Boutique Hotels in London

The following is my blog about a recent trip to London with my wife and older kids.

Saturday

We took a taxi to JFK, got our luggage and checked-in for our flight to London on Virgin Atlantic. We had bought our vacation package through Virgin Atlantic and it included round-trip to London from New York , six nights stay in a hotel, transfers to and from the airport in London and Paris , a train ride from London to Paris through the Chunnel and a flight back from Paris to London . This whole package was a super killer deal.

We really liked Virgin Atlantic as an airline. They were extremely friendly and cheerful. At each seat, they had a bag of stuff that included ear plugs, eye mask, toothbrush and toothpaste, and a pair of comfortable sock booties. Each chair had a TV where they showed up to 8 different movies as well as being able to play Nintendo games. If you go First Class, they pick you up at your house in a limo and take you to the airport as well as giving massages mid-flight to First Class passengers. We were happy back in economy section and we were all so sleepy from the long day and from our all night flight the night before, we all slept the 7 hours to London .

Sunday

We arrived at London Heathrow at about 11:00 am London time. Virgin Atlantic took us to our hotel and we changed and showered and went and had some lunch. Zach was again unconscious through lunch. We stayed at the Ramada Jarvis Kensington, a small boutique hotel in London . Our address was:

Ramada Jarvis Kensington
33 Queens Gate, London , England
011442075847222

Our hotel was not far from Hyde Park and we walked a block to the Hyde Park chapel to attend church for an afternoon session, but we had messed up on the hours. We decided that since we couldn't attend church, we would go to the British Museum . We took a taxi to the Museum and had about an hour and a half to go through the Museum. We saw the Rosetta Stone and Dalita learned all about how to translate the hieroglyphics.

We saw a lot of great Egyptian artifacts, including part of the colossal statue of Ramses II, the pharaoh that was most likely in power during Moses' time. After seeing the artifacts of Egypt through their rise and fall of their empire, we went to see artifacts from the next great world power, the Assyrians. We saw artifacts from the period of when the Assyrians would have invaded the Northern Kingdom of Israel and taken the ten tribes hostage.

We then moved on to the next great civilization, the Greeks. Greek Temples were houses of their gods. They believed that the temple was the god's home (The House of the Lord). Worshipers gathered outside, so the most impressive part of their temples was the outside. Statues and friezes would decorate the outside. The British Museum houses the pediment, the frieze and statues from Greece 's greatest temple, the Parthenon.

The Pediment Sculptures were stunning and spectacular. They were originally in the Parthenon's pediment, and represent the birth of Athena. The statues are vibrant and detailed and big! We then went upstairs and saw a great collection of Egyptian mummies and their crypts.

In the center of the museum, they have built a great library that reminded Dalita of the library in Beauty and the Beast. Before this central square was enclosed, it was a place where people could sit on benches. One such person was Karl Marx, who sat here and wrote Das Kapital as he was formulating communism.

We stayed until the Museum closed.

We then took a taxi to St. Paul 's cathedral, the national cathedral of England . We saw pigeons around on the steps and wondered if it still cost tuppence a bag to feed the birds. We went inside and marveled at the building built by a mathematician, Christopher Wren after the great London fire of 1666. Christopher Wren had never built or designed a building before, but after the fire, he was asked to build St. Paul 's as well as lay out the city including 50 other chapels. It took the next 40 years of his life to complete this building.

This was the cathedral where Prince Charles and Lady Diana were married. Inside is the Wellington Monument , in memory of Wellington who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo . There are also memorials to other prominent Brits including Florence Nightingale, Admiral Nelson, who defeated the French fleet in 1805, and painters like Turner and Reynolds.

At the far end of the chapel is the American Memorial Chapel. Britain is very grateful to America and remembers them religiously here, directly behind the altar, with the Roll of Honor. On the roll is the name of over 28,000 US Servicemen based in Britain who gave their lives. In the stained glass windows above the Roll of Honor includes the American Eagle, George Washington, and symbols of all 50 states.

Elsewhere in the cathedral, there is a statue of a preacher there named John Donne who preached a famous sermon here, “ No man is an island…Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind. Therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls – it tolls for thee.”

