londonwalking

A masterpiece of human achievement

My Europe Tour 2025 – Blog #28 – Summary of my 44day Tour

The below blog can be more detailed in referring to Blog #1 by scrolling down beyond my 27 Europe blogs in my website of https://bhlifestyles.travel.blog for this amazing tour. My website has this recent Blog #28 first. My life mantra is to always make a positive difference/ improvement to whoever I meet & a slight twist to a Pericles quote (Died 429BC). “What you leave behind is not what is engraved on your headstone, but what is engraved into the minds & lives of others”

My initial passport was obtained in March 2016 at 60yrs old … yes, a late starter. Since then, in the last 10yrs I have been in 9 countries, such as, USA, Japan, Sth Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile & New Zealand whilst also travelling through my own country of Australia.

Europe is one region I thought was well beyond my means & capability, plus the currency killer however, it is time to be selfish & take time out from my ongoing extended family renovations & repairs assistance I’ve been providing over the years in my so-called retirement. LOL!! As I’ve aged, I had realised it is not the amount of moments that I breathe .. but the amount of moments my breath is taken away & that, as you will read on is how this Europe tour unfolded.

I am an ‘owner’ in Wyndham Resorts & through my credit level I can use their in-house Travel Club for assistance in compiling my tour proposal. I was blessed to have Nilli help me out where she organised my Sth America trip years prior & she remembered me too. I first compiled a list of my ex-backpacker friends I wanted to see over there in various countries & checked their availability for timing. Looks like 1st October 2025 to start my trip. From this list I was able to source the expected route & see what I can achieve to link up with everyone. This was quite a challenge to be practical & make it all work. Nili was impressed with my Excel spreadsheet & information provided & made her role much easier she said.

My friends live in Nuremberg, Munich, Amsterdam & Bristol UK. Drawing this out on a Europe map & checking the major places & sights I’d like to experience near to this route, plus keep my mum & youngest brother’s (both dec’d) wishes of places they never got to see. From this, I had to work out how many days I would need to use in each place of stay & to analyze what activities & tours to undertake to fully activate each day. Easy .. sarcasm. One could never do enough research, for there is so much to see & do.

From the above paragraph my tour now included Rome (1st stop), Nuremberg, Amsterdam, Paris, Amiens (brother for WW1 experience), Barcelona (my wish), Lisbon, Dublin, Bristol & London (mine & Mum’s wishes). These places were my most wished places to visit & the transport was relatively easy to address. I had to obtain entry requirements with the new ETA for England at £16 (2yr approval) & took 7mins to gain their approval, plus the upcoming 12th Oct 2025 new EES for the Schengen area entry.

With all this compiled information, Nilli set into action & also gained the best travel insurance which isn’t cheap at my age + still have the COVID part covered due to remaining world uncertainty. She made a few adjustments & upon my approval booked all the flights & most hotels stays & left me to do the train ticket purchases & a couple of accommodations where she couldn’t have access to. From my hometown to Europe & back will entail 44days in total, starting from Brisbane & leaving on 1st October 2025. If you review the calendar photo you can see most of my itinerary.

Europe, for me was always in the too-hard basket & when you throw all the current events we are fed on our media & travel alerts stemming from mass immigration to Germany, France & Italy to name a few then the anxiety steps in & for me I’ll be on my own even though I had done most of my travelling on my own over these past 10years.

My flight out from Brisbane entailed a 14hrs 50mins 1st leg to Doha & that is stretching my flight endurance limit & with a 3.5hr layover left a 5hr flight to Rome, arriving at 7.25am on 2nd Oct. I had obtained an eSIM with Saily within 30days of my departure & they had an excellent plan & with a set VPN too which activated the moment I landed in Rome, albeit my flight mode on my phone kept interacting after landing which knocked me out of internet until I had it sorted, via WiFi later in the day.  As you can see, I managed to do 28blogs for my Europe tour so keep scrolling down on my website to get the full itinerary tour & massive volume of photos to view.

From my blogs you will notice I never took a bus in cities to do the sightseeing like a Hop on Hop Off bus as it never suited me & I was watching my AUD to Euros (2 for 1) comparison, noting my pensioner status. Overall, I managed to travel 47,474klms through 8 countries, by 9 plane trips & 7 train trips using my Polarsteps App (you can follow my trips through this free app too). I highly recommend Polarsteps for travelling where people can trace where you are in real time plus you can write up your blogs & whatever photos you wish & when the trip is over you can get a deal to review & change your entries into a high-quality bound tour book at a set rate. In this 44day tour I walked 609,651 steps which was compiled by my Samsung Health in my phone that equals 475.23klms so that’s a lot of walking. I endeavoured to undertake a city walking tour wherever I can but sometimes the timing doesn’t work out so it’s back to my research & city walking. Hope you like this summary & please refer to my blogs for even more information, facts & statistics.

