The Bold Soul: A Writer's Life in Paris

London Getaway - Scenes from Day 2

On our second day in London, we had the whole day free up until 4:30pm, when we needed to head to the pick-up point for the Thames Clipper boat to the O2 arena. So what to do with a huge city like London to explore, right? We started with a quick breakfast in a Costa coffee shop across from our lodgings (Ha! "Lodgings"... don't I sound British?). Costa, by the way, is England's answer to Starbucks - you can find one or the other on nearly every corner in London and in other British cities. The coffee was good at Costa, but I like the Starbucks muffins better. Then we made straight for the Tate Modern museum. There are two Tate museums in London: the Tate Britain is the original museum with more "traditional" art and exhibitions; and the Tate Modern which is located at the Southbank end of the Millenium Bridge, in an old power and light building with a huge smokestack. It's an incredible space for modern art. The big attraction for us was the Henri Matisse "The Cut Outs" exhibition. We weren't permitted to take any photos of the exhibit; this image of Matisse's "Blue Nude II"... Read more →

London Getaway - The Shard

The new Best View in London - The Shard Read more →

London Getaway - The Globe

Theatre in Shakespeare's time: Be you a gentleman or a groundling? Read more →

London Getaway - Harrods

Harrods: where London's upper crust goes to spend all that money... and eat like the Royal Family. Read more →

London Getaway - Scenes from Day 1

Our 3-day London Getaway was a huge success! Georges and I took an early Eurostar from Paris and arrived in London at around 10:30am (it was supposed to be 10am but our train was delayed leaving Gare du Nord but at least we weren't stuck in the tunnel). We've both been to London before, but not together. We ruled out doing the usual "first timers" things like going to Buckingham Palace. We did think we might to go Notting Hill because we both like that part of town, but ended up spending most of our 3-days in the Southwark/South Bank area or over around Trafalgar Square (the latter on our last day, which I'll get to later). Of course our big event was the Monty Python reunion show on Tuesday night, our second night. But in addition to that, we were celebrating our 6th wedding anniversary and Georges' upcoming milestone birthday. Now that I'm working again, it was fun for me to be the one "inviting" my wonderful husband for lunches or dinners out - we both enjoyed that! I decided to do a post with general photos and narrative from each day, plus some supplemental in-depth posts on Shakespeare's... Read more →

Beer!

No one does beer like they do in an English pub... And London's got loads of 'em. Details to follow but GREAT pub tour! Read more →

Globe

The stage at Shakespeare's Globe theater, where a stage crew is building a set. This is a working theater. Read more →

The View from my bed

We had a wonderful first day in London and too much to tell from my little iPhone, but THIS is my view while I'm lying in bed. And we we just up there before sunset. Spectacular views! Yay London! Read more →

On our way (maybe)

At the Eurostar lounge, where they handed out French flags in honor of Bastille Day. One minute before boarding they announced technical problems and a delay. (Better now than stuck in the tunnel.) In the train now, +25 min late... Read more →

LONDON! SHARD! MONTY PYTHON! BEER! What could be better?

I'm quite excited about our 3 days in London coming up this week. I've been to London three times since moving to France: the first time was for a weekend during my first month in Paris in December 2006, where I had such a lovely time doing walking tours organized by a former client and her husband. It was the perfect introduction to the city. I recall visiting Harrod's to buy my 94-year-old grandmother a scarf; she had been there in 1956 and I thought she'd enjoy something from the legendary department store. She passed away the following December. I kept the scarf to remember her by. The next time was just a few months later in 2007 when my best friend Wendy came to visit for 10 days, and she wanted a few days in London and organized everything, including tickets to the longest running West End play. It was February and we even got a bit of snow on the day we visited Notting Hill, but we had a great time. We visited Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and oddly enough spent a lot of time looking for somewhere to have an afternoon Tea but never found any place. How... Read more →