Scotland/London 2009

Scotland – London trip 19-30 November, 2009

We were motivated by recent renovations to stops along the Charles Rennie Mackintosh to take a trip to Glasgow, a city that is overlooked by the majority of travelers but which has so much to offer in the way of history, museums, and even dining.  

Though it would have been nice to rent a car and visit the Highlands, but Scotland has several small tour operators which offer day trips and multi-day trips at a very good value (you sacrifice the freedom of being on your own, but you leave the driving and worries to someone else, and for roughly £35 per person per day, it’s the same price if not cheaper than renting a car and paying the high price of fuel, plus it’s an opportunity to meet other people).

 

Since our visits were generally limited to the cities, we had city (rather than country) guide books.  By far the best guide is Time Out Edinburgh, which has a section on Glasgow as well.  We also had the Frommer’s Edinburgh and Glasgow that was given to us as a gift, but it’s not comprehensive the way Time Out is.  For example, Frommer’s totally missed Stockbridge and Dean Village neighborhoods of Edinburgh, which were a delight (it paid to eavesdrop at breakfast at our hotel because we heard other guests talking about their day there, which sealed our decision to go).  We were criticized for visiting Scotland in the late fall, early winter, but the truth is that it has lousy weather most of the year, and does not have extreme cold nor extreme heat.  While in Boston there is about a 60 degree difference summer vs. winter for average highs/lows (roughly 80/20), in Scotland it’s just about half that (70/40).  Some things are closed or have reduced hours in winter, but the cost savings and the ability to travel without crowds is well worth some cold and rain.

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19 November, 2009

Glasgow has a simple and efficient bus into the city center from the airport, the Glasgow Flyer, departing roughly every 10 minutes all day long for £4.20 one way.

At Buchanon Street we took the Subway (in Glasgow they call the underground the Subway like we do in the U.S.) to Kelvinbridge to our hotel in the West End/university area.  Luckily the 2 star Amadeus Hotel is just across the street from the station, because it was pouring rain.   To emphasize why it is important to print out copies of all your reservations, they were not able to locate our reservation but honored the reservation since we had a copy of the confirmation email.  We were upgraded to a better room at the same price since it’s all they had available.  Glasgow is notoriously short on decent budget accommodations, and for £48 pounds we felt the price was about right with the upgrade.

Walked to Sonny and Vito’s for a meal a few blocks away at 52 Park Road, couldn’t resist the name.  Small, cute shop/restaurant with international imports world (maple syrup from Vermont ?!), but it was very busy at lunch and we had to take our food back to the hotel.  Our chorizo, rocket, and mayo sandwich was delicious, but there was hardly any meat.

We walked through the Kelvingrove Park with sidewalks covered in mushy, slippery brown leaves over to the Kelvingrove Museum, which quickly became a favorite.  Like so many UK museums, it is free.  It has a huge and diverse collection in a wonderful building originally built in 1901 for the Glasgow International Exhibition.  A few minutes into our visit a kind guide approached us to attend his excellent highlights tour.  The collection includes a kitschy life size Elvis statue with a neon halo, by Sean Reed and an incredible 1942 Spitfire dangling, as if weightless, from the ceiling.  It was fascinating to hear how they cleaned decades of coal soot off the interior walls.

It was a cold, rainy and dark night, so we ran across street for dinner.  Mother India Tapas turned out to be a great choice and warm, both in temperature and decor.  They specialize in Indian small plates, and the Chicken Tika Makhani was very good and creamy and also good were the chicken Dosa, Pumpkin Chana, Jasmine Rice and Nan.  Dessert was tea and chocolate Hob Nobs back in our room.

20 November

Breakfast in Amadeus hotel, not Scottish but ho hum continental with horrific coffee.  For the price can’t complain too much.  Walked to University of Glasgow’s Hunterian Gallery, our goal being the Mackintosh House.  One of our primary reasons for visiting Glasgow was to see the architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s many buildings in the city.  We purchased a “Mackintosh Trail Ticket,”  a one day ticket allowing admission to all the related stops as well as a day pass on the city’s subway and buses (in summer there is also a Mackintosh Trail bus).  Next stop by bus was the Mackintosh

designed “Queens Church” — an arts and crafts lover dream renovated in 2006.  Mackintosh incorporated his signature rose design into the woodwork.

