Travel
London calling
BY VICKI GILHULA
Winter 2012 |
Travelling in the off season has it advantages. There are no crowds and special savings are available. There's no trouble getting into restaurants without reservations. There are no lineups. It is easy to get rush seats for theatre productions. London in February can be very reasonable. My partner and I spent 10 nights in London for what we would expect to pay for a week at an all-inclusive Caribbean resort. Last winter the UK pound was at $1.60 (Cdn). When I visited in 2004, one pound cost $2.50. DH Tours in southern Ontario has offered late fall and mid-winter trips to London for many years. The package includes the British Air flight, transfers, 10 nights' accommodation, a transit pass, 10 breakfasts, two dinners, a ticket to a West End play, and a guided tour of London. We stayed at the Tavistock Hotel which is located in the lovely Russell Square neighbourhood. It is near restaurants, public transit and the British Museum. In the morning, we fueled ourselves with porridge and stewed prunes, a very healthy combination. We ate lightly at reasonable restaurants. Some nights on the walk from the tube station to the hotel, we bought a sandwich at the EAT shop, picked up a beer at the convenience store, and ate in our room while we watched the BBC news. We had several meals at St. Martin-in-the-Field crypt cafeteria (at Trafalgar Square) which were extremely cheap and cheerful, and then we attended free noon hour concerts at the church. Our most expensive meal was afternoon tea at the British museum, which cost $40 each and came with a glass of champagne. We felt so posh we took pictures of ourselves enjoying the sandwiches and scones. Top museums and art galleries such as the British Museum, the National Gallery, and The Victoria and Albert Museum do not charge admission. We got last-minute front row tickets ($40) for Million Dollar Quartet, which stars Sudbury's Derek Hagen. Tickets in the stalls or royal circle are normally about $100. Most days the temperature was around 6C. It rained off and on a couple of days, but the weather never interfered with our plans. We wore light coats over lightweight wool sweaters and pants. On our second last day in London, we took a boat cruise up the Thames to Greenwich. The “senior” fare was $10. It was a sunny day and we enjoyed the new architecture and redevelopment along the docklands. I was so thrilled with the money I was saving, I left my mate at the hotel on our last day and took a double-decker bus to Knightsbridge to do a little shopping.
