Hi All

We are getting ready to leave for our Baltic trip this morning and just reflecting on the last few days. No chance to sit and relax, we do that when we get home, now in London we have to fill our days with as much as we could – will not be back until next week. After watching the BBC series The Tudors we had to make a trip to Hampton court.

We have been to almost a show each night. We have seen, Lion King, Wicked, Mousetrap, Jersey Boys, George Benson at the Royal Albert Hall, Planetarium shows at Greenwich Royal Observatory and on our return to London before flying home we will see the new production of Bodyguard.

On Sunday we were able to attend a mid morning church service in St Paul’s Cathedral and then on Tuesday afternoon attend an Evening service at Westminster Abbey after our tour there. These churches / cathedrals are just magnificent as they sore into the sky with there walls of fine stonework.

For dinners, before the shows, we were often pleased to have local musicians entertaining us with their music.

Our trip to Bletchley Park on Monday, about 1 hour travel out of London was an amazing experience as well. This is the location of the team in WW11 that cracked the German Enigma machine code and set up a network of information stations around the Allied war front to counter the German and Japanese war efforts. This was all held in top secret during and after the war and only recently were the full papers released indicating the contribution that Alan Turing’s team made to winning the war by the Allies. This is shown in the film “The Imitation Game”.

At Bletchley Park they also have much of the film settings and clothing and interviews with the actors from the movie as well as some of the family members speaking about the truth of the work that was done.

The displays show the many attempts to break the code and the first computer machines with the initial set up of the internet to send these instructions to the various locations around Britain and London for Prime Minister Churchill and across to the Americans instantly. This was the first set up of the internet.

There is so much war history here in London. The next day we set off to visit the Churchill War Rooms, under Whitehall and Parliament House at Westminster. We thought we would be there an hour or so, but had to leave after 4 hours as we were just so overloaded with the details that they still had housed there. The audio visual presentation were so great to see, Churchill and his cabinet, making their plans in the old underground store room.

While walking around this area, we could not help but notice all the new buildings with their names like “the Shard” and “the Eye”.

Our trip to Greenwich and the Royal Observatory was so interesting on Wednesday as well. This is where the 0 degree Meridian is located. So we both were able to stand one foot in the East and one foot in the West. They also had a great display on how the solution to tracking longitude positions on British ships were at so that they did not run aground and lose their ship load of trading wealth. The Harrison watch that was developed finally in 1778 by a self taught watchmaker and not a scientist was very interesting. There is currently a display in Sydney’s Maritime Museum of this as well.

We stayed for the planetarium show and then decided to take the bus back as the ferry we had come out on finished at 5:00 pm back to London. It was not a fast way back to the Hotel, due to the traffic congestion around London, but it gave us a new view of the set locations where the BBC long running series the Bill was made.

Yesterday was Windsor Castle. We took the train to Windsor – as you do. However we did not know there was a Polo match at Eaton just down the road from the Castle. The train was as packed as a city bus. But they did have a dry day for the Polo matches and we had a great day walking around the Castle and looking at the magnificent paintings, seeing the changing of the Beefeater Guards that guard the Palace. We had some English chips in the Horse and Cart Pub with a pint of Guinness for others. Met up with some more PMC travellers for a coffee and then made our way back home to pack for our next adventure on the Baltic cruise.

One of the most interesting points of the Pub was the wall decorations in the ladies bathroom. It has wallpaper showing various pictures of ladies at Ascot which is also just up the road. One photo in particular was of interest where all the ladies were in the same material for their dress and hats but had different styles of dress. This was a great shot as you can see.

More to follow of our Baltic travels.

Regards

Wendy