Bus to city center for the “Lighthouse” building, the top floor of which has a good city view, and the 2nd floor has a Mackintosh exhibit.  In Glasgow you have to take advantage of any break in the rain, so we took the bus to the Necropolis.  It is a beautiful British cemetery that offers a view of the city and its adjacent cathedral.  The cathedral is beautiful with its stained glass windows inside and tomb of St. Mungo in the crypt.  Across the way is the St. Mungo Museum, which has varied artifacts and displays of religions around the world, including a disturbing photo of young Egyptian girl getting a circumcised (though I suppose it’s good to expose people to the harsh realities of the world).

Churches and museums in the UK have realized that cafes are good business, and they generally do a very good job of it.  We had a quick snack of quiche and broccoli cheddar soup before our rush to our 3 PM tour of Glasgow Art School, which can only be visited by guided tour (and reservations are essential, even in low season) given by current art students.  Glasgow Art School is a fantastic old building, still a working school, and designed, of course, by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.  The library is the most dramatic room, with lots of original woodwork, chairs and desks and suspended wood ceiling with great chandeliers.  The design was even created to match the book bindings.  Interior photos are not allowed.

Despite trying to avoid restaurants recommended in guide books, there were just too many good reviews of Stravaigin to pass it up.  It’s owned by the same people as the overrated Ubiquitous Chip (probably the father of Nouvelle Scottish cuisine, but common sense and a budget told us to skip that place).  We had a large bowl of red

pepper/chili soup and a pear gorgonzola tart for appetizers, both excellent.  For mains we had fish with cress and pork chops with broccoli and polenta, both good.  Dessert was a delectable toffee cake with butterscotch sauce and vanilla ice cream (taken off a dessert that came with an ANZAC biscuit, which was not good).  Excellent service and very fair prices for this caliber of restaurant ($87 U.S. for 3 courses and one glass of wine and coffee, including the tip).

Cut my toe on the linoleum that was raised up in the bathroom, requiring a visit to Boots to buy plasters (band-aids).  Pouring rain again, so sticking around the West End and back to the Hunterian Museum and then to the Botanical Gardens, which were excellent on a cold, damp day because the greenhouses are very warm.  A wedding party was getting pictures taken there.

A rainy day was a good time to take in a Pie, a Play and a Pint for £12.50 (cheaper on weekdays) at Oran Mor, on the top of Byres Road.  The British have also done a great job of making use of deconsecrated churches such as this one.  The play was a weird one called “Gabriel,” about a baby (played by an adult) whose mother leaves him – the actors were talented, but we were glad it was just one act.  Byres road is a lively shopping district with many restaurants.  Early dinner at Cail Bruich West at 725 Great Western Road.  Friendly service and attention from the owner, and very good food, notable again was a toffee cake with ice cream.  We visited a neighborhood antique shop and regretted very much not being able to bring home some stained glass windows and oak furniture at good prices (even with the bad exchange rate).

22 November

It’s a good thing we always allow a lot of extra time to arrive at places since our discovery this morning was that the subway doesn’t run until 10:15 on weekends, and we had a tour starting at 9:15.  Rather than spending a fortune on a taxi we walked a couple of miles to the center, about 40 minutes at a brisk pace in the drizzle.  We took this time to note that mini skirts with tights are all the rage at the moment, and attractive thought they may be are not a practical or comfortable choice in the cold and damp.

We joined our Timberbush Tours minivan for a day trip to the Trossachs, Loch Lomond and Sterling.  £30 per person for the day is a pretty good value (and we had £2 off each from a coupon we picked up in our hotel lobby).  Our first stop was at the loch in the town of Luss, which has been used for filming movies and t.v.  A quaint town with a picturesque churchyard (we can’t figure out what the rusty orange sort of mold that grows on the headstones might be).  Downpours of rain off and on.

We stopped next in the town of Balloch, where the rest of our group took a boat tour but we made a better decision to walk through the country park up to Balloch Castle (the interior was closed, but it was a good walk, and there was a public restroom where we could dry our hats and socks with the hand dryers).

