At last--I am here in London! I am ensconced in a very nice and cozy room at the Crowne Plaza St James Hotel. It's a quiet room, too--unusual for the hotel's close proximity to the UK Government quarter in London, at Westminster. And I really walked my feet off, literally, to get here!
It was daylight--around 8 am or so (London time), when the aircraft began its descent to Heathrow Airport. As I looked out the window, I could see first the beautiful green fields, bordered with hedgerows, with small towns and villages grouped here and there. The sun was shining, as we flew parallel to the River Thames--and I excitedly pointed out to my seatmate the landmarks I was seeing: St Paul's Cathedral, the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, and the Royal Albert Hall--and that was just for starters! I could feel my excitement level rise, as we descended to land. And I even noticed that the trees still had colored leaves on them: strange for early November, I thought.
We disembarked around 8:30 am, and headed for UK Border Control, and after that the Baggage Claim. The line literally snaked through to the Border Control area, where we were asked why we were in the UK, and where we were going once there. We had also had to fill out written forms while still in the aircraft, as to the purpose of our visit, and then hand them to the Border Control staff.
The fellow I faced asked if I was meeting anyone in the UK during my visit, and I said that, yes, I was; and that one of these friends was the prominent Jewish historian and Churchill biographer, Sir Martin Gilbert. I just managed to look at the staffer's eyes when I said that: there flickered an expression in them that seemed to say: "Yes, right--you're meeting Sir Martin Gilbert, and I'M going to have tea with The Queen at Buckingham Palace!" I thought it was hilarious.
Once again, it was a huge shlep from UK Border Control to Baggage Claim: once again, another couple of those 'moving sidewalk' things. But, to my surprise, my big bag came through quicker than I anticipated off the baggage carousel, so no long wait to deal with. That was the easy part: the 'real' adventure came next! Due to a 24-hour London Underground strike, I couldn't get a train to Victoria Station--the closest train station to my hotel. Instead, I had to take the Heathrow Express train to London Paddington station, which was a bit further away, but still in Westminster, and get other transport to the hotel. Little did I realize what that meant!
The trip from Heathrow to Paddington was really fast: about 20 minutes or so, I was joining the throngs getting off the train (and making sure that I "MIND THE GAP" between the train and the platform; I would hear that fun phrase often during my holiday! It's painted right on the platform itself.), and walking up a long ramp to street level--and immediately into a heaving crowd waiting for the buses! Amazingly, there was little to no pushing and/or shoving; there were police officers on the sidewalks making sure no one got out of control. Problem for me was: it cost two GBP (Great Britain Pounds) to get a ticket--and I would have had to use a self-serve kiosk to get it. And at that point, I didn't have any GBP pound-coins to use! I found which bus to get on, and went to the bus door, and explained to the driver I just arrived in London, and didn't have any change for a ticket yet. Impatiently, he waved me aboard, as I lugged my big bag up the steps. So I got away without paying for my first London bus ride!
I did struggle a bit with the bag as I went to the back of the bus. But a young Englishwoman and a young Belgian man kindly assisted me, and I found a seat. We rode through a very crowded section of Westminster, and I watched the pedestrians on the sidewalks, going about their business. I noticed a lot of Arab/Middle Eastern-looking people--including women wearing the all-concealing hijab--and that many of the businesses had Arabic and/or East Asian-language signs. And a lot of the women were wearing Muslim headscarves too. The streets were crowded with many buses, and the famous and spacious London cabs. Even with the Tube strike, I didn't notice a lot of honking horns, or impatient people about outside. Londoners just went about their business, and dealt with the inconvenience.
I had a nice chat with the young Belgian man; I think he was from Bruges, on the Channel coast. I told him I was also headed for Ypres, Belgium, in Flanders, for the Armistice Day observance on 11 November. His English was good overall, and it was a pleasant conversation. I also chatted a little with the young Englishwoman; she told me she was on her way to work somewhere in London.
Eventually, I got off the bus at Victoria Station, and once again joined the overflowing crowds coming and going from the station. Thank heaven for wheels on suitcases now: otherwise, I would have been a wreck, dragging my big bag round!
After inquiring at a couple of businesses how I could find Buckingham Gate (the street where my hotel was located in), I walked several long blocks, and came into a small, and slightly quieter, side-street. And there was my hotel, at last! When I got to the Reception area, it was around 11 am, and discovered my room was ready for me--thank heaven!! Once I received my room key, I found the lift, which took me to my floor, and the room. I went into my room, locked the door, threw off my clothes, and leapt into the shower! Boy, did THAT feel great: and so with clean clothes and teeth cleaned as well, I was off and ready to explore London.
