London – Canterbury – Brighton

 

Photo 1: Houses of Parliament
Photo 2: Tower Bridge
Photo 3: Buckingham Palace
Photo 4: Royal Pavilion at Brighton

London has given us a wet, cool welcome weather-wise, but the people we have met have been very friendly and helpful. We have used these first couple of days before our British Isles tour starts to orientate ourselves by taking a quick tour of London’s highlights. On our first night we had dinner at a pub. The fish and chips were great as was the atmosphere – a real London experience. After that we took a cruise on the Thames and took in views of sites like the Houses of Parliament by night. We have also been through St Paul’s Cathedral and made an abortive attempt to see the changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace (which was cancelled due to the rain – the band can’t have their instruments get wet).

At St Paul’s we learned the origin or the saying ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’. At one stage the money to finish decorating the dome of St Paul’s ran out so the church raided the funds of Westminster Abbey (also known as St Peter’s of Westminster) to pay for it.

Our tour guide had lots of little bits of interesting information like that. For example, we didn’t know that Gringott’s Bank in the Harry Potter movies was Australia House. We wondered if Foreign Affairs provided the gnomes too J. She also told us about the congestion tax of 10 pounds per day (i.e. about $15) for bringing a private car into the City of London. As the traffic is still very heavy we don’t know what it would be like without the tax. Nice revenue raiser eh!

On Wednesday we started our Globus tour. Our guide is a local who is a lot of fun and very knowledgeable. He regales us with lots of entertaining stories and many interesting bits of trivia. As we were leaving London and passing Marble Arch he told us the origin of the saying “one for the road”. In times past prisoners were executed near Marble Arch after being taken for a walk from the nearby prison. On the way they were taken into a pub for a final drink to make the final walk on the road to execution a bit easier, i.e. they had one for the road. The saying “gone west” also comes from this final walk – the prisoners walked west from the prison to the execution.

The first stop was Canterbury Cathedral, famous as the site of the murder of Thomas A’Beckett.  We were expecting it to be just another cathedral, but like all the others its vast interior was awe inspiring in its dimensions and beautifully decorated in paintings and sculptures with some stained glass – not as much of the latter as in continental cathedrals due to the vandalism of Henry VIII and the puritans.

We arrived in Brighton and visited the Royal Pavilion, built for King George IV when he was Prince of Wales about 200 years ago. As we approached we wondered if we had come across a mosque. We soon learned that the pavilion was built in the Moghul style (i.e. Indian Islamic) and is a remarkable building. The interior was decorated to represent Chinese culture and is filled with paintings of Chinese scenes, red and gold decorations, massive chandeliers and dragon images many of which are made of gold. Very over the top and apparently very unpopular with the taxpayers of his time. But stunning anyway.

We will get on well with the tour guide as he is a sports “nut”, and his first words were” Who holds the Ashes for cricket???”  He is a hoot, and has a very dry sense of humour especially as this tour is about 75% Australians.  His only failing was referring to AFL as “football” – he is now sorted out on that score!! We are anxious for the Wallabies to give the visiting British Lions rugby team a hiding so we will have “bragging rights”!!  Go Wallabies and Brumbies!!