Rome – Italy

Rome was beyond amazing & you could spend countless days there & still not see everything. I would return to Rome in a heartbeat. That is the major thing to overcome; to realise you can’t see everything. The next thing is to assign a good travel time. I fluked October, being into Autumn mode where it is far cooler at around 20°C, less people but still packed in certain sights whereas in Summer, June to August is really hot in Rome for the pavements are black basalt paving everywhere & the streets & lanes are slightly narrow with the added tourist numbers.  The Piazzas (plazas) offer open spaces but are packed with tourists, especially, The Pantheon & Trevi Fountain. Always best to see these in early morning or late afternoon including the Colosseum, Roman Forum & Palantine Hill due to potential crowd crush & high temps.

There is an underground train station adjacent to the Colosseum & that should be looked at, for it’s also an underground museum which I didn’t know at the time. Same for The Pantheon in having an underground museum. The original street level of Rome is some 7m below the current street levels.

The Vatican is always busy & don’t sit at a table for coffee along the streets getting there as you could be slugged the table fee of some €20 for the pleasure. Take notice of the local laws for some fines are hefty including any train trips to validate your ticket, etc & don’t get confused with economy or 1st class trains. I got stung with an economy ticket on a 1st class train & was conned by the platform lady guiding me to the 1st Class train. Felt like a planned tourist trap. This was the train from the airport to the CBD Termini Station. They have since installed a ticket verification system & with substantial fines so be very diligent.

I spent a full day (13hrs) undertaking a bus guide tour to Positano (Amalfi Coast) & Pompeii which was amazing & on Blog #4. Most of my activity & access tours were through Viator, City Wonders, Get Your Guide, & Crown Tours. To repeat, Rome I would go back in a heartbeat.

Nuremberg – Germany

I was staying for 6nights with a young friend, AJ (privacy) who I helped tour New Zealand back in 2017 when she was backpacking & her & her family were keen to spend time with me seeing I had looked after her so well. I flew into Munich, then caught a 1hr train to Nuremberg. AJ took me to Tegernsee (South of Munich, a perfect getaway resort area) via a quick tour of the Audi Production Factory prior. We spent half a day in Munich & more time in Nuremberg which is a city that is amazing & so much history. Later I spent a night at AJ’s parents’ home NW of Nuremberg in the wine region & it was fantastic to enjoy a loving family’s home & cooking (lots of it!!) & to see such great countryside & very cute villages. Thoroughly enjoyed this friend week & hope to see AJ again soon for she really looked after this old man.

Amsterdam – Netherlands

I was able to fly direct via Nuremberg airport which was a bonus & getting through a tiny airport for a change. Airport train from Schiphol Airport was a breeze to Centraal Station (correct spelling). This city takes a while to get your bearings seeing it is a canal city so be patient. Amsterdam has a very expensive City Tax to pay when you check in to your hotel. My 5night stay & value of hotel rate plus a coefficient in a formula calculates a €128 fee. OUCH!!

Amsterdam is a tram & bike city, so I booked a bike tour & while riding a bike is simple you have the added pressure of avoiding people, cyclists & above all, the dreaded tram lines. Trust me, I saved a woman from getting hit by a tram she didn’t hear or see & most likely saved her life. It was a good way of covering a good distance & to see sights relatively easily. You can hire bikes, but I chose the foot walking mode for flexibility & ultimately safety. This city of freedom is so relaxed & at times I was quite ‘happy’ returning to my hotel for I could not avoid the constant fumes of weed throughout the day where it is legal in public, taverns, etc. You can’t avoid it.

I was so blessed to have my dear friends; Ayla & Renske who could meet with me over 2 separate days. It was like yesterday to seeing them again. 2 lovely women I met back in my hometown when they were backpacking. They both have children now but of course they were all in school. Both these 2 days I never wished to end. Such a great time to see them again & both are so gorgeous & haven’t really changed at all. Amsterdam is so unique & well worth a visit in seeing a city built on top of a forest of trees (tree piles) with slanting houses & buildings. To see Ann Frank’s house, you must book well in advance & I challenge you to handle the maze of the Rembrandt Museum.

Paris – France

I caught a regional train from Centraal Station – Amsterdam to Gare du Nord (Northern station of Paris) 3.5hrs & not a bullet train. The train was good, but Gare du Nord is one of the worst & complicated stations in Europe & I really found that out. It is HUGE & has 5 Halls (Sections of platforms). You have to get a cab, bus or another suburban interstop train to get to the Eifel Tower & main city area. I eventually got a ticket (4 RER B Sud) for €6.30 to Saint -Michel- Notre Dame Station & then changed to Champ de Mars Station, being the closest to the Eifel Tower & my Mercure Hotel. The City Tax was far cheaper at €25.35.

