The next day’s schedule was a half-day city tour of London on a bus booked through a local tour company. After breakfast, we were picked up at the lobby and off we went to have a panoramic drive around the main districts of London, starting with Parliament Square. We made a stop at the Westminster Abbey, but managed to only peek in because a private wedding was supposed to start in a few minutes.
We just bought souvenirs at the gift shop and took pictures of the wedding party waiting outside the church for the ceremony to begin. They didn’t mind us tourists snapping away shots. Dressed in bright red and purple quirky gowns and wearing funny-looking hats and weirdly-shaped fascinators on their heads, it seemed more like a circus than a traditional English wedding. There were even clowns walking on stilts, mind you, which made me wonder what was really going on in the abbey. You wouldn’t say the English people are boring or too uptight, would you?
My husband refused to pose for a shot inside one of the iconic red telephone booths. I told him that my friend took my picture there the previous day, but he just rolled his eyes and said, "I'm good, thanks!"
Next, we headed to Kensington Palace, the Royal Albert Hall, and the Albert Memorial. Then we visited St. James Square and the Buckingham Palace to watch the “Changing of the Guard” ceremony, which for me, was the highlight of the morning.
We secured a good spot under a shady tree, so even if it was scorching hot that morning, we had a comfortable preview of this colourful ceremony. The last stop was supposed to be Trafalgar Square but the local guide offered to drop us off anywhere we liked.
As it was nearly noon and we were famished, we got off at Harrod’s. Earlier during the tour, we spotted a lot of interesting restaurants around the area and thought it was best to have lunch somewhere around there.
But Harrod's just beckoned to us to come over, and who wouldn't be enticed? It is the UK's largest department store with eight floors and five acres of luxury retailers and themed boutiques inside. What attracted us was the 19th-century building's grand Edwardian exterior and Art Deco interior. Its atmosphere is so unlike that of North America's highly commercial but characterless big box department stores and cookie-cutter outlet malls. This one oozes with understated elegance - from the Baroque-style domes, swirling Art Noveau windows, and terracotta tiles, to the crystal chandeliers, statues, and fountains.
There is even an Egyptian escalator leading up to an Egyptian Hall, a legacy left by its former owner, Egyptian businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed (Harrod's has been sold to Qatar Holdings).
Now, this one could arguably be on the kitsch side. As one rides the elevator (built a century after Harrod's famous escalator, considered UK's very first), one is treated to faux bas reliefs and hieroglyphs that tell the story of the Nile. Upstairs, gigantic columns, busts of pharaohs, sphinxes, Egyptian lamps, and even a zodiac-inspired ceiling would make one feel he's on a film set. There were also a couple of memorials dedicated to Al-Fayed's son, Dondi, and Princess Diana, who perished together on that fateful 1998 car accident. I told my husband that I wasn't sure how I felt about this section. The whole Egyptian/Memorial theme seemed out-of-place. Nevertheless, it sure was one of the attractions of this building.
After a brief walk around to get our bearings, we went straight to the Food Hall, since we were hungry. When we saw the hall, we realized there was no need to go anywhere else because it had everything under one roof and on one floor – carved meat, fresh seafood, freshly-baked bread, assorted cheeses, delightful desserts, tea and coffee, specialty chocolates, ice cream and gelato – oh, it was wonderfully overwhelming! There’s also quite a selection of places for sit-down dining inside the building, around two dozen or so of fine-dining restaurants, casual bistros, tea rooms, Venetian cafés, and food court-style eateries (but way more elegant than a typical food court). There, we found an Iberico ham house, an oyster bar, a dim sum place, a pizzeria, a sushi bar, a rotisserie, and of course, an English pub.
But my husband already knew what he wanted – grilled seafood at Bentley’s Sea Grill. It was not a bad choice at all. He ordered an assorted plate of specialty fish – Dover sole, John Dory, and turbot, while I got a bowl of lobster bisque and tried the “Royal Fish Pie,” which they advertised as a dish served at the Queen’s 80th birthday. It was indeed a luxurious pie, with scallops and lobster tails in the filling, and a sauce made with lobster bisque and heavy cream. All were extremely yummy and fresh. We later learned that Bentley’s is an iconic British institution and that the original restaurant near Piccadilly was founded in 1916 and is still in business today. No wonder!
We walked around the department store after lunch just to check it out. With 330 departments, it was impossible to see everything. But since my husband and I didn’t care much for clothes, shoes, bags, or any of those things, we spent most of our time in the toy section on the fourth floor. Aptly called, "Toy Kingdom," it was a haven for children! We pretended to look for things we could buy for our nieces and our future baby, but we were actually looking at stuff that interested us – giant crossword puzzles for my husband, and for me, those fascinating educational kits that we didn’t have available when we were kids.
When we’ve seen all there was to see in that section, we went to the Food Hall again to purchase some English tea, chocolates, macarons from Ladurée, and more than enough cheese and deli meat for our midnight snack and my husband’s take along lunch and snacks the following day.
All that food shopping got us hungry again, so we decided to eat dinner there as well. This time, we tried Harrod’s Rotisserie with its quality flame-roasted meat. My husband had a hearty steak and I ordered a roasted duck dish. Happy and satiated, we took a cab back to the hotel and slept early.
The next day was a big day. It was the official start day of the group tour. We were going to meet our Tour Director and tour mates, mostly from Australia and New Zealand, and we were heading off to Dover, Kent to cross the English Channel to Calais, France.
Photo Credits:
bighospitality.com.uk, harrods.com, cntraveller.com, royalparks.org.uk, a-broad-in-london.com, dailymail.co.uk, mightymac.org
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