Our tour guide was not chatty or very informative, and we were already unhappy with the tour when we arrived for a lunch stop in the town of Aberfoyle, which has a large woolen mill and several shops and restaurants.  We had far too much time in Luss and far too little time in Aberfoyle, choking down our otherwise tasty lunch of lamb stovies and Scottish broth (which is not actually a broth but rather a hearty barley soup) as well as the best fish & chips we’d had so far at the Clachan Hotel on Main Street.  Driving through the Trossachs we saw more lochs and many green hills in the area known as the stomping ground of Rob Roy.

Stirling Castle is the second largest in Scotland, and impressive on its hilltop location.   We heard live music in the town and decided to walk there instead of seeing the inside of the castle, and a radio station was hosting a small Christmas concert.  We went into the mall to buy dry socks at Marks & Spencers (should have purchased Wellingtons instead).  Though it was Sunday the shops were open late for the holidays, and there was a long line to meet Father Christmas (who was hidden so you wouldn’t take a free picture of him from a distance).

Back in the West End we decided to get our obligatory trip pizza at Mancini Restaurant.  The pizza was mediocre, but we were pleasantly surprised by a fantastic leek and wild mushroom lasagna.

23 November

Morning train to Edinburgh a quick 50 minutes through flat and green landscape.  The flooding for many days of rain is evident from the fields.  We headed straight to the Tourist Information Center right next door to get a better map and book some tickets.  It was difficult to find the bus stop to get to our hotel because that entire central area is undergoing major renovations for a new tram line (scheduled now to continue in 2011 – so travelers until then will need to ask around to find a particular bus stop).  Luckily we took a wrong turn and discovered the lockers at the long haul bus station, which are considerable cheaper than the luggage storage at the train station (which charges about £7 per bag, while we fit all our luggage into one large bus lock for £5 for the entire day on the day we left).

Our hotel was about 1.5 miles from the center, we walked many times but not with the luggage.  For £3 in Edinburgh you can buy a bus ticket valid the entire day (walkers staying in the heart of the city probably will not need this, but it was useful for us).  Glenalmond House is a very nice hotel located on a street with many similar types of accommodations.  It came highly recommended from TripAdvisor and did not disappoint, particularly since in the off season we received 20% off our room rate for staying 3 nights.

Lunch was at Time 4 Thai at 45 North Castle Street, which had a fairly good value set price £12.50 for an appetizer, main course, and ice cream.  The food was excellent (green curry chicken), and the service was very polite and attentive, almost making us feel like we were Thailand (until we saw the bill and walked back outside into the cold).

We bought a ticket for Hop On Hop Off tours, which we might not normally have done except that it was continuing to pour rain all day every day, and we wanted to get some city history.  The tickets are valid for 24 hours (rather than for one day, so we started our ticket late afternoon but were able to use it again until the same time the following day) and can be used for all the different tour buses.  The Grand Ticket cost £15, and we took each tour (some have a live guide, some have recorded commentary in different languages).  The Majestic Tour was first, but because of the road construction diversions the recorded commentary was sometimes off synch.  We hopped off and walked around a little and then switched to Mac Vintage Tours, which had a lively and informative woman as our guide.

We walked to the Elephant Café, where J.K. Rowling says she wrote the beginnings of Harry Potter while staring at Edinburgh Castle.  We ate on the same block at The Outsider restaurant on George IV Bridge, which looked expensive except that it had a chalkboard special roast lamb for £9.50, served with potatoes and green beans and deliciously topped with fresh oregano.  We each had the special and

also a superb side of roasted sweet potatoes with a hint of curry.  We would enthusiastically recommend the place, and it has a very nice atmosphere and good service.  Dessert was tea and Hob Nobs in our room while watching a Jack the Ripper documentary.  We’ve decided Tumblety did it.

24 November

A real Scottish breakfast today, complete with haggis and a fried potato scone (greasy).  Wow – a hearty breakfast to carry us through the cold, wet day.  Continued our Hop On Hop Off tours for a few more hours.  Simple Meal Deal from Boots (in the UK sandwiches are very popular, and Boots and some other department and grocery stores offer meal deals for about £3 including the sandwich, chips, and a drink).    We sat on a bench in the courtyard of the City Chambers, which was sheltered from the rain.

