With the Old Gang in London

It's been a very long time indeed since our last visit to the UK... So we figured the perfect way to spend our last long weekend in May would be a visit to London, a place we very much miss.

After our cheap and cheerful Easyjet flight, we jumped on the ridiculously over-priced Gatwick Express (a return ticket to London cost us nearly as much as our flight!) to Victoria Station. A short tube ride later, we arrived at Waterloo, where our hotel was located. We went for value for money rather than quality in selecting the Waterloo Travel Lodge as accommodation. Not saying that's a bad choice - but the value for money was quite visible here in many ways (no wardrobe in the room, a rather pathetic piece of soap for washing up, no luggage room, and so forth).

Normally we're not particularly picky when it comes to accommodation - but when you pay over 100 pounds per night, you expect a bit more than this. Well, it is London, on the other hand. Anyways, enough moaning - we put this slight disappointment behind and headed out to explore town. We had a pretty nice time enjoying Southbank and Waterloo by night, and ended the night with a nice meal at Wagamama's (although it has to be said that it compares rather poorly to the food we had in Japan...)

After a good nights sleep and a proper English breakfast (oh, how I miss those fry-ups...), we headed out to explore London, unfortunately under a bit of a cloudy sky. Mathilde headed off for a bit of shopping, whilst I headed out towards the city to find the elusive Temple Church. This venerable building (dating back to the 12th century, it's one of the oldest buildings standing in London) used to be the English headquarters of the Knights of the Templar - it's a place I've wanted to visit for ages.

It's rather well hidden away in the middle Temple courts (some court buildings) - very well indeed, I really struggled to gain entrance (eventually I found a guarded side alley where the guard grudgingly let me pass). I did find it eventually, only to find it was shut... Anyway, the whole mystery-shrouded exercise was kind of good fun, and the City is a pretty nice place to walk around anyways...

By then it was time to head back to Waterloo where we were meeting up with the old gang. Sinhung, Flore (who also travelled from France) and Adrian all made it (Phil and Nick joined us later). We started the day with a Dim Sum in Chinatown - one of those London things to do that we really miss. After that we spent some time walking around Covent Garden and West End - straight down memory lane as well...

The touristy stuff out of the way, it was time to get down to business - time to start the pub crawl. We got through a rather respectable number of drinking establishments (most of us are, after all, reaching a respectable age) - six in total. We started off in De Heims (another old classic - a Dutch pub in Chinatown), followed by the Clarence and the Old Shades in Westminster (I especially liked the second one, with its opulent interior). We then carried on, crossing Trafalgar square to cross off The Ship & Shovell as well as the Sherlock Holmes off the list (I liked both places - especially Sherlock Holmes, an old favourite with its Sherlock Holmes memorabilia room!). We finished off the night with a proper curry at the Delhi Brasserie - as we have done so many nights before in London. Ah, what a day, eh ?

What to do in England on a Sunday ? A Sunday pub lunch, of course! And what better place to do that than in the town where we used to live, Guildford, out amongst the gentle hills of Surrey. Especially since we were blessed with some unexpected sunlight. So after checking out a very interesting Man Ray exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, we jumped on the train to Guildford. Pretty much the same group joined up, with Adrian and Nick being replaced by Celine, Sinhung's mysterious lady friend whom we finally got to meet "officially" ;-). We picked the Red Lion in Shamley Green for the occasion - pretty much the perfect choice. Pretty much the perfect English country pub, with a good selection of ales, decent food, nice garden, idyllically located next to the village green (where they were, naturally, playing cricket). Ah, these blissful moments almost make me consider moving back to England ;-) (until those thoughts are blown away by a rain cloud or something).

Our stomachs full, we made our way back to Guildford, where we spent a couple of very pleasant hours walking around town, coming to the realization that nothing much has changed since we left in 2006. We popped into the Guildford Tup for a pint, and also paid Nick a visit (these days a rather smartly dressed menswear sales manager). We then headed caught the train back to London, happy with another very pleasant day... We finished off the day with a tasty burger near Waterloo...

Monday was sadly our last day in London, and we had a pretty busy agenda. We split up again, Mathilde checking out the Tate Britain, and me heading out to check out another tourist attraction I've wanted to see for a long time - the Cabinet War Rooms. This underground complex, located near Whitehall, was from where Mr. Churchill directed the British War Effort during World War II, including during those tough days known as the Battle of Britain. In spite of rather steep entry fee of nearly 20 pounds, I can warmly recommend this site for those having the slightest interest in history or Mr. Churchill. The place does a pretty good place of showing what life must've been during those tough years, and the exhibition about Churchill is very interesting as well.

I then sped across to Old Street, where I rejoined with Mathilde and Ed for a rather nice lunch in a Vietnamese restaurant. Our stomachs filled, we spent the last couple of hours of our trip kind of randomly walking around the East End of London. It's a pretty cool, kind of grungy place to walk around, with a very different feel to the fancy West End. We tried to visit the Geffrye Museum, but it was unfortunately closed.

That brought an end to a fantastic Long weekend. No getting around it, I definitely miss old Blighty...