Westminster Abbey

Getting around London is a snap! People here complain about the tube service, but we've found that we've never waited more than 5 minutes for a train, and they're seldom so crowded we can't find a seat. It's a little worse at "rush hour", but not much, and if you are going more than one or two stops, you'll soon find a seat. The tube stations are just everywhere - and there is a very complicated little map that tells you where to find the "overlaps" where you can transfer to another line to get where you're going. Everyone - even those very used to London - spends quite a lot of time looking at those maps! 

You purchase an "oyster card", which you touch on a sensor as you enter and as you leave stations (you don't have to leave stations to transfer to another line), and the amount for your fare is figured on how far you've gone. If you stay in Zone 1 (which we usually do - it's the central part of the city), you pay a certain rate - more if you go to other zones. There are 6 zones in all. If you forget to "touch out" at the end of your trip, you will be charged the maximum, so you do remember to touch out!

Our tube station is Notting Hill Gate, and is just a few hundred steps from our front door - and its where we begin each morning. Here, we can take the Central, District or Circle line, and one way or another, connect up with any other place in London and it's surroundings, including Heathrow airport. It also connects with several spots where you can catch trains out of the city - it's all so handy and easy.

You climb down stairs and if you're going on the Central Line, you take two long escalators deep down, but if you want the Circle or District, you climb down a short staircase and choose either west or eastbound. You find your platform and wait for the train - overhead signs tell you there will be a train in 2 minutes, but that's not the one you want. Yours is coming in 4 minutes. And they do come and go that quickly. The doors open automatically, people pour out and push in all at once, the whistle blows, the doors close, and you're off! A recording tells you which train you're on and where it's going, and calls out each station as you come to it. Vern's favorite is "Mobble Awch".

This morning, we hop on the Circle Line (so named because it runs in a circle around the main areas of the central part of London) and hop off at Westminster "Alight here for Westminster Abbey" (that's our destination today). As you "touch out" you are conftonted with anywhere from four to 8 exits, depending on which side of the street and which street you want to be on. We look all around and figure we want to be on the Houses of Parliament side - exit 3! We look at the small area map provided in the tube station and see that we want to be on Bridge Street, heading away from the bridge and turn left on Margaret St. Each intersection seems to have so many streets and little lanes running into it, it's so easy to get confused. Add to that that you can't find the street signs, as I've mentioned before, and it's so easy to get lost. Luckily, Westminster Abbey is quite large and easy to see, hahaha.

As we emerge from underground, we are at the foot of Big Ben! What an immense timepiece it is - you have to get blocks away to get a good look at it.

It's on one corner of the Parliament Buildings. They are open for visitors in the summer, but right now, they look very forbidding - there are guards at the entrances with machine guns - a sign of the times, I'm afraid. Though we heard yesterday all about Guy Fawkes and his gunpowder plot, and realized that Parliament has had to be guarded very seriously since 1605!

We walk along beside Parliament and find ourselves looking at "the Abbey" across the road and down a bit.

Finding the correct entrance takes a bit of doing, but we manage it. At the entrance, our bags are "wanded" and we are allowed to go forward and buy tickets. One thing we've found very interesting is that most of these places (Hampton Court, The Tower, the Abbey, etc.) are owned by the richest woman in the world (Queen Elizabeth II), and there is always a large fee to enter, and an extensive gift shop (which we don't mind at all) but there are also spots everywhere asking for donations (to preserve the artifacts), which we do mind. Lizzie could put a little in, I'd think!

The Abbey is an absolute masterpiece (at least inside - I think the outside is a bit much) of architecture - the soaring ceilings and beautiful arches are lovely and graceful. And there are more dead people here than anywhere else I've seen. We saw Elizabeth, who is buried with her sister Mary, oddly enough, as well as several other Kings and Queens. But it's Poet's Corner which really touched us. Browning, Dickens, Chaucer, etc. are buried here and there are memorials to (but not much information as to whether they're buried there or elsewhere) Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Dryden, etc. Shakespeare we know is buried elsewhere, but there is a large memorial to him. Also actors - David Garrick, Lawrence Olivier, Peggy Ashcroft among others. We know that Shaw is here somewhere (but didnt' see him), while Ellen Terry is at the old Actor's Church at Covent Garden. Same with Olivier and Vivien Leigh. 

The cloister is lovely, but not a patch on the Cloisters in NYC - shows what having all that money can do - you can bring over several and have them rebuilt stone by stone!

I'm about done with looking at marble memorials and stones in the floor, though. Tomorrow, we head off to the Old Vic for a theatre tour, and I think it's time I had another afternoon tea, don't you?