by Taylor Hart
London, Paris, Rome—Made Easy
Taylor Hart
Stone Hart
Contents
Copyright
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Copyright
All rights reserved.
© 2016 ArchStone Ink
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews. The reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form whether electronic, mechanical or other means, known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written consent of the publisher and/or author. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This edition is published by ArchStone Ink LLC.
First eBook Edition: 2016
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the creation of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Foreword
Honestly, when I first began researching a trip to Europe and reading different guidebooks, I was overwhelmed. I wanted to put my head in the sand, hand all of my money over to a tour company, and choke down the bill.
The books are confusing. There’s way too much covered, and there are so many little things the average person, and I’m including myself, can get overwhelmed with … It paralyzes people. This is why I think tour companies are so successful—because everything makes it too complicated.
So I’m giving you uncomplicated, non-comprehensive basics. After all, you can’t be an Olympian without starting with fundamentals, right?
If you want to know every website and every complicated detail about London, this is not the book for you. If, however, you want the cliff notes version, enough to pass the test and know the basics, this is for you.
I’m just telling you how I did it and why I did it that way. I’m also highlighting what I found easy, what I found hard, and what I found annoying, like never finding a stinking toilet.
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Chapter One Basics Before Going to Europe
Phone Plan. Check your phone plan. Many have international plans you can buy for $30 for a 30-day period. You can get free texting. Calls always cost more. If you’re at a hotel, a café, or anywhere else with free WiFi, you can do WiFi calling. You have to go to the settings on your phone and activate WiFi calling.
I went to AT&T and bought a phone plan for a month to use. Make sure you read the fine print of your plan so you know what it covers and are not inadvertently charged extra for data, calls, etc. Sometimes the fine print is not all that clear.
The only snag I ran into was that I truly couldn’t send a picture text unless I was on WiFi or if I put on data roaming, which incurred charges. All other texts worked when I was out and about.
Plus, it’s not bad to be “unavailable” for your trip. It was nice for me because my husband was unavailable for work, and I really liked the fact he had to enjoy the trip and not answer emails at night or do things like that. But you can upgrade your plan and do more if you have to.
Credit/Debit Card. Call them. Make sure they know you’re traveling internationally and that you’re not charged foreign transaction fees when you use your card, as they can add up quickly. Also, make sure you have at least two cards that would work in Europe. Consider keeping them separate in case you get pickpocketed, which happened to my husband in Paris. As you travel Europe, you’ll need cash. Find an ATM machine near your hotel or when you’re out and about and pull out pounds or euros like you would at home. Don’t stress about this. Just have a card where you can pull out cash. That’s the most important thing.
And make sure you get a card within enough time you are leaving. Most annoying.
Toilet Problem. Yes, as Americans we are spoiled rotten. There’s a toilet at every restaurant, corner shop, mall entrance and exit. At least you can usually find one without a whole lot of difficulty.
In Europe, get used to holding it. And get used to paying for it if you do find one. Yes, from thirty pence/euro cent to fifty pence/euro cent. So make sure you have a couple of pounds/euros in walk around money to pay to use the bathroom.
And they don’t call them bathrooms. They’re toilets. It just feels blunt to me, but perfectly fits the English people’s somewhat brashness.
Some places you can’t find toilets—the Tube. Never saw one. Went all over London. Wait, strike that—I did see one toilet on the connecting train between the Tube and Windsor Castle. There was a toilet there. But never at any other Tube station.
Westminster Abbey has a toilet you can use at the end of the tour. The Globe has one at the end of the tour. St. Paul’s toilet was out of commission—interminable. But there was a public toilet right around the corner in Paternoster Square that I had to pay for.
This was my biggest pet peeve, mostly because I felt like I couldn’t drink a lot because I didn’t want to be looking for a toilet all the time. If you are a woman who has had children, you’ll understand this little problem. Men, you may not care about this, but if you are taking a beautiful woman, you might want to think about it.
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Chapter Two Basics of Taking the Train from London Heathrow (Airport) to Your Hotel
One of the best things about London is the Underground, or the “Tube.” It is an amazing public transportation system that rocks it! You can literally get anywhere. And it’s easy, if you understand it.
Honestly, it took me a while to catch on. Mostly because I’m a bit—yes, I refer to myself this way—directionally deficient. Truly, I’ve never been to London and had never had to figure it out, or even lived in a big city for that matter.
The first thing you should do is buy an oyster card, which is a card you can buy at the Tube station or at one of the many convenience stores that dot the neighborhoods. You buy the card for five pounds and then add money for how many trips you plan. Each trip is about two pounds. So we bought two cards, one for me and one for my husband, and put ten pounds on each card. When you run out of money on the card, you can use one of the automated machines at a Tube station to recharge it, or you can empty the card at the end if you want your money back.