We left the cathedral as the bells of St. Paul tolled for us as it closed and we walked across the street and observed the statue of in honor of the firefighters that saved London during the Blitz of 1940. It is estimated that over 4 million homes and buildings burned during the bombings. Miraculously, St. Paul's survived. The faithful state that bombs literally bounced off the dome of St. Paul 's. Other credit the heroic efforts of the firefighters.

We continued down to the River Thames and crossed the Millennial Bridge . This is a pedestrian bridge that was built for the year 2000. When it first opened, hundreds of thousands walked across and combined with high winds, it began swaying. They closed the bridge for a while, reinforced it and just opened it back up.

Zach and Dalita raced across bridge and waited for us on the other side. On the other side, we walked past the Globe Theatre, past the Clink prison (Throw them in the Clink), and on to a replica of the Golden Hinde. Sir Francis Drake spent 3 years circumnavigating the globe starting in 1577. He returned home loaded down with gold and jewels and delivered them to Queen Elizabeth. She, in return, knighted him. He later help beat the Spanish Armada in 1588.

We continued on down the Thames to where the modern day London Bridge is. The other London Bridge was bought by an American and now spans part of Lake Havasu in the United States . At the end of the bridge, we found “ Nancy 's Steps,” the place in Oliver Twist where Nancy arranges to meet to deliver Oliver to the nice couple and then she winds up getting beaten and dies there. Nikki and Ali both lay strewn on the steps as we took their pictures.

By this time, it was getting late in the evening. It was cold and damp next to the River Thames. We had flown all night the previous two nights, we had gone through a museum, a church, and along the River Thames, and had not gotten a nap for our jet lag. Dalita accused me of a forced death march. I knew it was time for food. We took a taxi to Covent Gardens and wandered through there, listening to the street musicians (there was a great trio playing classical music that we listened to for a while). We finally decided on eating at a hip Belgian place called Belgo (you didn't know that anything from Belgium could be classified as hip, did you?). We had some nouveau Belgium cuisine and some great seafood and it was a fun place to go.

Finally, we had done enough for one day and we made our way back to our hotel.

Monday

On Monday, we made our way by the Underground or Tube as they call it, to Tower Hill and went to the Tower of London . We made our way to where the Crown Jewels are and were bedazzled by their glitter and sparkle. We saw St. Edward's Crown, the crown placed upon each new monarch upon coronation. This crown dates back to King Edward, in 1061, the last English King before William the Conqueror.

We then saw the Sovereign's Scepter and Orb. Within the scepter is the 530 carat Star of Africa , the largest cut diamond in the world. The orb symbolizes how Christianity rules over the world and is a reminder that even a “divine monarch” is not above God's law.

We next saw the Crown of the Queen Mother. The Queen Mother had passed away the week before we got there. It has the 106-carat Koh-I-Noor diamond which is considered unlucky for male rulers and therefore only adorns the crown of the king's wife. If Charles becomes King and has a wife, she'll wear this.

We also saw Queen Victoria 's crown, a little crown she had made because she had headaches when she wore the big one and we saw the Imperial Crown, a crown worn at the annual opening of Parliament.

We also saw movies and clips describing the coronation ceremony that includes placing robes upon the new King or Queen, the bestowing of new names and titles, and the anointing of their heads and other body parts with oil. I thought these were interesting practices that had deviated from the truth over the centuries.

We then went back to the moat area and met up with a Beefeater, one of the Tower Guards, that gave a very entertaining tour of the tower. They are called Beefeaters because in old times, only the nobles and wealthy ate beef and the Guards were paid in beef as part of their pay. He showed us the prison where Sir Thomas More was imprisoned (“Man for All Seasons”) for not caving to King Henry VIII. He was eventually taken to Tower Hill and executed because his principles were more important to him than his life.

We saw Traitors Gate, the entrance by water from the River Thames where such people as Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard came through to meet their deaths from King Henry VIII. Some came through the gate, such as Elizabeth I, that later were able to gain their freedom and leave the Tower. We also saw the White Tower , originally built by William the Conquerer and the prison where Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned for getting on the Queen's bad side. We heard about the story about the 17 year old Jane Grey who was manipulated by her uncle to take the throne after the death of King Henry the VIII, but a few day later, “Bloody Mary” came to power and imprisoned her and later had her beheaded.