 

Museum of Childhood has many displays of toys throughout time, located right on the Royal Mile on a block that is also blessed with many charity shops (thrift shops in American).   We tried to visit the People’s Story Museum, but as is our curse it was closed for the week (just the week we were there, mind you).  Also on the same stretch of High Street is the Scottish Storytelling Centre, which that afternoon was hosting a free Café Ceilidh, a mix of song and story/joke telling.  We had tea and a superb slice of

homemade cake in their café while listening to the Ceilidh and enjoyed it so much we stayed for the whole 2 hours.

Back up the mile for our tour of The Real Mary King’s Close, which bills itself as “the only street in Edinburgh where it never rains.”  Closes are narrow passageways — or alleys — between tenements (multistory buildings of flats).  Mary King was a 17^th century businesswoman who lived in this particular close, which had been buried and only opened as a tourist attraction in 2003.  Admission is by guided tour only, and it’s best to make reservations since tours often sell out.  It’s expensive, £10.50 per person, and we were never able to locate a discount coupon.

Thank goodness for the radiator in our hotel room because every night our jackets, shoes and hats were soaked but would dry on the radiator overnight.

25 November

The worst weather day of the trip, which is saying a lot, but we booked a Grayline Tour to St. Andrews for the day.  There are several day tour operators in Edinburgh, but Grayline picked up directly at the hotel and offered the tour on a good day for us, so we selected it over its competitors.  £30 for a day trip is a fair price, and St. Andrews is difficult to get to with out a rental car, so we were happy to take the tour.  The tour guide/driver was just the right amount of talkative, giving us lots of information and pointing out places of interest, but not too much.

Photo stop at the Firth of Forth Bridge, and engineering marvel with one bridge built in the 1870s for trains and the other built in the 1950s for cars.

Stopped for an hour in Dunfermline, whose Abbey is the burial place of King Robert the Bruce.  It’s also the birthplace of Andrew Carnegie, but his Birthplace Museum was closed for the winter.  We touched its walls anyhow for good luck.  Walked into many charity shops in the town and got some Christmas pies in a bakery (too sweet, frosting like mom’s powdered sugar and water recipe!).  Found a book in Charles Rennie Mackintosh one charity shop for just 79 pence!  We ducked into the little café in Abbott House basement but just looked around since we were short on time, but it looked like a nice place to have tea or lunch and was hopping with patrons.

Drove through many fields of brussel sprouts getting ready for their Christmas harvest and will never understand how they are considered a holiday treat in the UK.  We had lunch in Anstruther in the fish & chip shop that consistently wins awards as best chippie in the UK.  Our guide earned himself a big tip by dropping us right at the door and not making us walk in the miserable wind.  The restaurant had great service and good mushy peas, but it wasn’t quite as the [Scottish] woman at the next table put it, “smashing.”  We walked briefly around the town and watched all the uniformed school kids taking their lunch break and picking up fish & chips from the various chippies around town.

St. Andrews is known as the birthplace of golf and for its university, the oldest in Scotland.  We also saw the beach where the famous scene in “Chariots of Fire” was filmed.  We puttered around the town visiting the cathedral remains and cemetery, more charity shops, and then stopped for tea.  We picked up some score cards at the official golf shop for a gift and got a “krumbly shake” at Luvians restaurant.  Since our feet had suffered so much on this trip we bought 10 pairs of socks at Edinburgh Woolen Mill shop.

The guide dropped us off along the Royal Mile, and we went for a light dinner at the White Hart Inn, where the infamous Burke and Hare lured away drunken clients to murder them and sell their bodies to medical students.  Had a shot of Scotch finally!  Walked home in the rain and got seriously splashed by the bus.

26 November (Thanksgiving)

Finally a day without nonstop rain.  We walked to Dean Village, a neighborhood that has been lovingly preserved and now gentrified.  This used to be an area with mills and graneries, and there is still evidence of its history scattered throughout.  We enviously walked around the courtyard of an old industrial building now renovated into offices and housing on the river banks.  Walking along the bridge we were stopped by an elderly Scottish gentleman walking his poodle and eager to give us advice.  Wisely we followed his recommendation to walk along the river to our next destination, the Stockbridge neighborhood.

