We left our tour guide and Westminster Abbey, walking past Parliament, Big Ben, 10 Downing Street, and the Royal Mews. The Royal Mews is "one of the finest working stables still in existence, responsible for the training of the Windsor Greys and Cleveland Bays, the horses that pull the royal carriages." Outside of the Royal Mews we stopped as a guard seated at attention on a beautiful black horse was posing outside the gate. This would make a good photo, I thought, as long as I could get a shot without any tourists in the picture. This was going to be difficult as there were gobs of people lined up waiting patiently for their chance at tourist immortality, standing next to the horse, as another family member clicked away on their cell phone. Come on people, let's see some creativity here. As time passed by, I wondered whether this was a good idea, as the smell from the pile of poop behind the horse was starting to ruin my desire for lunch. But what about that guy on the horse? Sitting there for hours in that hot ceremonial uniform, in one static position, with the smell of horse poop permeating every pore. Not only that, but your picture will adorn the living rooms and Facebooks of thousands of people you don't even know. Oh, the memories! Who signs up for that? Maybe a frustrated actor; however, I don't think this gets you an audition doing Shakespeare at the Globe theater.
Time to move on before we lose our appetite. Past Trafalgar Square, we head to The Sherlock Holmes Public House and Restaurant for a pint and some traditional English food. Alas, this is the closest we got to anything Sherlock Holmes. A meat pie,Yorkshire pudding, and a pint for me, and I think the same for Anne. The food was decent. Jane said her tomato soup wasn't very good, but that's the most I can remember about the place except that the restaurant was on the second floor. Maybe since the place was named after Sherlock Holmes, it was a test of our deductive reasoning. If you figure out why the soup was bad, you get a prize. Or maybe you get another cup of bad soup. This afternoon the guys are on their own. The girls are headed for high tea above the Portrait Gallery. Ken, Mark, his son Daniel, and I decided to visit the Churchill Bunker which was located close to 10 Downing Street.
The Churchill Bunker and Museum
We walked back past Trafalgar Square and the Royal Mews to the Public Offices building off of Whitehall. Behind the building down some stairs into a reinforced nondescript basement area sat one of the most important complexes in Britain during World War II. After the First World War, military planners began to make contingency plans for an evacuation of top government officials from London in case of another war. However, it was felt that leaving the city for a safe place while the citizens of London got bombed into oblivion was not a good message to send to the people. So a decision was made to find an emergency shelter in central London. With tight security and utmost secrecy, the basement at the New Public Offices building was chosen. This shelter or bunker became fully operational August 27, 1939, a week before Britain declared war on Germany. "From 1939 to 1945, a group of basement offices in Whitehall served as the nerve centre of Britain's war effort. Known as the Cabinet War Rooms, the complex was occupied by leading government ministers, military strategists, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill." The basement housed a small military information complex centered around a Map Room and provided a meeting area for the War Cabinet during air raids. In use 24 hours a day until 1945, Churchill's War Cabinet met here 115 times. Thankfully, it survived the Blitz and Hitler's V-1 rocket bombing campaign. "Despite a reinforced concrete slab up to three metres thick installed above the rooms in December 1940, a hit from anything larger than a 500-pound (227 kg) bomb could have penetrated the building and destroyed the War Rooms." Direct hit, no War Cabinet, and Churchill is toast.
At some of the other venues (Windsor Castle and Westminster Abbey), with your admission you could get a audio player with a recorded tour on it. This was the first time I took advantage of the audio player. I was excited about this museum. Claustrophobic in this basement, but quite fascinating walking through history. The Brits kept the Cabinet War Rooms just as they appeared during the war.