We left the Tower of London , got on a boat, rode down the River Thames and got off at Westminster . As we walked up the stairs, we saw the statue of Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni. When Julius Caesar invaded England , he established the town of Londinium , site of present day London . When Roman soldiers violated her daughters, Boadicea rallied her people, liberated London and killed 70,000 Romans. However, the revolt was short lived and she and her family took poison rather than be captured. Pretty bodacious , I would say!

We passed by Big Ben and Parliament to the corner where the world's first traffic light was installed in 1868. On the corner of the Parliament is a little yellow light that says “Taxi”. When a member of Parliament needs a taxi, this light blinks and a taxi comes. Across the street is Parliament Square where there is a statue of Winston Churchill as he was coming ashore on D-Day. It is stated that Churchill asked that the statue be electrified so pigeons wouldn't sit on his head.

We went down the street to Parliament and were able to get in to see the House of Commons in session. It was interesting to see and listen to the debates between the Labor and Conservative Parties (Conservatives sat on the right side and Labor on the left) and see the great halls of Parliament.

We left the Houses of Parliament and walked up Whitehall . We stopped at the Cabinet War Rooms. This was a fascinating walk through the underground headquarters of the British Government's fight against Nazi Germany. One day after VE day, the headquarters were closed and sealed tight for the next 40 years. They have recently restored the War Rooms, leaving all the maps, charts and arrangements in place as they were on the day after the war ended.

This 21 room complex was used from 1939 to 1945. Churchill resisted moving into here until a bomb hit # 10 Downing Street and he moved in that next day. Here he lived and directed the war effort. It was from here, that most of his famous speeches were given. He had a secret room that had a direct phone line to Roosevelt . We took an excellent audio tour. Churchill and many of the other ministers lived and worked here 24 hours a day during the war. They had a bed in the back of the room and an office desk next to it. The audio tour stated that Churchill would work late into the night and then sleep in late and when he would awake, he would work sitting in his bed until around noon . When news was especially bad, he would pull the covers up over his head and grumble. When news was especially good, he would jump up and down on his bed like a schoolboy.

There was a map room that showed all the movements of the various forces and troops. There were also charts on the wall that showed everything from number of attacks on London , to detailed manufacturing data of various war components and supplies. At the end of the tour there was a brief exhibit on Winston Churchill and excerpts from his career. We would have spent more time there, but the museum was closing .

We continued up Whitehall and passed the Cenotaph, a monument to the dead of WWI and WWII. It is stated that if all the dead from WWI from England marched passed this monument and if they were 4 abreast and the parade when on for 24 hours per day, that the parade would last 7 days and nights.

We continued along Whitehall , passing the well fortified #10 Downing Street . Across the street were statues of some of England 's defenders, including “Monty”, Field Marshall Montgomery who led the British to victory in WWII in Africa against the “Desert Fox” of Germany . Next stands a statue of Walter Raleigh, who was presented in glory to Queen Elizabeth, but later threw him in the Tower of London , accusing him for plotting against her and had him beheaded near the House of Parliament.

Further down, across the street was the old Banqueting House, part of the original Westminster Palace . It was out of one of these windows that King Charles 1 st was brought, shown to the crowd below, said one last word, “Remember” and then was beheaded, ending the monarchy for a time as Oliver Cromwell tried to put Parliament in control of the country. Oliver Cromwell has a statue at one end of Whitehall in front of Parliament and King Charles I has a statue at the other end at Trafalgar Square . King Charles II later restored the monarchy, but with a much more powerful parliament. Royalist later had Oliver Cromwell body exhumed 10 years after his death and had the corpse beheaded and quartered and the head stuck on a post for 24 years outside Westminster Abby.