More charity shops and a purchase of an original watercolor of a country home in the colors of our house for £6.  We walked up to St. Bernards Crescent, a Georgian crescent with lovely homes, and also similar Anne Street.  Our Time Out Glasgow had a good walk marked on it.  Outstanding lunch at the Stockbridge Tap at Raeburn Place.  The mussels pancetta and wine was extraordinary.  Good and

spicypumpkin with chili and ginger soup, Aberdeen Angus steak, roasted pheasant wrapped in bacon, parsnips, truffle mashed potatoes – all excellent and topped off with a WOW! worthy homemade vanilla ice cream.  £15 for 3 courses, great value.

The Christmas Market along Queen Street opened up with many German type of food and gift stalls (we would see virtually the same market in London the next day).  The Scottish National Galleries of Art are open late on Thursdays, so we had plenty of time to visit, and we really enjoyed the Scottish collections.  Since our overnight train to London left just before midnight, we decided to take in a movie so saw the British “An Education.”

We had booked the overnight Highlander train to London a while back.  They sell a small number of bargain berths for each trip, so we booked those on the day the tickets went on sale.  Our cabin was small but very clean and comfortable.  It’s hard to sleep well on a train, but it wasn’t too back and saved us time and cost about as much as a hotel in London anyhow.

27 November

Very early morning arrival in London, but by the time we arrived to our hotel we were able to leave our luggage and proceed with the day.  You can read our detailed review of the Cherry Court Hotel on TripAdvisor.  Rick Steves and his followers love this place.  I will say that I don’t know of any other hotel in central London with a private bath that isn’t totally scary for £55 a night (at the time we booked, but for 2010 the price is raised to £60, and I think we might be inclined next time to return to the Arran House Hotel near the British Museum, where a room without private bath is £87 in 2010, and where we stayed in 2007) , but the sliding bathroom door with little frosted glass panels was a bit much even for budget minded travelers like us.  It was clean enough, and the owners are kind, but “comfortable” isn’t the first word that comes to mind (convenient and cheap do, though).

We took the scenic route to Spitalfields Market.  Despite having spent so much time in London, it’s still an experience to drive past Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament.  Our first stop was the Geffrye Museum, which we had visited years before but never at Christmas time, when it is decorated for Christmas throughout the ages (the museum is set up as a timeline of interior decoration, and the Christmas theme follows through).  Having visited before in the off season on a normal day, we expected the place to be nearly empty, but it was bustling with activity.  Unfortunately it is set up so that everyone enters and exits through the same hallway, and it got very crowded an uncomfortable.  Of course a highlight for us the beautifully decorated Arts & Crafts era room.

To us Spitalfields Market is a bit overrated.  A lot of shops and restaurants, but many of them are chains.  We ate lunch at Wagamama since it is always cheap and good.  We bought truffles at Montezuma’s, which says it is award winning, but despite an excellent choice of flavors we found it waxy and lacking flavor (and at £1.65 for one truffle, overpriced).

Southbank Centre for the rest of the evening, stopping to pick up our concert tickets ordered online for a benefit for the homeless at Royal Festival Hall (hosted by Stephen Fry but ultimately a huge disappointment since he scarcely said a word, and the music was uninspiring).  We walked along the banks and observed the German Christmas market, the London Eye, the buskers, and the Bankside Gallery where we had purchased some etchings a few years ago.

Dinner at Ping Pong.  When, when, when will we ever learn not to eat at restaurants recommended in American guide books??!!  Ping Pong is a trendy dim sum style restaurant.  We ordered combo dishes that came with 11 pieces each and also flowering teas.  The teas come with a little bundle that opens up in a few minutes, and while they were pretty they tasted like a glass of hot water, and we don’t need to spend four bucks for a glass of hot water (we sent them back and did get the money taken off).  The dim sum pieces were all very good, and the sticky rice and mango custard dessert was delicious, but for the equivalent of $60 we left hungry.  So we went to hear some free jazz inside the concert hall and enjoyed excellent pumpkin spice soup and vegetable mushroom soup (we would have been better off just having dinner there).

