To Leeds and London!

Our trip is coming to an end, but we still had things and people we wanted to see so we booked our train trip from Edinburgh to London with a long stop in the city of Leeds.

Many years ago While I was studying at University in Wagga Wagga, Carolann worked for some people who imported turbo chargers from England, during this time she started to correspond with Bev  in the office of that company, and this was a chance to meet her in person for the very first time!

Both Carol and I had window seats so we could both see the changing scenery from Scotland to Leeds in the English Midlands the journey passed quickly and soon we were in Leeds!

We had arranged to meet at the station in Leeds, to have Coffee, a light lunch, and for the two girls to go Shopping, I did not mind as I know Carol and Bev needed time to get to know each other! Coffee and lunch were enjoyable. Having had lunch we walked through the shopping centres doing some window shopping for that was all that time allowed, (this part of the trip was much to short as all three of us would have liked more time to be together, but unfortunately, we had to be back in Australia and could not extend our stay.) Soon too soon we had to return to the station to continue our journey through to London. We said our good-byes and head for our trains Bev back to her home and us to London!

London is not known for good weather, and it was living up to it’s reputation, It had started to rain, so we decided to take a Taxi to our hotel, which we were told was within walking distance from our station, we were wrong, or should I say there was a mix up in the hotel bookings and we were booked into a hotel of the same name but not of the same quality! And it was much further away from the station.

When we arrived at the hotel we were shown to our room but this one was dirty, had no working phone and was not suitable, so we complained, and were shown a second room, but this too was no good as it had a broken window which could not be closed and was letting in the rain, we complained again, Room three, we opened the door saw rubbish and the fact that there was no room to put our bags and move around we refused that room too! Finally after asking for our money back and that they find us another hotel we were shown to a 4th room, this although not up to the standard we wanted we settled for as it was now late and we were tired and after all it was only for two nights, by this time Carol had already missed the first thing she wanted to do in London a night tour that was not offered on the other night we were in London.

We found a place to have dinner and walked where we could between rain showers, but already I was not impressed with London, we returned to the hotel and went to bed.

In the Morning We went down to the dining room for breakfast as this was included in our payment, BAD move, the food was not fresh and the faces of the waitress were even more sour, I would not recommend this hotel for the dog of my worst enemy as they deserve much better!

We had arranged to meet Marilyn who knew London so we left for the city!

On the Way to the city, Carol wanted to go to 221B Baker Street the home of the fictional Detective Sherlock Holmes! The address was real and it has now been set up as a museum to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Detective. We were a little early so we wondered around until opening time and then entered the museum to fine the “House” presented as it is in the novels complete in every detail, it was worth the visit.

We then left the museum and continued on to the centre of the city where we had agreed to meet Marilyn, who was going to show us around London town, to all the places she knew so well from the time she lived and worked there.

She first took us to the London Opera building and then on then the markets, Buckingham Palace where the Queen lives, past the houses of parliament and on to the Bunker that was used by the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, during the 2nd World War, It was now open and turned in to a museum as a tribute to all the people who lived in and worked in this underground Bunker away from the falling bombs. The quarters were cramped, dark and dingy not the place I would pick to live, but it was very interesting to see where the decisions were being made about the future of England, during this dark time in history!

Once we were out of there we continued on with our walking tour until it was time to say goodbye to Marilyn and return to our hotel, On our way home we found a place to eat it was nothing special but it allowed us to get out of the rain storm one of many that day but they were all reasonably short! (little did we know that was a sign of tomorrows weather!)

After a nights sleep we again went down for breakfast hoping that as it was now Monday the food would be fresh, But alas the food and the staff were just as dull and off putting as yesterday! And By now the rain storms of yesterday had started to settle in and were steadily raining on our plans!

We had planned to Store our bags at the hotel for the day and take an open-top bus tour of London, these tours have commentaries in many languages and we had enjoyed then in many of the other cities we visited as they allowed you to get on and off as you liked to see different things along the way, catching the next tour bus when it arrived.

The Open top is normally good but not when it is raining as there is no roof to keep you dry so we  were given rain coats to keep the water of us but the seats were already wet so we ended up with wet, well you know what I mean! I was not nice, but we did enjoy the information. This tour also had a trip by boat to Greenwich, the Naval Academy and the Observatory, from where all the world time is calculated from, as well as the longitude for our place on the globe for navigation. This was the only really worthwhile part of our stay in London for me but this stop was for Carol I had my special part of the trip and I feel she was disappointed with our stay.

The time had now come to finally depart London so we headed back to the worst hotel I have ever been to, to collect our bags and head to the airport for the “Short” flight to Australia.

The experience with this “Hotel from Hell” needs to serve as a reminder to CHECK exactly which hotel you are booked into, a bad hotel can totally ruin your holiday luckily this was only a two night stay. No matter where the hotel is located (the only thing this hotel had going for it was the location that was fantastic) if it is not up to scratch with the essentials, of Clean comfortable rooms, good food and welcoming staff, your stay will be less than satisfying and can as it did for us here ruin your stay at this location in this case our stay in London.

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Richardsclan

Welcome to Herman and Carolann’s Travels to Europe

Italy Trip 2008