I left the hotel, and went back on Victoria Street, going south. Two long blocks later, I looked up, and spotted "Big Ben", (photo left) the London Eye--and Westminster Abbey (photo right, below)!! I'd no clue I was even that close to the Abbey, or the Houses of Parliament!
After paying for my ticket, I received what looked like a mobile phone handset. But it's an audio tour of the Abbey, narrated by British actor Jeremy Irons, in which he describes the various places of interest in the Abbey, from number-signs that one punched into the mobile, and then listened to at one's own pace. It sure beats hearing droning tour-guides shepherding their 'flocks' around. All I could do was stand there in awe, and gaze at the incredible stonework and stained glass above my head, and all around!
As I moved into the Nave, just before the steps in front of the High Altar, I realized I was standing near the spot where the coffin of Diana, Princess of Wales, stood during her funeral in September 1997, as I listened to the description of the artwork and such on the High Altar. As I wandered around the nearby Choir, I looked at the ornate carvings of the choir stalls, where the Westminster Abbey Choir stands during services, and noticed the carved titles of various Commonwealth High Commissioners. I saw the names of Australia, New Zealand and Canada, among others, above selected stalls. Back in the days when Westminster Abbey had monks, before the English Reformation, this is where the monastic community would gather to sing the various offices, at all hours of the day and night.
Walking round the High Altar area from the Choir, I noticed a number of Royal tombs, including Kings Richard II, Henry V and Henry III, and Richard III's ill-fated Queen, Anne Neville. And standing above these tombs was the shrine of King Edward the Confessor, who was King of England just before William the Conqueror arrived from Normandy in 1066. Edward the Confessor was a very saintly man, and had been canonized by the Church, and so the shrine became a site of medieval pilgrimage.
Leaving the High Altar, I followed the audio tour to a really stunning part of the Abbey: the Henry VII Chapel. This is where the first Tudor King of England, Henry VII, and his wife, Elizabeth of York, are buried in a magnificent tomb. Looking above, my eyes took in the glorious cream-colored fan-vaulted ceiling: all built of stone, with beautiful gold-gilding details. It made the Chapel literally explode with light--at least to me it did. Surrounding the Chapel were the ornately-carved stalls of the Knights of the Order of the Bath, one of the oldest chivalric orders in England. The Knights' brightly-colored heraldic flags hang over their stalls, giving the Chapel a wonderful contrast to the color of the fan-vaulting.
I wish I could have gotten some photos of this Chapel. But the Abbey staff discourages photography of any kind. I suppose it is a distraction from the main purpose of the Abbey: as an active and worshiping church. It's not merely a tourist attraction.
The Henry VII Chapel is also known as the Abbey's Lady Chapel. In front of a small altar, in front of Henry VII's tomb, lies the grave of the young King Edward VI: only surviving legitimate son of King Henry VIII, and his third wife Jane Seymour. It's marked by a plaque in the black-and-white parqueted floor.
Behind Henry VII's tomb is one of the more poignant 'newer additions' in the Abbey: the Royal Air Force Chapel, which is dedicated to "The Few" who died in the Battle of Britain, in the summer and autumn of 1940. The stained-glass windows depict RAF pilots praying to God, and of 'visions' some of them saw during the Battle. There is even a small round hole in the wall, glassed-in: evidence of Nazi bomb damage to this part of the Abbey during The Blitz, which was preserved. There is a small but beautiful altar in this Chapel, and there was a wreath of poppies left there in tribute.
One of the 'odd' things in the floor, before the Royal Air Force Chapel, is a marker stating the spot was the original final resting place of Oliver Cromwell, Member of Parliament and leader of the Puritan forces in the English Civil War. After his forces defeated the Stuart King Charles I in 1649, he became Protector of the Commonwealth, and played a part in the execution of the King in January 1649. From then until 1660, there was no King in England.
When Cromwell died in September 1658, he was buried in the Henry VII Chapel at Westminster Abbey. But after the Stuart Restoration in 1660, Charles I's son King Charles II had Cromwell's body exhumed from its 'honored grave' (on the anniversary of Charles I's death, no less!), and taken to the gallows at Tyburn Hill, where public executions took place, and the populace jeered and flung curses at the corpse. Cromwell's corpse was beheaded, and the body buried beneath the scaffold, and his head displayed at Westminster Hall until sometime in 1685, near the end of Charles II's reign.
The grave marker, however, remains.
One could almost say: "How the mighty have fallen", when considering Cromwell's post-Restoration fate....