28 November

Scenic bus ride through Camden past the busy Saturday market and up to Hampstead.  Wish we had known the right in Hampstead Heath area there are so many places with full English breakfast at a good price – next trip!  The Keats Museum doesn’t open until afternoon, so we had to skip that though there was a costume exhibit from the film “Bright Star,” which would have been nice to see.  From there walked over to Highgate and stumbled upon a monthly Farmer’s Market in Queen’s Park, and our snack issue was solved.  We tasted a bunch of cheeses and then purchased a goat cheese camembert style cheese and a sheep’s milk cheese – mild but delicious from Wobbly Bottom Cheeses.  At the risk of developing wobbly bottoms ourselves, we ate some right away.  We also sampled and then purchased an amazing slice of cardamom sweet bread.

Walked through the posh neighborhood up to Highgate Cemetery, taking advantage of one of the only non-rainy days we’ve had the entire trip.  Highgate is jewel in the crown of Victorian cemeteries.  We have a book Permanent Londoners (out of print but available through Amazon – we have Permanent Parisians as well), which offers a good overview to many of London’s cemeteries (we’ve visited Brompton and Kensal Green on other trips), but Highgate can only be visited through a guided tour.  The cemetery was built in the 1830s to accommodate burials for the growing population, but it become dilapidated by the 1960s and 70s.  During that time Hammer Films made many of its famous horror films there, though an Internet search for a list of which ones was fruitless (I found many references to movies having been filmed there, but no list of specific ones, so if any of our readers come across such a list or even the names of a few specific films please email them to us).  During the 1980s the Friends of the Cemetery started a massive restoration project that continues to this day, and the admission fee for the tours all goes towards future restoration and upkeep efforts (the tour fee is £7, cash only, and check their website for tour times since they change seasonally).

Our guide was excellent and gave us a lot of history and information.  We saw the new grave of the Russian journalist (Alexander Litvinenko) who was murdered and many historic tombs, including that of the Warne family (including Norman Warne, who had been secretly engaged to Beatrix Potter before his untimely death at a young age).  You can photograph most of the picturesque cemetery, but some graves are not to be photographed out of respect, including that of the Russian and also the interior of the elaborate mausoleum that entrepreneur Julius Beer built for his little daughter (including a statue of her made from her death mask).

Following the tour we took the bus to Swiss Cottage and walked to the Hampstead Theatre.  We had an excellent lunch for £17, an onion and goat cheese tart, a side of chunky chips with garlic mayonnaise, and an excellent mushroom and sweet potato risotto.  We couldn’t more highly recommend eating at this theatre, and be aware that there is a lot more seating in the downstairs if the upstairs is full, though the food took a long time to come out.  We saw an entertaining one act play called “I Found My Horn,” based on a popular book by the same name.  We’d purchased the tickets in advance online directly through the theatre, with no service charge, and picked them up from the box office just before the performance (you must produce the same credit card upon pick up).

The rest of the night went downhill after the play.  Taking a bus instead of the Tube in order to go down Oxford Street and enjoy the Christmas illuminations was a bad idea since traffic was barely crawling.  It was raining, but we finally got out to walk anyhow and ended up making a wrong turn when trying to take a short cut.  We went to Mr. Punjab, a well known but affordable place, for a curry, but the wait was 45 minutes long yet they didn’t take your name down (we were told to just come back and they’d remember us).  Not trusting the Mr. Punjab system we just walked around and found another Indian place, and though the couple immediately in front of us were seating immediately, we were told for us there would be a 45 minute wait.  WTH??  Did Punjab call ahead to these people and given them our physical descriptions and ask them to turn us away??!  We continued walking through the rain and ended up at Mela, where we had eaten a decent dinner a few years before, but we missed the pre-theatre menu by 15 minutes, and ordering a la carte is ridiculously overpriced.  For £19, including the mandatory 12% service charge, we got 1 entrée (a good, but small portion of chicken tikka masala) and 2 pieces of naan.  Did I mention we paid $34 for one little portion of chicken and 2 pieces of bread?

Hungry, cold and tired we waited and waited and waited for one, two, three buses to come and then pass us over since they wouldn’t be going all the way to Victoria.  Finally back at Victoria we went to Sainsburys for some end of the day discounted sandwiches, yogurt (our favorite Müller crunch corner – banana with chocolate flakes and cherry), and Hob Nobs.  We enjoyed our reasonably priced food with no service charge back in our hotel.

