The Cumberland Hotel, Marble Arch.
We stayed our one night at the Griffen Hotel which was incredibly small. At least the shower was modern and very good. Breakfast we had in the basement and was pretty plain, but all the staff were very friendly and cheerful. We then rolled around the corner to The Cumberland
As you can see it dominates Marble Arch in the foreground. We checked in early but our room was not available until around 3:00pm. One of about six concierges took our bags to be delivered to our room later. This place is massive and we nearly got lost in the lobby. Bagless we were able to again jump onto the busses with our twenty four hour pass. The route took us past many familiar landmarks:
How many can you name?
Perhaps the last one is not the usual angle from which this residence is viewed.
We decided that we would get off at the nearest stop to Buck House and see if Liz and Phil or the kids were home. But before we got there we came across the local HQ for English Catholics, Westminster Cathedral. Of course at one time we also owned the other place, the Abbey, before a certain Reformation.
We made it in time for mass along with a huge congregation. The marble interior in this cathedral is something special. The central aisle is dominated by a huge iconic crucifix. We spent a long time after mass wandering around the many side chapels. Poss eventually dragged Pop out of the shop with the sensible advice to wait until the Vatican before loading our already weighty bags.
But after a quick bite of lunch we toddled around to the Windsors' place.
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| Poss liked these for Evans Court! |
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| Not home and no letterbox to drop them a note to say we called! |
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| This fellow looked plastic...until he marched solemnly up and down.
So now off to have a pub meal with our tour director and meet the other fourteen fellow explorers who will accompany us on this next leg of the adventure.
Big hugs and kisses to all our little ones and their parents. Especially Teagan for her birthday the other day. Hope it was a beauty!!!
Poss and Pop
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Pretty sure I could name all of your landmarks there Pop. The last one is my favourite place in London and I recall taking a couple of different groups of "transients" there at various times.
ReplyDeleteReally looking forward to the Traf Tour and seeing how that works out. I hope you don't mind but I've forwarded your blog onto a couple of people from work who are about to embark on a similar adventure and they loved it!
You're entertaining the world now!
Keep safe and keep having fun!
Love the Marshians.
No pressure eh? So glad you enjoy the adventure. I would warn your friends that the crowds here in London are staggering. Enormous queues for free museums and the price of a pint is higher than Cornwall. Love you all. Poss &Pop
ReplyDeleteNot sure what happened to the first message - lost in cyberspace somewhere...
ReplyDeleteLooks like you are having a wonderful time - great to see parts of London again. Sounds like your first hotel experience mirrored mine - I didn't move around the corner though...
I had to bite my tongue when on a tour of Westminster Abbey when the guide was going on about how it was the heart and soul of the C of E - pity they had to steal it to start with! It looks like they have done some work on the real Westminster Cathedral since I was there. Hope all continues well and you are enjoying yourselves.
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