Continuing around the Chapel, one can find a number of famous Royal tombs: half-sisters Elizabeth I and Mary I (otherwise known as "Bloody Mary", for the persecutions of English Protestants during her reign), who actually share a tomb; Mary Queen of Scots, who was buried here on order of her son, King James I--the first Stuart King of England; Mary had fled to England, and Elizabeth I's 'protection', after being deposed from her Scots throne. She had then been imprisoned by Elizabeth (although they were cousins) for sixteen years. After it was discovered she might have been involved in a plot to kill Elizabeth and take her throne, Mary was put on trial at Fotheringhay Castle, north of London, and executed there.
Also buried here is the formidable mother of King Henry VII, Lady Margaret Beaufort. But I missed seeing the tomb of the young Yorkist "Princes in the Tower": the uncrowned King Edward V, and his younger brother Richard, Duke of York. They were imprisoned and murdered in the Tower of London, allegedly on orders of their uncle, King Richard III.
From the Henry VII Chapel, it was on to the South Transept, and the famous "Poets' Corner", where many of the greats of English Literature lie: Geoffrey Chaucer (of "Canterbury Tales" fame), Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, the novelist Anthony Trollope, and Charles Dickens, are just a few of those who are buried, or commemorated here. Among the latter is a commemorative slab with the names of many of the English poets of World War One: among them Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, and Laurence Binyon. In this Corner are also the graves of famous English composers--among them the German-born George Frederick Handel. A statue of him above his grave depicts him holding the score for the 'Hallelujah" Chorus from his oratorio The Messiah.
Also nearby are graves of great British actors. Lord Laurence Olivier is buried here, as is the great stage actress Dame Sybil Thorndike. Other British composers, such as Henry Purcell, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, Noel Coward (a commemorative plaque; Coward is buried in Bermuda), and others, are buried in other parts of the Abbey, or simply commemorated.
From Poets' Corner, it was a walk into The Cloisters, where the Abbey's monks prayed and worked. I also stopped by The Chapter House: a huge round room, where the monks gathered to conduct their 'business' meetings. The first House of Commons meetings were also held here. The stained-glass above one's head told the history of the Chapter House and its various usages.
The walls also showed recently-discovered medieval murals, which were quite lovely. In the corridor leading to and from the Chapter House is located "Britain's Oldest Door", which dated from before the Norman Conquest in 1066. Not sure where that lead to, but I think it was to some kind of storage room.
I walked all the way round The Cloisters, where there was a nice fresh breeze. At the end of that walk, I came back into the Nave, headed towards the great West Door. Just steps from the West Door is a very well-known, and very poignant, site: the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior.
In this grave (photo left) lies the body of an unknown British soldier killed in the First World War; and today, he stands for all the UK military personnel killed in all the wars Britain has fought in. He was disinterred from a British military cemetery in France in 1920, and brought to Britain with great ceremony. His casket has a Royal sword strapped on its top (from King George V's own collection), and is buried with soil from the various French battlefields, where British troops fought in the First World War. It is covered with a black Belgian marble slab, and surrounded by red silk poppies. It is the ONLY floor-level tomb in the Abbey where it is forbidden to walk upon. The inscription on the Tomb reads:
"BENEATH THIS STONE RESTS THE BODY
OF A BRITISH WARRIOR
UNKNOWN BY NAME OR RANK
BROUGHT FROM FRANCE TO LIE AMONG
THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS OF THE LAND
AND BURIED HERE ON ARMISTICE DAY
11 NOV: 1920, IN THE PRESENCE OF HIS MAJESTY
KING GEORGE V
HIS MINISTERS OF STATE
THE CHIEFS OF HIS FORCES
AND A VAST CONCOURSE OF THE NATION
THUS ARE COMMEMORATED THE MANY MULTITUDES
WHO DURING THE GREAT WAR OF 1914 - 1918
GAVE THE MOST THAT MAN CAN GIVE
LIFE ITSELF
FOR GOD
FOR KING AND COUNTRY
FOR LOVED ONES HOME AND EMPIRE
FOR THE SACRED CAUSE OF JUSTICE AND
THE FREEDOM OF THE WORLD
THEY BURIED HIM AMONG THE KINGS
BECAUSE HE HAD DONE GOOD TOWARD GOD
AND TOWARD HIS HOUSE"
The Unknown Warrior was brought from France, with great fanfare, aboard a French warship, HMS Verdun, on 10 November 1920. The bell from that warship hangs on a nearby pillar. On another pillar is displayed the US Medal of Honor, which was awarded to the Unknown Warrior by the US Government. After a funeral service attended by the Royal Family and other prominent members of British society, the Unknown Warrior was buried in the Abbey on 11 November 1920.
