Sept 12 2007
After the best night’s
sleep in ages and following yet another nine thousand calorie English breakfast,
we bounced our thirty-four suitcases down the stairs of the Castle and Ball hotel in Marlborough and climbed into our van
for the 2 hour jaunt to London. Traffic was pretty good so by 11am
we were checked into our rooms at the John Howard Hotel in Kensington, ready to take on
the town. I highly recommend this hotel. It is located on Queen's Gate, one-half block off the main thoroughfare, Kensington Road, and absolutely lovely. (See my photos of the property on the sidebar under "London"). Unlike our last 600 year old hotel, this hotel had an elevator! The hotel was very clean, the staff extremely friendly and I would stay there again without hesitation. Before we put on our roaming shoes, we wanted another eight-thousand calorie
English lunch. How the Brits stay so slim is beyond me. One member of our group found a delightful pub aptly named The Goat – all "kidding" aside – it was quite nice. Despite the oft-repeated
phrase, “Guinness in the UK is totally different than in the States” I found
that it is served just as cold and tastes exactly the same as in our local Irish
pub in Florida. Oh...one difference in US vs. UK traditional pubs: You are expected to place your meal/drink order at the bar and then find a table and wait for your order to come up at the pub counter. We found this out after waiting oh...about 25 minutes.
After lunch,
we walked the short distance back to the John Howard to slightly unpack for the
next three days. I decided it would be easier to live out of a
suit case for three days than unpack into the closet mainly because my entire room WAS a closet! I have never seen such a small hotel room in my life….if it was 8x12 I
would be surprised. It was neat, clean and my room actually overlooked Queen’s Gate
street but it was tiny. The free wifi made it bearable as
did the first floor location read: second floor by European standards.. Everyone else had grand-sized rooms,
huge bathrooms and sitting areas. Not me. This room
was hilarious – but I still would recommend it to anyone traveling alone with a very light load. Getting in
the shower was a feat unto itself…I had to turn side-ways to sidle into the
two-foot square shower. Water pressure, however, was awesome, as
it was throughout the U.K. And the bath towels! The bath towels in England compare to what we in the States call bath sheets. Enough about my room. I
would heartily recommend the John Howard Hotel – it has an elevator, restaurant
on premises and includes a complete 900 million calorie English breakfast, is walking distance to
the buses, Kensington Palace and Gardens, restaurants, pubs, everything, Just be sure to not get Room 21 unless you are agoraphobic! Three days in London was either not
enough time or just enough time…I’m not sure. Probably I’d opt for
2 more days. I did manage to get last minute tickets to Les
Miserables, tour Kensington Palace and Gardens, get to Greenwich to see the
Maritime Museum and timeclock. I had lunch in Harrod’s, another
Guinness at a true local’s pub on the River Thames, drove around Picadilly
Circus and Trafalgar Square so I feel I did the correct tourist
requirements.
By day four, two in our group of nine had flown home, and two more were staying over in London for another day. Five of us were heading to Forest Row for one night in an authentic 600 year old coaching inn. Only a short hour’s drive from London and we were checking in to the Forest Row Inn, just down the road from the town of Forest Row, on the edge of the Ashdown Forest – home to Winnie the Pooh and A.A. Milne. What an amazing little village and beautiful scenery. I could have spent 3 days here with the inclination to explore the Forty-Acre Wood in search of the House at Pooh Corner. There are tours and hiking paths throughout the forest for both nature lovers and literary lovers. The house of A.A. Milne is open to the public as are the once private grounds. But alas, we had only one day to spend and we spent it in the town of Forest Row. Once again, had a typical English luncheon washed down with a what else - Guinness, and just wandered into the little shops before boarding the local bus back to the hotel. Yet another place to revisit in the future. Bright and early the next morning, following our leisurely English breakfast, the van arrived a few minutes ahead of schedule to take us to the third leg of our journey, to Dover, to board the Constellation for our 12-night cruise back to America, Bayonne New Jersey to be exact.
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