Also included in the basement bunker is the Churchill Museum. Everything you want to know about Churchill and his personal history can be found in its exhibits.Winston Churchill was born in 1874, the son of Lord Randolph Churchill and the heiress, Jennie Jerome of New York. Educated at Harrow and the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, he wasn't a very good student. He was sent to India with a cavalry commission in 1895. After leaving the Army, he began to write books, authoring five books by the age of 26. He became a war correspondent, covering the Cuban revolt against Spain, the British campaigns in the Northwest Frontier of India, and the Sudan. "As a special correspondent for the Morning Post he was sent to South Africa to cover the Boer War and was taken prisoner in 1899. He escaped and became a hero back in England." He was elected to Parliament and the House of Commons for the first time in 1900 which began a political career that lasted for 60 years. His career suffered a severe setback in 1915 after his support for the disaster at Gallipoli in the Dardanelles campaign during World War I. He left politics and served on the Western Front. After the war, Churchill was in and out of the Parliament eventually becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1924.
His real contribution to Britain, the world, and the 20th century was his staunch refusal to bow to Adolph Hitler. He was committed to defeating the Nazi menace at all costs and directed his considerable political ability to this purpose. In his time he was opinionated and disliked by many, adored by some.But without Churchill, the world could have been a much different place.
By 1938, the military buildup in Germany was in full swing. Churchill was an adamant critic of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy toward the Nazis. "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last." Churchill clearly saw what Chamberlain didn't. After the Germans invaded Poland in September, 1939, Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty and in April, 1940, chairman of the Military Coordinating Committee. Chamberlain received a vote of no confidence after Germany invaded and occupied Norway. In May, Churchill was appointed Prime Minister and Minister of Defense. "Within hours, the German Army began its Western Offensive, invading the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Two days later, German forces entered France. Britain stood alone against the onslaught." Churchill quickly formed a coalition cabinet of leaders from all three parties and placed talented people in key positions. In June, he warned of the horrors to come and kept British resistance to the Germans alive through the Blitz and V-1 rocket attacks. He also was instrumental in creating a foundation for an alliance with the United States and Soviet Union. In his older age, Churchill,chewing on that cigar, looked like the bulldog he was. His life demonstrates one of my favorite quotes of his, "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." After the war, he lost his position as Prime Minister in 1945, but again held that position from 1951 - 1955. He was a prolific writer and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953. He died in 1965 and interestingly was not buried in Westminster Abbey. "Before the State Funeral at St. Paul's Cathedral in London, his body lay in state at Westminster Hall and was taken by river to the Cathedral. He is buried with his parents in Bladon churchyard, near Blenheim Palace."
This has been another fantastic day in London. Ken and I left the Churchill Bunker and walked to the tube station situated across the street from the statue of Winston Churchill in a park adjacent to Parliament. We stood and talked on the corner for a while and took in the rush hour sites of a late Monday afternoon in London. Looking at the statue brought to mind two stories I recalled about Churchill: one true and the other conjecture. The first is the true story. I know this because Marilyn, our professional tour guide, told us this one on our way to lunch. Before his death, Churchill stated that he didn't want a statue of himself erected outside of Parliament because he didn't want to suffer the indignity of being draped in pigeon crap. However, he was too important a figure not to be honored by a statue. So the British came up with an ingenious way to keep the pigeons off Winston. They built the statue and electrified it. Any pigeons landing on him would be zapped before having a chance to drop a deuce. Ironically, standing there and looking at the statue, I noticed a white streak down the side of Winston's face. It looked like a pigeon had the last laugh. There on the side of Winston's face was the final indignity. A bird must have flown by and let go an airborne burst. Cast in metal, Winston had no chance to get out of the way. The blitz didn't get him, but the pigeon did. The second story may not be true because I got it off the internet. And we all know that everything on the internet is true. It is nice to know in retrospect that Churchill was human and not a man without vices. This exchange was included in a book of Churchill quotations and supposedly took place between Churchill and a woman named Bessie Braddock in 1946.
Bessie Braddock: "Winston, you are drunk, and what's more you are disgustingly drunk."
Winston Churchill: "Bessie, my dear, you are ugly, and what's more, you are disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be disgustingly ugly."
Winston had a way with the ladies. Hey Ken, let's head back to the flat for a home cooked dinner and a few drinks. Back at the flat, the girls had returned from High Tea. Julie and Marilyn (the other Marilyn) were in charge of dinner tonight. We broke out the wine and had a great dinner in the flat. Some of the girls went out for gelato again while Manuel, Ken, and I started in on the gin and tonics. After the girls returned and we had downed a few drinks, the conversation somehow turned to sympathy for Manuel in his old age. Yeah, that's it - he needs a pet to keep him company. How about a chihuahua - a dancing chihuahua! The smart phones came out and the google search was on. I will leave you with what we found. Click on the link below.