29 November

Another rain-filled day, so we headed right to Trafalgar Square to spend the whole day viewing art.  The National Portrait Gallery had a photography exhibit in the lower level, and then later while walking around the museum we saw the twin Indian sisters who had been in one of the pictures.  Annabella approached them and asked if they were the sisters in the photo, and they said that they were and were doing some research for an upcoming exhibit.  They are Indian miniature painting artists, so she told them how we had purchased a custom made miniature on our trip to India, and said she would try to visit their exhibit when she’s back in London in March.

We headed over to the National Gallery for a guided tour, which included some painters we had been unfamiliar with, such as Cranach the Elder.  A great thing with the London museums is that they are free, so you can come and go as you please.  We then headed back to the Portrait Gallery first to get lunch in their café, a yummy sweet potato and rocket/arugula frittata and a scone with clotted cream and jam with a pot of team.  We paid 25 pence for an extra portion of clotted cream, though the cashier seemed a bit distressed about the purchase, exclaiming, “One cream is enough for one scone!”  Prices in this museum

Obviously we are not the only people who decided to spend the day in the museums because both were the most crowded we’ve ever experienced them.  Back at the Portrait Gallery we attended a talk about Robert Louis Stevenson since we’d just from Scotland and heard so much about him.  These tours are all free, informative, and only about 45 minutes long.  Apparently even 45 minutes was too long for an older man who had fallen asleep in parts and then kept asking questions about things the guide had already told us, finally prompting her to comment, “Yes, I did say he was the inspiration for Jekyll and Hyde, you must have been asleep during that bit.”  Cheeky, but funny.  Then back again to the National Gallery to see if the crowds had subsided at the exhibit of Amsterdam prostitution, Keinholz, the Hoerengracht.  How to describe it?  A life-size installation of Amsterdam’s Red Light District, created decades ago by the American artists, but in National Gallery fashion well done with commentary and complementary exhibits of historical paintings of Dutch prostitution.

 

St. Martin-in-the-Fields was holding a Carol Advent service, so we decided to go early to get a seat.  Normally we would have eaten in the church’s excellent crypt cafe, but we weren’t too keen on the menu choices that day.  The early seating was generally a good idea since it did fill up, but just at the last minute a stinky homeless man (with a cell phone) came and sat right next to us.  I know it’s church and all, but the smell was terrible.  We thought it would be a nice musical service for under an hour, but there was reading after reading and prayer after prayer, and the songs were god-awful boring and it got to the point where we just couldn’t take another minute of it and we had to leave (and we were not alone).  We had already been there 80 minutes.

Dinner tonight at Wagamama’s new sister restaurant, Busaba Eathai.  Like Wagamama you share a table with strangers, but this has a more upscale look to it, and though it was crowded we were seated right away.  The food was good, not stellar, but by London standards pretty fair prices (£18 for 2 entrees plus a side of rice).  Picked up some custard and bean buns in Chinatown for dessert.

30 November

Tate Museum (the old Tate) visit on our last day in London, which since we were last here also expanded its museum restaurant and café.  Another guided tour today, quite enjoyable and organized from the oldest painting to the newest.  Lunch in the café and a good parsnip soup and chicken pot pie.   Back to Heathrow for a little shopping and our flight home.

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General Tips and Tricks

• Read our entry 23 Nov.  Left luggage in Edinburgh is much cheaper at the bus station than it is at the train station a few blocks away.
• Glasgow transport offers an all day Discovery Ticket, £3.50 valid on the subway and buses.  Make sure you double check the time table for the subway because it closes early and runs short hours on weekends.
• Many hotels in the UK give a cash discount for paying cash (or better said, they charge 5% or so more to use a credit card).
• Though your bank may not charge you an ATM fee to withdraw from a foreign bank, it very likely does charge you a 1-3% foreign exchange fee, so if you’re avoiding using a credit card in order to avoid their 2-3% foreign exchange fees, you may not actually save anything by using cash.  I’ve tracked exchange fees very closely and find that using American Express is always the best bet (they charge a fee but always offer a better exchange rate), while using cash saves between .5-1% over using Visa.
• Eating out in the UK, especially London, is expensive.  Sandwich shops are ubiquitious, and Boots the Chemist and many department stores also have sandwich meal deals – these are a cheap and easy lunch. Support museums, churches, theatres and other arts venues by patronizing their in house cafes and restaurants, which offer good quality, convenient, and value priced meals.