Elephants, Dickens, Many Markets and More. 

We started the morning off with a Full English Breakfast here at the IBIS. We gathered ourselves together for the day and our first stop was the Marble Arch to see the Elephant Statutes.

Today, December 4th, these statues were unveiled. The sculpture is the largest such depiction of an elephant herd in the world and is intended to draw attention to the plight of this species. Each elephant in the sculpture is modeled after a real orphaned animal currently in the care of the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.  

Next, we where off to Hyde Park for what we thought would be a recon of Hyde Park Winter Wonderland.  Here we had learned about Magical Ice Kingdom Presents A Christmas Carol. A display of ice sculptures telling Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol.

This is in an enclosed building where it is kept a toasty -10C. I must say, I was rather taken in by the sculptures and the way the Christmas Carol was presented.

We next walked about the Winter Wonderland looking at the various items for sale and various food offerings. This whole venue is somewhat like the Christmas Markets in Germany and Vienna. There were so many (for lack of a better term) kiddie rides and an ice skating rink. The area is very large and I would imagine it gets very busy on the weekends and at night. 

We next went to Piccadilly Circus to find a Waterstone Bookstore, as I was looking for a copy of “Walking Dickens’ London”. 

At Waterstone, we went to the cafe and had a great bowl of tomato soup as we looked over the book we just purchased. This book should be a great resource for future trips and the remainder of this trip.

We walked from Piccadilly to the Christmas Market at Leicester Square, making a short stop at the entrance to China Town. The Christmas Market at Leicester Square was very similar to the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland, having mostly the same offerings of drink and food. 

Then we continued walking to Covent Gardens and the Market there. Covent Gardens was originally a fruit and vegetable market and today is a market of several shops and stalls. A good many of the stalls here sell unique hand  crafted items.

While the light of day was fading, it was not yet dark. We then walked to The Strand and walked east to find the Old Bank of England Pub. Here we planned to retrace our steps back to Covent Gardens Market and to The Seven Dials are for more Christmas lights. 

While walking along the Strand, we passed several places of interest. These included Somerset House, Temple Bar Memorial, The Royal Courts of Justice and more.

After having a bite to eat, darkness had fallen. We retraced our steps taking some photos along the way. We ended our walk at the Seven Dials.

We then made our way back to our hotel via public transport.  We did make a stop at Greenwich Market as on this night it was open late. 

We logged 21000 steps on this day.    

DOVER TO LONDON AND RAIL TTRAVEL TIPS

Dover to Greenwich

Have been asked several times what is it about the UK that I am attracted to? First and foremost is the history, particularly WWII history. Then, while having coffee this morning and thinking about rail travel, it hit me. A good bit of the architecture is frozen in time, almost ageless, the steel arches of the stations and the aged brick stations and archways. I find they are very grand in a nostalgic way.  

We were up and made coffee in our room and were soon packed up and off towards the train station. We did make a stop for a coffee and bacon butty. After our breakfast we made our way to the Dover Priory Station and arrived nice and early. As we had purchased an off peak ticket, we could not take an earlier train.

Rail travel in the UK is really easy and can be very reasonable if one takes advantage of a few situations. First is to get a rail card if you plan on taking several journeys. They can be purchased online and downloaded to your phone. Next is to use the internet to find the reduced fares, there are several sites available. Simply google say Dover to London via rail and you will find several ticket sellers. I usually go with the Rail Service such as Southeastern Rail. The cheapest of these fares are usually for off peak times. These usually start after 10:00am and usually are not on High Speed Service. As I say usually, as this is 95% of the time, yet deals can be found on Peak and High Speed Service.

This rail journey was on a non high speed route so we made several stops along the way. We arrived at Victoria Station and made our way to the Ibis Greenwich. We had found a favorable rate which included breakfast. While Greenwich is somewhat out of the way, we can still access anywhere via the DLR and Underground.

Quick and easy check in and we learned the breakfast is a combination of both a Continental Buffett and hot breakfast to order.

We needed to do laundry so a quick load was done (with the scrubba) and we headed out to Greenwich to visit St Paul and St Peters Cathedral. My goal here was to photograph the memorial to the Franklin Polar Expedition. 

To the men  of the Franklin Expedition. Interestingly I learned from one of the staff, Michael Palin's son was at one time a curator at the Cathedral .

If you have not been to Greenwich, do not miss the Cathedral as well as the Painted Hall, which has been called the Sistine Chapel of London.

From there, we walked back to the Greenwich Market, making a book store stop along the way. The Greenwich Market is decorated for Christmas but, to us, the booths seemed the same as before, still nice but we expected more seasonal offerings. 

We decided to try The Mitre, a local pub, for a drink and meal. It has a nice atmosphere and the fish and chips did not disappoint, not the quality of Blakes, but good.
From there we walked back to our hotel to plan the next few days activities.

A Day I FOLKESTONE

A Day in Folkestone 

This morning we took the train from Dover to Folkestone. This is a very short rail trip of about 10 minutes. We enjoyed chatting with the conductor and learning about many interesting sites along the coast in this area. One thing for certain is almost everybody recommends going to Canterbury. He provided us with good walking directions so we could easily find town, which we did without a problem.

After a short walk we stopped for a coffee before finding the Christmas market. This is the first year for the Folkestone market and there were about 20 stalls and not all were open. This, I believe, will grow over time. 

We then did a walkabout, finding The Parish Church of St. Mary & St Eanswythe Folkestone. This church is steeped in history dating back to the 1400’s. There are many stained glass windows, mosaics, wonderful floors and yes, the tomb of a knight, Sir John de Seagrave. One stained glass window of note is the Harvey Window, which honors William Harvey, who in 1629 published his great discovery of the circulation of blood. He was born on Church Street very near the church.

We then met up with David and Jeanette (Friends from Blake’s) and were off exploring Folkstone’s narrow streets filled with shops and pubs. We walked to the harbor and then along the coast. It was a beautiful sunny day and France was easily seen across the calm channel. The Channel water almost looked blue rather than the green gray. I must say we have been very fortunate in having great weather.

One interesting bit we saw while walking the coast was a water powered funicular. Sadly it is in a state of disrepair and would be great if it were put back into service. The walkway along the coast is very very nice and coming back to this area to do some walking/hiking is on our list.

We then went to the Pullman Pub for lunch and had a great visit which continued  into the Guild House for another drink. The Guild House has a nice interior decorated with many bits of WWII aviation history.

We walked back to the Christmas market and parted ways. It was such a joy to share the day with David and Jeanette, very nice folks.

We have decided to purchase a case for our journey back home as our neighbor has placed an order for Terry’s Chocolate Oranges. Lucky the Debenhams was having a sale and so we found a case at 1/2 price.