After being there a few days, it all began to be clearer.
My husband is the expert … well, expert for us, so you’ll be hearing from him. He doesn’t have my flair for cliff notes genius, but he told me he’ll try to keep it to limited necessary details.
From London Heathrow, you have a couple of options to get into the city: you can take the Piccadilly Line, which is part of the Tube and will make stops at each station along the line, or you can take Heathrow Express, which is separate from the Tube and will take you directly to Paddington Station in about 15 to 20 minutes. We arrived into Terminal 4 at London Heathrow and followed the signs to the Heathrow Express. At some point, you should see automated kiosks where you can purchase your Heathrow Express ticket. Then, follow the signs to the train and pay attention to the routing. Because we came into Terminal 4 at Heathrow, we had to take the Heathrow Connect to another terminal and switch trains to the Heathrow Express line that took us to Paddington Station. There are a ton of signs, and if you’re n
ot sure, just ask someone.
Once we got to Paddington Station, we switched from Heathrow Express to the Underground and took the Circle Line to the South Kensington Station. Our hotel was about a 10-minute walk from there. The Underground system in London is really handy. It may seem overwhelming at first, especially if you’re not used to taking trains, but after a few times you start to get the hang of it. One of the sites we used a lot was https://tfl.gov.uk/, which has a trip planner and will tell you which trains you’ll need for your journey.
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Chapter Three London
Honestly, Rick Steves is the expert, so if you did buy his book (which we bought and like, by the way), use his recommendations. Or use Trip Advisor or many online reviews. I think in today’s world, reviews work magic, so check them.
In picking hotels, we looked at Rick Steves’s recommendations and then went to Trip Advisor to look at reviews and pricing to make a final decision.
In London, we stayed at the Hotel Kensington in South Kensington.
Things to do:
From our hotel, we walked to the South Kensington State and took the Piccadilly Line to Green Park and got off the Tube. At this point I wished I had remembered my hat and sunscreen because it was a beautiful day as we walked through Green Park toward Buckingham Palace. There was a sense of urgency in the air among the tourists as we neared the Palace. We had planned and left the hotel at ten-thirty and gotten to Green Park by eleven, then took a short five-minute walk across the park to the palace. It was already getting crowded around the palace gates, so we opted to climb the wall bordering the park and Constitution Hill and sat comfortably and watched the proceedings.
I was surprised to see a complete stop to traffic through Victoria Memorial and then a full band and carriage. I don’t know if the Queen was in the carriage, but it was very grand. Then soldiers marched in and they did a ceremony. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see the complete ceremony because I wasn’t right there at the bars, but I could see enough to feel satisfied and take pictures. It was all very official and fun.
Afterwards, we walked through St. James’s Park heading towards Westminster Abbey. We could see children playing in the park and many flats along the other side. We got down to Westminster Abbey in roughly ten minutes. And the Abbey is remarkable. It’s 20 pounds to go in and they give you an audio guide, which I highly recommend. I had been skeptical about the audio guides, but they are easy to use. My husband and I would time it so we hit the number just right and we’d be hearing the same things at the same time. It takes you through who is buried where. Some highlights: Sir Isaac Newton was buried there, and so were Shakespeare and all the great poets—Brontë, Keats, and so on. I didn’t realize the church is a living, breathing church that has services. The timing of our day worked out perfectly because they said they did a mass at 12:30 and it was 12:27 when we got to the Abbey, so we decided to participate.
We are not Anglican, but the program they gave us allowed us to follow along and say the prayers and feel very at home. It was interesting to see all the different customs of this religion.
However, one thing I will note is that when they offered Communion, the taking of the bread and wine, my OCD took over and I was grossed out by the way they all shared the same cup. Yuck! The priest would give the person taking Communion a wafer and then a sip from a gold cup. But then simply wipe the cup and move on.
Ahh! All my training about germs just took from the moment what could have been a beautiful part of the ceremony to some. I know, for them, the wafer and water literally turn into the body and blood of Christ. At the end, the priest gathered up all the bread, put it in the water, combined it all, and then finished it off.
Gross!
It reminded me of a mom cleaning up after her kid’s meal. But c’mon … all the germs!
As you can see, you need to keep an open mind and just not get grossed out.
The rest of the Abbey was fascinating. Huge. Larger than I initially thought. It feels like you just go on and on and there is more and more. But, like I said, my husband and I really enjoyed the audio tour.
It is interesting to know every king or queen in London was crowned in the Abbey.
I thought Princess Diana was married there, but it turns it she wasn’t. That was St. Paul’s Cathedral she was married at.
