Tag: Europe 2023 travelogue

England, days 5 and 6

May 8, 2023 / / 2 Comments

Day 5 (Saturday)

  • Saturday, May 6, 2023, was Coronation day, and a day for me to sleep in.
  • A friend of a friend of a friend hosted a coronation watch party, where for nearly three hours I watched the live BBC broadcast of establishing Prince Charles as the King of the United Kingdom – because that’s still a thing democratic countries do. The party had great drinks, coronation chicken and coronation quiche, and dessert, accompanied by hilarious commentary from those assembled, myself included.
  • Note: The word “coronation” dominates the city right now. It’s in the window at every shop, at every train station, on flags hanging outside small hotels, and even on decorative arches over pedestrian streets.
  • My old friend and a new friend left the party and went on a long walk in Soho, first to Bar Termini for negronis. We then hit up the Liberty department store, where one of the Kingsman movies was filmed, ate dinner at Paradiso Burgers in Kingly Court, and had a nightcap at The White Horse.
  • I also picked up deluxe millionaire’s shortbread at M&S (a department store with a grocery department); I bake them using this caramel slice recipe; a key difference is that the recipe, created by an Aussie, calls for coconut in the shortbread base, which I follow and I love compared to the UK version.
A coronation flag and bunting at a small hotel
BBC broadcast of the coronation
Liberty department store
Coronation in Carnaby

Day 6 (Sunday)

  • This morning I moved from the hotel I was staying at near Euston Station to my friend’s friends’ flat in Covent Garden, and then another friend joined us (to keep the story straight, we are the same group of three friends traveling around London today as on Friday and Saturday). We grabbed coffee and pastries at Arôme Bakery and headed over to London Bridge station via Charing Cross station.
  • London Bridge station is connected to The Shard, a skinny glass pyramid hotel and office building. It’s also next to Borough Market where we went to get delicious spicy jam from Pimento Hill.
  • After visiting Pimento Hill we had jamon iberico sandwiches from Brindisa Spanish Foods and oysters and rosé from Wright Brothers Oyster & Porter House.
  • From there we took some combinations of trains to Shoreditch High Street station on the Overground network. Read more about Overground in “Transportation” below.
Pimento Hill shop in Borough Market
A screen on a pedestrian street honors the new King and Queen Consort.
  • I attended the weekly, 30-minutes-long organ recital at St. Paul’s Cathedral. The organist was Peter Wright (he has his own Wikipedia page), who played “Prelude and Fugue in B minor (BWV 544)” by J.S. Bach, “Joie et clarté des corps glorieux from Les corps glorieux” by Olivier Messiaen, and “Dankpsalm (Op. 145, No 2)” by Max Reger.
  • The three of us ate a mixed platter at Ilili, a Lebanese restaurant. (There are two locations of a restaurant of the same name in NYC and D.C., but it seems they’re unaffiliated.)
  • The night ended at Eagle, a discotheque next door to the restaurant. But on the way home from Eagle I noticed a seriously tall and wide gap between South Western Railway trains and the platforms at both the Vauxhall and Waterloo stations.
St. Paul’s Cathedral is seen behind Paternoster Square
The organ console and the organ pipes are visible inside St. Paul’s Cathedral
Gherkin tower framed through the upper story window of a double decker bus
Gherkin Building framed through the upper story window of a double decker bus
Mind this serious gap

Transportation

  • London Overground. The development story of this collection of new services is fascinating and provides some lessons for Chicago. Transport for London, or TfL, is a governmental authority under the control of the Greater London Authority, which has an elected mayor and council, the London Assembly. The first of six lines opened in 2007 and there are now 113 stations. Over 16 years TfL incrementally built a rapid transit network using existing active and disused main line railways. Chicago has many disused railways and many underused Metra lines; the idea there is to redesign a “regional rail” (RER, S-Bahn, etc.) network using existing and new lines – I wrote about this last year.
  • Southeastern, a private railway (one stop from Charing Cross station to London Bridge station (his National Rail service is inside the Oyster area so it counts and costs as much as an Underground trip in the same area)
  • South Western, a private railway (one stop from Vauxhall station to Waterloo station; see Oyster area explanation above)
  • Bus 8 (a route dictated by TfL and operated by Stagecoach London, a subsidiary of Stagecoach Group headquartered in Perth, Scotland)

Note about certain transit routes here

Many of them are run by contractors. Some bus routes are, kind of hilariously, operated by the national railway operators of Germany and the Netherlands. Arriva is owned by Deutsche Bahn (DB) and Abellio is owned by Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS). Some other bus routes are operated by RATP, the Greater Paris transit operator owned by the Government of France.

The Elizabeth Line is operated by a subsidiary of MTR, the transit operator and real estate developer majority owned by the Government of Hong Kong.