Pedro the Salsa Chihuahua
If you are reading this on a printed copy, go to Google and search on 'Chihuahua Dancing Salsa'.Good night all. Ariba!
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The entire group left the flat at our usual early morning departure time and headed through the city to the nearby park. We entered the park, bypassing Kensington Palace with our ultimate destination, Buckingham Palace, on the other end of the park. As I was prevented from taking photos in Westminster Abbey and the Churchill War Rooms, I am back in the picture taking mode today.
A short distance into the park along Kensington Road, we spotted the Albert Memorial off in the distance. Let's head in that direction.
"The memorial is 176 feet (54 m) tall, took over ten years to complete, and cost £120,000 (the equivalent of about £10,000,000 in 2010)." The memorial contains eight marble sculptures: four depicting the Victorian industrial arts surrounding the Gothic tower with Albert on his throne in the center; and four on the corners of the outside gold-gilded fence depicting Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Victoria's reign from 1837 to her death in 1901 was the longest of any British monarch. She was queen during the height of the British empire which is definitely reflected by this monument. Restoration work took place recently beginning in 2006, so the monument looked like it had been built recently. You can only appreciate a monument for so long, even one as over the top as this one.
We moved on deeper into the park walking toward the Serpentine, a 40-acre body of water that separates Kensington Gardens from Hyde Park. If there is one thing that the Brits really do well, I would have to put gardening at the top of the list. Anne and I had taken a couple of walks by ourselves on previous afternoons in the area surrounding our Petersham Place flat. We were continually drawn to the beauty of the many small gardens outside numerous central London dwellings. OK, if you can afford to live in central London, you probably have enough cash to take care of a garden. Even so, every garden was done with style and taste. You would think there would be at least one oddball out there somewhere. The Brits also prided themselves on the care and beauty of the gardens in the park.
We reached the Serpentine and stopped for some refreshments before moving on. Not quite lunchtime, we stuck with coffee and water. Too early for a pint considering the alcohol we consumed last night. Ahhhhh! It was a beautiful day, blooming flowers everywhere, the swans were out in numbers, and here we are, relaxing on vacation in the middle of Hyde Park, thousands of miles away from work. What a life. If retirement was like this every day, I would gladly accept a pink slip tomorrow. Although I personally could have gone and reclined underneath a tree and napped through the rest of the day, there was much more to see.
We jumped on 'The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Walk' on our way out of the park. This is a seven-mile (11 km) trail that "goes between Kensington Gardens, Green Park, Hyde Park, and St. James Park." It is marked with 90 plaques and was constructed at a cost of £1.3 million. As befitted her exalted standing with the Royals, no members of the Royal Family were present at its opening. They were a vindictive lot. The day before, while we were at Westminster Abbey, I asked our intrepid tour guide what she felt British opinion was concerning Diana. She felt that Diana had gotten married too young, was high maintenance, and wasn't held in high esteem by many Brits. That rather surprised me considering that stiff she was married to and the improvement to their blood line she provided (William and Harry).
If you followed the entire route of this memorial walk, you would pass Kensington Palace, Buckingham Palace, Clarence House, St. James Palace, and Spencer House, all part of Diana's life. Londoners would like to think this is "one of the most magnificent urban parkland walks in the world." On this day, I certainly would agree. Again, beautiful gardens everywhere. We were headed toward Buckingham Palace.
There it was, the famous Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately, it is not open to the public currently, although it is in late summer. All we could do is peak through the fence and stare at the building. It's the official residence and working place of the constitutional monarchy; state visits, garden parties, and all that stuff. Like Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace is owned by the state. The British Government spends approximately £15 million a year on it's upkeep. You've got to keep up appearances. Amazing building from the outside, but I won't bore you with the history of the building since we can't get in. We've done a lot of walking today and it's time for lunch. We decide to go to Prezzo for some Italian food and a pint.