Okay, after the Abbey, there was an adjoining café. My husband and I sat, looked at the food, the space felt somewhat confined to me—as most spaces in old cities, but it was stuffy. So we decided to go.
Outside of the Abbey there was a food cart and it had an assortment of sandwiches and hotdogs, chips, coffees, tea, soft drinks, waters, etc. The catch was it only accepted cash.
So, we left and went back towards Buckingham Palace, when, lo and behold, there was a cash machine right across the street.
We decided to take out a hundred pounds, which was roughly $150 at the then-current exchange rate to keep for odds and ends in London.
We then went back to the food cart and got ourselves sandwiches, chips and waters. For around twenty pounds.
Off we went, walking up around Parliament and Big Ben. You could pay to go inside Parliament, but that wasn’t something we were interested in, so we continued walking beside Big Ben across the Thames River toward the large Ferris Wheel, the Eye of London. We took some pictures of the river. Then bam—it started raining. Just like that, out of the blue.
It was a true London rainstorm because we, and everyone around us, got soaked in the space of three minutes. We even had our rain jackets on.
Ducking for cover across the street in the Marriot Hotel, we along with many other travelers waited out the storm.
While waiting out the storm, there was a Big Bus London tour guy so we bought a pass and boarded the double-decker bus, figuring we could see the city in the rain. It cost about forty pounds per person for a three-day pass. With this pass you can hop on and off the bus at most tourist places around London. This was a great thing to do, especially when it is raining because you can ride, covered, underneath and see the city. It has headphones for an audio tour and you ride—not in rain—and go past all the sites and hear a bit of history. It is great for orienting yourself to London.
We headed for St. Paul’s Cathedral.
When we got to St. Paul’s we found out that the Cathedral closes at 4 and that the tour took roughly an hour to complete. We also found out that St. Paul’s costs around eighteen pounds. Unfortunately, it was around 3:45 when we got there, so we decided to come back another day when we had more time.
We then hopped back on the Big Bus Tour and rode it back to Big Ben, and by this time it had stopped raining.
Another thing that was included in the Big Bus Tour we purchased was a river ride tour. It started by Big Ben and went down to the London Bridge. It was only a half hour but it gave miraculous views of the city. You sit on top and go past the Eye of London. The Shard, which is a fancy hotel shaped like a spear. The London Bridge. It really is a picturesque thing to do and is easy. We got the last boat down. And it left Big Ben area at 6 p.m. It’s good to know that it wasn’t marked as a “Big Bus London Tour.” When I was, initially, looking down at the dock, I didn’t see a Big Bus Boat and I thought we’d missed it, but when I asked, they pointed me to a competitor “Tour” Company. I only wanted to mention this to point out that it’s important to ask. And, so you would know that other companies give tours for the Big Bus Tour.
After we did the river tour, we hopped off at Tower of London. Note: the site was closed to tour at 5. So, we couldn’t tour the site, but we were able to walk down the Thames River and, essentially walk on the grounds and read the history about it. It is interesting that the Tower of London used to be the first point of entrance for ships in the channel. It was built by William the Conqueror, a French conqueror.
From the Tower, we continued up the Thames River. There is a nice walking path which takes you to The Tower Bridge, which is beautiful and majestic. It is unfat
homable that for so long this was the only way to get across the river. It feels very hardy and there is a path to walk or bike across.
Biking. You can bike anywhere in London. To me, it feels dangerous. Probably because I don’t know the roads well enough to navigate directions easily and because the streets are so close together. I’m sure it would be the same in New York … but I wouldn’t bike there either.
Walking is easy. Everything is a lot closer in London then I initially thought and it was fun to explore as we walked.
London is bustling with activity. Especially around five o’clock. This night we stumbled upon a big wharf party next to City Hall at The Scoop an outdoor amphitheater. With hula hoop dancers and music playing and drinks on the docks. It feels as if all the singles in London get done working around five and rush to the restaurants in their unofficial, official suits and jackets. There are far more men than women, I noticed.
And hardly any children in London, which was interesting to me and my husband. I suppose people don’t raise their kids in London. I wouldn’t. There’s not enough space for my four boys, that’s for sure.
And I was soooooo glad I didn’t bring my children on this trip. They wouldn’t appreciate the history, culture, sights. It would have truly been a waste of money and I know I would have been angry I brought them, so I wouldn’t enjoy it. I would, however, bring my 14-year-old son. I think he would have appreciated and enjoyed it.
Okay, after getting across the bridge, walking down the wharf, and hanging out at the amphitheater for a bit, we were tuckered out. We found the London Bridge Station, which was about a nine-minute walk from The Scoop and took the Underground back to the South Kensington Station near our hotel.