England and Scotland, days 1 and 2

May 6, 2023 / / 1 Comment

Day 1 (Tuesday)

  • I arrived at London Heathrow airport at around 11:30 AM. Immigration was quick, using e-gates that only people with passports from select countries can use. The distance between the arrival gate, immigration, and the train station was immense. Much longer than even the new, longer distance at SLC. I took the Heathrow Express to Paddington (paid for via contactless credit card), and then took Underground lines to King’s Cross (again, paid via contactless).
  • At King’s Cross (KGX) I bought a ticket on LNER Azuma service to Edinburgh Waverley, which was leaving in 20 minutes. The train passes through countryside but “calls” at York, Durham, and Berwick-upon-Tweed; nearing Edinburgh the East Coast Main Line hugs the North Sea coast.
  • After arriving at Waverley I walked up the stairs to High Street and then over to my hotel. I dropped things off in the room and headed over to the base of Arthur’s Seat and hiked up to the peak before sunset.
  • Once back down at city level, I walked around the city and then got a pie and pint at Halfway House (which I had seen on the walk up the stairs several hours prior).
An LNER Azuma service train at St Pancras station
The view from halfway up the hill to Arthur’s Seat
Top to bottom, left to right: Rapeseed field in Scotland, Waverley station in Edinburgh, an LNER Azuma service train in St. Pancras station (London), people watching the departure boards at St. Pancras, and the Edinburgh city center as seen from halfway up the hill to Arthur’s Seat.

Day 2 (Wednesday)

  • I checked out of the hotel at 11 AM and walked over the to Left Luggage business at Waverley station to store my big backpack for the day. After that I walked over to the platform where a ScotRail DMU train was waiting to depart for Cowdenbeath. (I bought tickets at a machine.)
  • I alighted (disembarked) the train at North Queensferry and walked down the hill to the riverside to get a better view of the Forth Bridge (the first one, that carries two railway tracks). I also used a public toilet at a little car park here. (I placed all of my Forth Bridge photos below.)
  • The hill back up to North Queensferry station was pretty steep and I hoofed it to make the next train in the return direction so I could get to the other side of the River Forth to Dalmeny. (Trains are only ever 30 minutes on this line.)
  • Once in Dalmeny on the south side of the Firth of Forth (a river estuary) I walked down the hill to the riverside, which is in (South) Queensferry, and over to a pier where I bought a ticket for the day’s final sailing of the 90-minutes-long Maid of the Forth river cruise – I didn’t plan ahead for this, it was something I spotted and the schedule worked. When you’re traveling solo, you don’t have a hotel, and your train leaving the city isn’t for another nine hours you need stuff to do to fill the time – but the river cruise turned out to be a pretty awesome way to spend the time and £17.
  • Back at the dock I walked over to the town of (South) Queensferry. Both towns are named such because former Queen Margaret of Scotland used both points to cross the river. Queensferry has some great urbanism: being set in a hill, there are shops on the flat part at the bottom of the hill, then a large sidewalk above them and entrances to shops and row houses next to this sidewalk – the hill is completely disguised.
  • Next to Queensferry are two road bridges over the River Forth. The old one was found to have structural issues and is used only for taxis, pedestrians, cyclists, and transit. Adjacent to it is the bridges’ maintenance and monitoring facility and a public viewing deck that offers views of all three bridges. There’s another public toilet here, and a kiosk.
  • I walked back over to Dalmeny (the town under the Forth Railway Bridge) and had my dinner early at The Rail Bridge Café. I ate a plate of haggis, neeps, and tatties (haggis is “savoury pudding containing sheep’s pluck (heart, liver, and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock”, and neeps are mashed turnips, and tatties are mashed potatoes). It was delicious and I would like to have it again.
  • After four hours in the towns around the Forth Bridge, it was time to head back to Edinburgh. I boarded ScotRail back to the city and alighted at Edinburgh Gateway, a station to transfer to trams to the airport or city center. I took the tram to the city center and alighted at Princes Street, the main shopping street.
  • From Princes Street I walked to the Leith River and on to Leith and Newhaven. I walked around Leith to a bus route that would take me back to Waverley station.
  • Once at Waverley station I retrieved my left luggage and paid £15 (which is a convenience for not having to spend half an hour to return to the hotel up the hill to get it if I had left it for free and less secure at the hotel).
  • I bought some snacks at M&S Food and ate them in the station waiting room until I found out at which platform the Caledonian Sleeper would be waiting. (I used the National Rail website to find out because its late departure meant it would be a while before it showed up on the overhead departure screens.)
  • I boarded the train, found my room, and immediately started changing into pajamas and brushed my teeth. I was in bed by the time the train departed at 23:40. The sleeper train has a lounge car, but I don’t think the timing of this train allows it to be used conveniently.
  • [overnight train, waking up on Day 3] The train arrived at London’s Euston Station at 6:30 AM, about 37 minutes earlier than the Caledonian Sleeper’s “tips and tricks” webpage indicated. This is also when the attendant brought everyone in my carriage their coffee and breakfast snack.
  • Passengers must disembark by 7:30 AM, and that’s about when I did. I exited the station and walked two blocks to my hotel for the next three nights in London. Continue to day 3…

Forth Bridge photos

Forth Bridge seen from Maid of the Forth
Maid of the Forth boat
Forth Bridge, seen from where I ate dinner
Forth Bridge, seen from Maid of the Forth (far away)
Forth Bridge, overlooking Queensferry
Scotland flag from the Maid of the Forth boat

Transportation so far

  • Heathrow Express (non-stop service from Heathrow Airport to London Paddington station)
  • Jubilee Line
  • Victoria Line
  • LNER Azuma service on the East Coast Main Line (top speed is said to be 125 MPH)
  • ScotRail (provides intercity and regional services but I took it only to towns 25 minutes away from Edinburgh)
  • Edinburgh Trams
  • Lothian Buses
  • Caledonian Sleeper