London Sept 4-8

On September 3rd, 2010, Debbie and Paul took off for London, England/Scotland, and Rome. We first spent four nights at a B&B in London, and went to a lot of museums. We had downloaded some MP3 walking tours of parts of the historic city, and some museums. One of the most interesting things about London is the transportation system, and getting to know how to get around. The underground subways (tube) is very quick, and the double-deck buses go everywhere.

We chanced upon the celebration of the 70th anniversary

of the Battle of Britain on the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral. There were about 25 elderly (in their 90's) pilots and such, and their wives there, plus some dressed-up reinactors, and a real spitfire. There was also a flyover of a Lancaster bomber and spitfire from a WWII reinactment squadron. We talked to one old radio operator and his wife for quite a while. I think this event was especially significant because they don't expect to have many more. I was sure to tell the old guy thanks, but he didn't think it was that big of a deal.

We went to the British museum, which is curiously full of things from ancient Egypt, Syria, and Greece, not Britain.

The inscriptions would say these things were "found". I wondered if anyone would mind if I "found" some cool ancient British artifacts and brought them home to America....

This is me touching the original Stephenson's Rocket in the Science Museum, the first practical steam engine. We also went to the Victoria and Albert museum of design and fashion, the London transport museum, the British art gallery, and the Tate British, but we're not that into art, so we went through fairly quickly.

One of our favorite places was the Camden Lock Market. We went there in the morning just as things were opening. It's used to be a stables when shipping was done by canal barge and horses, but has been turned into a giant antiques market.

We went to a play "The Railway Children", a nice story with a real steam engine in the play, staged at a real railway station, with the audience on either side of the train track.