England - The Skype Tour

This will be a posting of few words. We're in England for work but have had the chance to visit a few interesting places. Here we go!

White Cliffs of Dover

Windsor Castle

Leeds Castle (very windy)

 

Oxford

Canterbury

...and of course Harrods (the mother ship) during their annual sale

Sheephenge

The British Heritage Society (BHS) has been ramping up the appeal of some of the classic tourist destinations.  We recently hopped a coach out to Stonehenge and had a wonderful time there.  It was a bit cold and windy, but what happened in the field next to Stonehenge made the bus ride, cold and wind more than worthwhile.

The BHS has produced an interactive show/presentation that runs continuously throughout the day at the top of each hour.  They have trained several sheep to walk about and reenact the construction of Stonehenge.  The larger, UK Romney sheep first circle left and then drop in place representing the inner circle of Bluestones of Stonehenge.  Next, a small pack of Leicester Longwool sheep saunter in a clockwise motion before five pairs stand side-by-side, while others jump up on their backs to form the 5 triliths made of Sarsen stones.

Again, more Romneys file in to complete the outer circle.

Finally, large Shropshire Ram meanders out and plops down – representing the Frier’s Heel Stone.

Once completed, the entire company of sheep proceeds to eat large amounts of grass.

This amazing program runs hourly, Monday through Saturday from 8:00 AM to dusk; Sunday’s 10:00 AM to 4:00.  April 4^th – April 7^th are dark due to shearing season.

Making New Friends

Okay… The Chicken made a friend. We were walking around in London on the day before the cruise started and stumbled across a gift shop for The Queen’s Museum. Inside, The Chicken met Bendy. The Chicken learned that some of Her Majesties guards are “beefeaters” and they immediately became close, personal friends.

Southampton & EuroCup 2008 Fever

Ok, Southampton is not exactly in the running for the "most scenic" town in the UK but it's where we boarded our ship from.

Besides a couple of families with small children in tow, we are much younger than most of the passengers. Visualize lots of gray hair, walkers, canes & wheelchairs. We're thinking that this is the European version of our Alaska cruises which tend to cater to an older crowd.



Once we were onboard the EuroCup final game (soccer) was on in every public room on the ship. Everyone gathered around & watched Spain win. Afterwards, there was one Spanish TV channel that either played game highlights, team interviews or fan celebrations for the next 36 hours or so (straight). Over 1 million people came to Madrid to see the team arrive & congratulate them. The Chicken watched it all!

Chicken Around London

The Chicken enjoyed his time tooling around London (& stalking the Royal Family).




FYI: We're a bit behind in our postings as the first few days have been quite busy.

European Trip Itinerary

Below is the basic itinerary for our upcoming trip to Europe:

• England
• London (Royal Garden Hotel)
  

• Belgium
• Brussels
• Bruges

• Ireland
• Dublin

• Scotland
• Edinburgh

• England
• Southampton
• Board NCL Jade cruise ship

• Cruise through Norway (see map)
  

Summer Travel 2008: London & Norway

Another Day in London

Today we went on the London Eye, which is basically a Ferris Wheel where riders go into enclosed glass "capsules" and spend 30 minutes going around once. The views of London were spectacular from the Eye!

During our ride on the Eye, we were able to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.

Westminster Abbey

Harrods (this was a huge store)

We were able to score tickets to see Mary Poppins (the play, not the movie). This play just recently opened on Broadway & in London.

$50 Eggs!!!

This morning, we went downstairs to eat breakfast at the hotel only to find that scrambled eggs cost approximately $50 per person (no kidding). The eggs must have come from royal chickens. Let’s just say that we chose to NOT eat any meals at the hotel.

Today, we did some touring & lots of walking around London.


We visited the Tower of London
& saw the crown jewels.

London Bridge

Big Ben & Parliament

Buckingham Palace

Piccadilly Circus (we ate dinner in nearby Chinatown)

Channel + Tunnel = Chunnel

According to our itinerary, we were supposed to leave Paris by train to London early in the day. However, there was some sort of train schedule change so we were able to spend most of the day in France.


Since there wasn’t time to go into the city, we visited the Disney Studios park.

We ended up taking the Eurostar train to London in the evening. The train went through the Chunnel which is a long tunnel built under the English Channel. It only took about two and a half hours to travel from Paris to London via this train.

We are staying at the Dorchester Hotel in the Westminster area of London. The Dorchester is affiliated with the Beverly Hills Hotel. It is amazing! It’s a 5-star hotel that is a block and half away from Buckingham Palace. When we checked in, we were given a personal tour of the facilities. The room had fuzzy slippers laid out for us, fuzzy bathrobes and a bathroom that was larger than our cruise ship cabin. We asked for an Internet cable for the room and about 2 minutes later, we heard a doorbell. Our room has a doorbell!

There's no way we would ever stay at a place like this without using our Disney Vacation Club (timeshare) points.

We are pretty tired & are planning to get up early & go on some sort of city tour tomorrow.

From London to Dover

Yesterday morning (after a good night's sleep), we left London & traveled about 120 miles by train to Dover.

Right - The white cliffs of Dover

Below - A castle above Dover's white cliffs.



Left - After arriving in Dover, we boarded the Norwegian Dream. Since all of the cabin doors on the ship look the same, we decorated ours (and are the envy of our corridor).

A Tired Day in London

While we spent our 1st night actually on the airplane, our 1st night in a hotel was spent in the Royal Garden Hotel in London. It was right next to Kensington Palace & Gardens (our room actually had a view of the palace).

We were both very tired from the long flight, so not too much was done today.





Left - The view from our hotel room. Kensington Palace is in the upper left-hand corner of the picture.Above - We strolled through the Kensington Palace Gardens saw the Prince Albert Memorial and actually went inside of the palace.

Both of us brought cameras, so there will likely be picture wars throughtout the trip.

Left - We then decided to take a tour bus around town. This allowed us to get an overview of the city & get on & off the bus as we pleased all day long.

Yes, these are actually all over London.

Final Itinerary (revised due to G8 Summit Conference)

• London, United Kingdom
  
• Stay one night before cruise
• Dover, United Kingdom
  
• Board cruise ship
• Day at Sea - Cruise through Kiel Canal
• Copenhagen, Denmark
• Warnemunde, Germany
• Day at Sea - Cruise through Swedish Archipelagos
  
• Stockholm, Sweden
• Helsinki, Finland
• Tallinn, Estonia
• St. Petersburg, Russia
  
• Disembark ship early & stay two nights
  
• Marne-la-Vallee and Paris, France
• Stay two nights
  
• London, United Kingdom
  
• Stay three nights