Continuing down Whitehall , we saw the place of the original Scotland Yard and then came to Trafalgar Square . In 1805, Napoleon was poised on the other side of the Channel, threatening to invade England . Off the coast of Spain , near Trafalgar, Admiral Horatio Nelson attacked the French fleet and beat them. At the end of the battle, after securing the win, Lord Nelson was shot by a French sniper. As he was dying, he gasped, “Thank God, I have done my duty.”

Lord Nelson sits atop a 170 foot tall column in the center of Trafalgar Square . Around his statue, sits four huge lions melted down from enemy cannons. We climbed up a top one of the lions and had our picture taken. The artist who did the lions had never seen a real lion before, so he used his dog as a model and the feet look like doggie paws.

We then made our way over to Abbey Road . We wanted to take a picture walking across the crosswalk of Abbey Road , like on the Beatles Abbey Road Album. I stood in the median strip to take the photo and Dalita told the kids to walk in unison across the street. We waited for the traffic to let up and when it was clear, they began to cross the road, with Dalita in the rear. The kids, not having seen the album cover, walked across the road side-by-side, instead of one-after-each-other. Dalita trailed behind, at first perplexed and then laughing hysterically at the misunderstanding. The kids were puzzled as what had gone wrong. We finally showed them and they laughed and we finally got the shot.

We then made our way over to Kings Cross Station. It was at this train station, that the Hogwarts Express train left from Platform 9 ¾. The scene was filmed here between platforms 3 and 4 and we videotaped each of the kids running through the wall, just as in Harry Potter. We also saw the walkway over the train platform where Hagrid says goodbye to Harry. That was a lot of fun.

We tried to go see the Eye of London, but it wasn't open for summer hours late, so we went to a weird IMAX film and then went home.

Tuesday

On Tuesday we went to Westminster Abby and were there as they opened the doors first thing in the morning. Outside on the lawn were wreaths from different nations sent in honor of the death of the Queen Mum, whose funeral was held here the week before. Westminster Abbey was built in 1065. King Edward had wanted to visit St. Peter's in Rome , but with the Normans threatening invasion, he stayed put and had Westminster (means Church in the West – West of St. Paul's) built. It was finished in time for the burial of King Edward in 1065 and just in time for the coronation of King William the Conqueror from Normandy in 1066. Since that time, every English monarch coronation since then has taken place here.

As we walked in the north transept, “Statesmen's Corner”, we saw the memorial for Disraeli, who ruled as prime minister during the peak of England 's power for Queen Victoria . There was another called Robert Peel. He was called Bob and his policemen had the nickname “bob”-bies, and the name has stuck for English policemen.

We next went past the tomb of King Edward I, who built the Abby. After he was buried here, people would come and pray and enough had their prayers answered that he was canonized and became St. Edward. It is his crown that has been used for each coronation since that time.

We next went to the burial chapel of Queen Elizabeth I. Next to her is the tomb of her half sister, Bloody Mary. Mary was daughter of Catherine of Aragon of Spain. After the death of King Henry VIII and his break with the Catholic Church, Mary tried to reinstate Catholicism and burned Protestants at the stake during her 5 year reign and had Lady Jane Grey executed and imprisoned the sister she lays next to in death for a while in the Tower of London . When Elizabeth came to power (daughter of Anne Boleyn), she steered the county down the Anglican, protestant path. She ruled England for 44 years from 1559 to 1603 during one of its greatest periods, during the time of Shakespeare.

We then went into the Chapel of King Henry VII. The room was filled with banners and chairs or stalls where the Knights of Bath sat. Over the head of each chair is the insignia of that knight. The tomb behind the small alter is for King Henry VII of Lancaster and his wife, Elizabeth of York. Their marriage finally settled the “War of the Roses” between the two clans. The combined red-and-white rose symbol decorated the ironwork.

At the far end of the chapel was the Royal Air Force Chapel, where in stained glass are saints in halos mingled with pilots in bomber jackets. This memorial is in honor of those WWII flyers who lost their lives in the Battle of Britain. Etched in the middle is Churchill's quote, “Never has so much been owed by so many to so few.” In front of the windows is a book with the names of each casualty of the Battle of Britain. Down on the floor was the grave of Oliver Cromwell who was buried here before he was exhumed, hanged, drawn, quartered, and beheaded as a warning to future king-killers.

