Lovely London

For our final extended trip of 2009, we decided to tour the United Kingdom and Ireland. I (Nate) had previously visited England, but this was Maria's first visit. I was really excited to travel in a part of Europe that was new for Maria, since she had already visited most of the countries that we had been to this summer.

The first stop on our English tour was London. We arrived at night and left our hotel first thing in the morning to see the city. Just when we thought we were out of Switzerland, we stumbled upon was a Swiss monument in the middle of London! The display shows all the symbols of the Swiss cantons and was donated as a goodwill gesture. Our canton's symbol is the black curl (Maria tells me it's a shepherd's staff) on the 2nd from bottom row on the left side. This was definitely not the first site that we were expecting to see!

After our Swiss experience, we headed to the National Gallery.

This was by far the best art museum that either of us had ever visited. There were tons of paintings that we recognized, including works by Monet, Van Gogh, Rubens, Rembrandt, Michaelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Renoir, Caravaggio, and Botticelli. Just to name a few. The best part of this museum was its admission price... free! Click on the image here to see a sample of our favorites paintings.
We exited the National Gallery and stepped into Trafalgar Square. From here, we were able to catch our first glimpse of our first London icon, Big Ben.

As we walked towards Big Ben, we stopped at the Churchill and Cabinet War Rooms Museum. For those of you who don't know, I'm not flashing peace signs. It's Churchill's famous "V for Victory" sign. Maria thought I should clarify, just in case.

This museum really blew us away. It is located in a series of bunkers underneath an ordinary government building. These bunkers served as the underground headquarters of the British government during the Battle of Britain and throughout World War II. It took over a year to construct the bunkers, including the pouring of a 9-foot concrete slab above them, but somehow the Germans never learned of its existence.

When the War ended, most of the people working in the shelter cleaned off their desks, shut off the lights, and went home, never to return to the bunker. Consequently, many of the rooms still contain the same items that were used during the War. This was one of my favorite items in the bunker. It is a map that was used to track the progress of convoys travelling between the US and England. If you click on the picture, you can see the pin holes that represented convoys leaving the North Carolina coast, some that were probably made as Churchill studied this very map!

Also, the bunkers contain a museum dedicated to the fascinating life of Winston Churchill. Did you know that he escaped from a South African prison camp or that he won a Nobel Prize for literature or that he was not re-elected as Prime Minister even though World War II had not yet ended? Needless to say, after visiting this museum, we definitely have a greater respect for this man.

After emerging back above ground, we headed for some traditional London sites. Here are three classic sites in one picture: the Tube, Parliament, and a red telephone booth. Maria loves to talk on the phone! Big Ben! Apparently, Big Ben refers to the bell inside the tower, not the tower itself. It was a very windy day! God save the Queen! It's Buckingham Palace. I think the area of this gate is about the size of our Basel apartment! When dinner time rolled around, we were extremely hungry, because we ate an early lunch. We were so hungry, that we decided to eat at two restaurants! Our evening started with us splitting a kilo of freshly caught mussels and ended with us sampling sushi from a conveyor belt. Although the UK generally has a poor reputation when it comes to its culinary options, we found the food to be really enjoyable. I have a feeling that you'll be learning more about our other meals in the near future. After dinner, we enjoyed a leisurely stroll around the city. We found that London was the most lively of all the cities that we have visited during our European adventure. There was so much to do and see. Phew! This was just our first day in London. Rest up, because day two was even busier!