April 2017 was a time of travel for me going from Canada to Germany with a detour into London. I'm happy to announce no travel trauma occurred. 🙂 (See pdfs at bottom of this post).
The purpose for this trip to London was two-fold – research for my Ginger Gold Mystery series and to celebrate a wedding anniversary milestone – 30 years!
We flew Ryan Air from Berlin to London Stansted Airport. The last time I went to London this way I booked a shuttle bus ahead of time – don't do this. The train station is right there and will take you anywhere you want to go in less time and for less money. If you're there more than a day or so, it's worth buying an Oyster Card at the ticket booth and topping it up. The tube system in London is superb. It's cheap and very easy to navigate.
I also booked rooms ahead – and let's just say, sometimes you get what you pay for. Fortunately we found a nicer place right downtown Notting Hill for the last two nights of our stay.
My goal in London was to visit as many sites as possible where Ginger or Haley might venture and garner new mystery ideas and locations. We visited Kensington Park (including the lovely memorial for Princess Diana), Hyde Park, the Ritz Hotel, St. Paul's Cathedral (got a great idea there – can't tell you what but it might have to do with an organ player :)), Victoria and Albert Museum, the Science Museum – which had great WW1 aircraft and info, Selfridges, the theatre district, the fashion district/Regent Street, Scotland Yard, The Old Bailey Courthouse, The Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, the site of the London School of Medicine for women, and the Imperial War Museum (all the characters in the Ginger Gold mysteries lived through the first world war).
Yes, I was pretty exhausted when I got back to Dresden. That's a lot of walking and catching of subway trains!
I took tons of pictures on my cannon, but my MacBook is saying I don't have enough room in my dropbox to download them. I plan to put a Ginger Gold London photo album together later, but for now I can only share a few pics I took with my iphone.
We rented (or hired, as they say there) bikes and rode around the Big Ben, along the River Thames in front of Scotland Yard and back around West Minster Abbey – on the left! Even though we were on bikes and not driving cars, amongst the traffic it was still unnerving. London cyclists on the bike path really move – you better not have a mind-lapse and wander into the right-hand lane!
My handsome husband of thirty years – Norm Strauss.
Very cool neighbourhood in Brunswick were all the young, brilliant minds hang out.
Agatha Christie's play, The Mouse Trap, has been running in London's west end since 1974! It's the longest running play in the world. My husband and I are now officially part of the Mouse Trap community and have vowed never to reveal WHODUNIT.
How about you? Have you been to London? Did you see a play there?
*The Imperial War Museum desrving its own post.” -And there in front stands Norm…Head Chief war museum material one supposes…Ha, Ha, Ha; Hardy, Har, Har. (That poor Canay-Jun fellow there.)
So great. Love that you went to The Mousetrap. Happy Anniversary to you and Norm!