We then saw the tomb of Mary Queen of Scots. She was a distant cousin to Elizabeth I and Elizabeth saw her as enough of a threat that Elizabeth had her beheaded.

We then saw the Coronation Chair, where during coronation, it is moved to the High Altar and has been used for every coronation since 1296. The space below the chair used to hold a big rock from Scotland called the Stone of Scone, representing the unity of Scotland with England . Just recently, as Scotland has given more sovereignty and its own parliament, England sent the Stone back to Scotland .

We then walked into Poet's corner, were there are monuments and plaques to some of the world's greatest writers, including Geoffrey Chaucer, Lewis Carroll, T.S. Eliot, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, William Shakespeare, George Handel, and Charles Dickens. Standing on the memorial to Rudyard Kipling, Nikki recited the entire poem called “If” written by him.

At the end of the tour around the chapel, we came to the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. The Tomb is always lined with flowers and today had the wreath that had been on the Queen Mums casket the previous week. Buried there is a WWI soldier and the lettering on the tomb was made from melted down weapons from that war that called upon more than 1 million men from Britain to fight. On a pillar nearby is the US Congressional Medal of Honor presented to England 's WWI dead.

We stepped out of the Abby, visited the bathroom and Dalita took a picture of the award on the wall of the bathroom that pronounced it the “Loo of the Year” last year. We walked past St. James Park with all the flowers in bloom and made our way to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards.

We actually first went to the Inspection of the Guard Ceremony at the Wellington Barracks, just 500 yards east of the Palace. There, we could see their inspection and a lot of marching around without all of the crowds. We met an old English gentleman who came every day to watch since his wife of 40 years had died a few years ago. He was a Royal Marine in WWII in the Pacific.

When the guards marched to the Palace to change, we followed them over and watched the pageantry for a while. We then left and made our way over to the Eye of London. The Eye of London is the world's largest Ferris wheel. Within each cabin fit about 25 people and at the top you are 450 feet above the city and can see greater London for 40 miles all around. It was a beautiful and clear day and we saw all the sites we had been visiting.

We then made our way over to 221b Bakers Street . We were supposed to take a walking tour that talked all about Sherlock Holmes, but I took a slow way to get there and we just missed the tour. So we went over to 221b Baker Street and went into a museum there and Zach and I bought Sherlock Holmes hat. We talked to the curator and she had a stack of letters on the desks from all over the world and she said that they receive from 20 to 100 letters per day, mostly from school classes in the United States and that they answer every one of them.

We came back to central London and went to The Globe. The Globe is a reconstruction of Shakespeare's theatre near its original location. It has been painstakingly reconstructed to be as authentic as possible, with the open air theatre and the wood benches and the thatched roof. In between the seats and the stage is an open area, where people could come and stand and watch the play. These were the cheap tickets and the people there would be called “groundlings”. They would be a part of the play and Shakespeare would write his plays so he could get verbal participation from the crowd.

We then went to Harrods Department store and saw the world's most elegant escalator, all decked out in Egyptian themes. Dalita bought a Wedgwood cup for her collection – it had an English Garden theme about it. They had the most wonderful food court with exotic food, with everything from cheeses of Europe , to the top chocolates, to fish, meats, and fruits and vegetables, to sushi. We got some cheese to go and ate some quick food there.

We went back to the Hotel, made a quick change and took a taxi to Theatre Royal Drury Lane and watched “My Fair Lady” with all the proper British accents. It was a lot of fun. Ali got a tee shirt that says, “I'm a good girl, I am.”

We took the Tube back home and had some great cheese to snack on back at the hotel and got ready to leave London the next day.

*Note: Much of the historical and factual information comes from the guidebooks for London from Rick Steves, the guy on PBS who travels through Europe . We found his books to be informative, useful, and hit a spot of weird humor that resonated with us. We highly recommended them – they told us correct hours of museum closings (essential for us), told us how to get around the city at the lowest price, and told us all the ways to avoid the huge lines that form at some of these places. You can find his guidebooks at www.ricksteves.com or at bookstores everywhere.