Regents Canal Walk, Regent Park, Ski show, concert

Whew,,,,busy day yesterday and I'm posting fast before I lose this connection. The weather is still mild and although sometimes overcast we have only had about 3 drops of rain. As it was so nice we walked along Regents Canal, past houseboats and then through Regent's Park in the morning.

There are still lots of flower as this climate is damp and mild and plants thrive. It also seldomly freezes and that helps. Then we took a bus ride to the London Ski Show where Mitch talked to people and I got a neck massage.

Home to collapse for an hour or so and then the South Bank to Royal Festival Hall for a concert - Mendelssohn Hebrides overture, Brahms #3 and Brahms Piano Cto #2. Loverly and very Romantic.

Cotswolds and Oxford day trip

We took the Original London Walks guided tour to the Cotswolds and Oxford and really enjoyed it. Walked to Paddington Station where we met the group of 23 others plus the guide Richard at 9:30 a.m.. We took the train to Oxford then a coach (bus) into the cotswold countryside to a couple of very quaint villages. The guide was great - logs of arcane information and British history refreshers for his predominately American audience. I've got what I hope are great pictures...then we drove back to Oxford and toured the University - didn't, of course, see all 38 colleges, but we saw a lot. About 5 pm we got back on the train and back to London. Mitch and I went out for fish and chips to what used to be a simple restaurant but is now quite polished. Food was very good, just not as cheap as the chippie down the street (chippies have given way to fast food chairns so there may not be a chippie down the street)

We have arrived in London

Oct. 19 and 20, 2009 We left JFK on Mon. 19 Oct at 8:20 p.m. on AA flight 104. The traffic to the airport was awful as always but we arrived plenty early and left the car in a lot. The flight left promptly and was uneventful. American international flights are comparable to domestic flights – no frills, but they do feed you. My entertainment console didn’t work, but I planned/hoped to sleep anyway. The flight really isn’t long enough for a real night’s sleep so sleep deprivation/jetlag is inevitable. We arrived at Heathrow at 8:25 a.m. the next day and walked the miles of corridors to baggage claim, customs and the London Transport center where we bought our wonderful 7 day Oyster travelcards. Touching these to the readers in tuber stations and on the buses allowed us unlimited travel throughout zones 1 and 2, and that covers lots.
The Picadilly tube line took us into London and within an hour and with one change we emerged at Edgware Station, the closest to our B&B on Sussex Garden. I asked a passerby for directions and 5 minutes later we had heard all about which plays we should see and how much she loved her winters in Florida, and she did point us in the right direction.
The Winrose Hotel B&B was just off Edgware Rd in an area of row houses all converted into B&Bs. It was a bit more basic than we expected with 53 stairs up to our room on the top floor, but it was clean and mostly quiet, warm and inexpensive for London at $127 per night. The proprietor was very hardworking but rather short on the people skills needed in the hospitality industry.
It was too early to check in so we left our bags and set out to explore the Paddington-Marylebone area after a coffee and sandwich at a Café Nero. Then we came back, checked in and set off to Southwark Cathedral for a 1 pm concert. Hopped on a bus, but it was first caught in traffic and then diverted so then the tube and by the time we walked across the Thames the concert was half over. Still enjoyable and a rest before we walked a bit along the South Bank and then back across the Thames to the Tower of London.
We caught the #15 bus and rode upstairs in the Terror Seat (so named by Mitch because you are high and only separated by glass and millimeters from other passing buses) back to Marble Arch (some #15s only go that far) and then walked north on Edgware stopping at Café Maroush for a very good middle eastern meal before returning to the B&B for an early night.

Oxford and the Cotswolds on Wednesday

We hope to join the Original London Walking Tour's trip to Oxford and the Cotswolds on Wednesday. I took one of their walks and the guides are very knowledgeable and, after reading all those mystery novels, I'd like to see Oxford. We're to met at Paddington Station at 9:30 and then off we go on the train. So it will be an opportunity for some train travel, as well. To go on the Cotswolds & Oxford Explorer Day meet Richard - he of the bright red cap! -at 9.30 am by the main ticket office - it's right by Platform 1 - of Paddington Railway Station. Check the Link for Original London Walks for more info.

Weather in London

It's cool and wet here and it looks like we can expect pretty much the same in London. Perhaps it will be even a little warmer (in the 50's), but it also looks wetter with a whole new vocabulary of weather words...heavy rain shower, sunny intervals

London Transport

As soon as we've landed in Heathrow on Tuesday and, hopefully, collected our luggage, we're off to the London Transport window to buy our 7 day Travelcard...or is it 7 day Oyster card. We haven't figured out what it's called, exactly, but hopefully the attendant will know and we'll be set to jump on and off of tubes and buses for the next week.

Public transportation has a fascination for me so I've been pouring over my bus and subway, opps..underground maps. Transport for London has a Journey Planner on their site and I plan to make good use of it. Someplace in my reading I found a great map for a bus tour using 4 routes to tour London. Now all I have to do is find it.

London, here we come!

Mitch and I are going to London for a week, leaving Mon, Oct. 19 and returning Tues, Oct. 27. This will be our first overseas trip since Mitch was diagnosed with MDS, and started the monthly treatment cycle of Vidasa shots. So, it's a great experiment to test his stamina with the transatlantic flight and long days.

Here is our flight information....after watching fares for a month or more, we gave up and booked frequent flier tickets on American.
American Airlines , flight 104, leaves JFK on MON 19OCT8:20 PM, arrives LONDON HEATHROW 8:25 AM
American Airlines , flight 131, leaves LONDON HEATHROW on TUE 27OCT3:35 PM
arrives NEW YORK JFK 7:45 PM

We'll be staying at the Winrose Hotel near Paddington Station. Accomodations in London are very expensive. The Winrose is inexpensive (c. $120 per night), has free wi-fi, and full fry-up for breakfast, and is well reviewed on Tripadvisor...that website that Mitch loves to hate.

Here is what our room should look like