through plaza after plaza and past the Royal Palace. It's so huge that it was impossible to get a photo of the whole building. We decided to go inside tomorrow, since today's line-up for tickets was a couple of miles long.

We did go into the cathedral, which is right next to the palace and is huge and impressive.