As I stood over the Tomb and read the inscription, it was very hard not to start crying. I'm sure the Tomb has seen more than its share of tears in 90 years. Especially when I saw a couple of child's drawings sitting on the Tomb; where they possibly left by the children of a serving UK military member, who had been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan?
As I stood over the Tomb and read the inscription, it was very hard not to start crying. I'm sure the Tomb has seen more than its share of tears in 90 years. Especially when I saw a couple of child's drawings sitting on the Tomb; where they possibly left by the children of a serving UK military member, who had been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan?
Between the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior and the West Door, is a huge green marble slab set in the floor, carved with the words: "REMEMBER WINSTON CHURCHILL". The inscription also reads it was placed in the Abbey at the request of Queen Elizabeth II, on the 25th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, 15 September 1965.
Also near the West Door, but to the right, are buried several 20th-century British Prime Ministers: Clement Attlee, who defeated Churchill in the post-VE Day UK election; and Herbert Asquith, who was Prime Minister in the first years of the First World War. David Lloyd George, who led Britain in the last half of the First World War, is also buried nearby.
I left the Abbey (and returned my audio tour mobile) at the West Door, and went next door to the Abbey's Bookshop, where I bought some postcards and a souvenir Abbey guide, and a map of London.
Nearby is Parliament Square--which today was the site of a squatter camp protesting the UK's military involvement in Afghanistan. The Square was fenced-off, which prevented one from actually getting into the green area of the Square. I got a few photos of "Big Ben"--the famous clock-tower of the Houses of Parliament (the name actually refers to one of the bells inside the clock-tower), and then made my way up Whitehall, which is London's government road, where many of the major UK Government ministries (such as the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office) are located.
Nearby is Parliament Square--which today was the site of a squatter camp protesting the UK's military involvement in Afghanistan. The Square was fenced-off, which prevented one from actually getting into the green area of the Square. I got a few photos of "Big Ben"--the famous clock-tower of the Houses of Parliament (the name actually refers to one of the bells inside the clock-tower), and then made my way up Whitehall, which is London's government road, where many of the major UK Government ministries (such as the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office) are located.
The sidewalks were very crowded, and the motor traffic roared by, as I walked away from the Houses of Parliament. Halfway up Whitehall is The Cenotaph, which originally commemorated the UK's war dead from the First World War; today, it commemorates all the UK war dead, and was erected in 1920. On the east and west sides of the memorial is the simple inscription:
THE GLORIOUS DEAD
The Cenotaph (photo left) is almost a traffic-island in the middle of Whitehall, except during the Armistice Day commemorations on 11 November. On that day, The Queen and senior Royals, the Prime Minister and members of The Government, and UK service personnel gather here to remember the UK's war dead. It's a very moving ceremony, which concludes with "The Two-Minute Silence" at 11 am--remembering the Armistice signed, that ended the First World War, and the UK's war dead. There's nothing like it, anywhere.
By this point, my feet were screaming "ENOUGH ALREADY!", so it was time to call it a day. But not before tromping across the vast Horse Guards Parade grounds situated in back of the building in the horse photos.
Horse Guards Parade is where the annual "Trooping the Colour" ceremony takes place, on The Queen's 'official' birthday in June (although Her Majesty's actual birthday is in April). There are colorful bands, and soldiers marching to and fro. The buildings with the domes are the HQ of the Horse Guards, and it also contains a very fine museum on the Horse Guards' history.
I also got a very quick snap of Prime Minister David Cameron's official London residence, at No. 10 Downing Street But the photo below left is as close as I was to get, for security reasons.
I would return for one more look at No. 10 on my last day. And the atmosphere on my side of the fence wouldn't be quite so peaceful....
Before heading up Victoria Street and my hotel, I made one final stop at Parliament Square, where I found the statue below. In fact, I had to blink my eyes several times, before my mind would register the fact! What is this statue doing standing in central London???
I sure didn't believe it, considering how negatively President Abraham Lincoln was viewed by many in the UK during the American Civil War. How could I not take a photo of his statue??
When I returned to my hotel room, I ordered In-Room Dining. I didn't fancy spending my first night in London alone in a busy restaurant. The food at the Crowne Plaza St James was absolutely fantastic, especially the Cold Melon soup: refreshing indeed!!! I also called a couple of my British friends on the phone, and wrote up my postcards from the Abbey bookshop, and watched some telly. And got off my poor sore feet!
I almost forgot to mention that, when I was getting ready for my shower earlier, I turned on the TV and watched a bit of "Prime Minister's Questions": the weekly question-and-answer session in the House of Commons, where the Government and the Opposition discuss foreign and domestic issues in a sometimes-raucous and always lively proceeding. It makes the US Congress look tame indeed!