I only wanted to see the Eifel Tower, The Louvre, Notre Dame, Champs Elysees & Arc de Triomphe. If you read my relevant blog on Paris, you will note I was at The Louvre the morning it was robbed so I missed out on that plus the associated Seine River cruise & with the thousands awaiting to see inside Notre Dame I missed that too, but I got my outside photos at least & a good blog & life story. I found Paris to be rather dirty & slightly unkept of appearance, lots of Somalian market vendors selling Eifel trinkets, etc & would only return to see those missed internal landmarks mentioned above, possibly an overnight stay. My blog of the Eifel Tower shows the incredible history & statistics for this wonder of construction.

Amiens – France

I took a dreaded taxi to Gare Du Nord for the early set train departure. I was totally ripped off by an extremely rude French driver. I left by stating we (Australia) saved you (France) twice in 2 world wars & this is the shit we receive. I should have dropped the fare into the gutter for him to pick up. I was thankful my train was in Hall 1 (Ground Floor upon entry).

Travelling to & staying at Amiens is firstly for the train runs through it, has more accommodation available & is a bigger city than the village of Villers-Bretonneux (closer to the war section I am preferring to see). For my accommodation I selected La Pléiade Dorée from my Booking.com provider at my Genius Level rate. Travelling to the war locations I wanted to see involves a bit of hardship + hiring a car is a bit risky for me & to firstly obtain one, so I booked the best war tour available through Tripadvisor for a full day. It wasn’t cheap but goes for 8hrs & includes a private vehicle with a guide.

My WW1 Tour is an extra special day thought about long ago. It is about a ‘promise’ I secretly made to myself to visit the war area surrounding Villers-Bretonneux & The General Sir John Monash War Memorial just out of town. The promise came about when I was trying to organise a trip in 2017 for the 2018 opening of the underground War Museum at The General Sir John Monash War Memorial with my youngest brother, Rod but I won’t go into why he couldn’t agree to go, but it wasn’t his decision not to. Not long after my first planning of this trip & discussing it with him Rod suddenly passed away (at only 54). Rod was an avid reader of books on WW1 & knew a lot more than I on the subject. After he passed away, I made that promise to myself to take him with me .. much like I’ve done on every trip since 2017.

Our greatest ever Australian, General Sir John Monash who landed on Day 1 at Gallipoli 25th April 1915 & through his efforts & strategies saved countless lives & later ensured the safest retreat from the bloodbath of Gallipoli & in 1918 took control of the whole alliance armed forces of countries (England, USA, Canada, NZ & other countries) in an orchestrated front to defeat the German army. He was the only one to ever achieve that chief honour of such a combined force. Only cruel politics & jealousy kept him from being rightly called Field Marshall, for he was born in Melbourne of German Jew parents & as he grew always called Australia his country despite his heritage. He designed & constructed several rail bridges & the electricity network & brought concrete to Australia. A very famous Australian & forever remembered.

I am forever grateful for having the full day with my guide, Bridgitt on a Tripadvisor 8hr tour – Australian Battlefields Tour. She totally looked after me & spoke wonderful English & had supreme knowledge of the war & more recent history of the region. Totally blessed. The tour was well worth the money plus I added a good tip of €s too for driving me all the way back to my apartment.

Barcelona – Spain

My timetable & the rail timetable had me forced to stay overnight in Paris, back at Garde du Nord & then onto a hotel (Tim Hotel) near my departure point of Garde de Lyon for an early 3.5hr bullet train to Barcelona.

Almost every day my breath has been taken away in seeing such amazing sights but to see the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia is beyond any senses & imagination. I was just in awe of its magnificence & to know just one genius Antoni Gaudi at 31yrs old of age designed & engineered this amazing structure before my eyes. Beyond words & comprehension. I bought a booklet in their museum to grasp the many details, etc in this basilica.

How can anyone design the engineering, physics & still get the construction right when it comes to geological construction. If this is not the paramount of human design/ construction on earth I don’t know what is (forget the pyramids, Great Wall of China, etc). I hope you can get a grasp of this basilica, inside & out. The stats are beyond comprehension; there will be 20 towers when completed & with the central tower (under construction will reach 172.5m high, named Tower of Jesus Christ) & the 2nd highest tower, St Mary’s Tower at 138.5m high. 12 of the towers will represent the 12 apostles. I was able to take the tower lift option located within St Mary’s Tower & that is high!!! For a great city viewing & you are welcomed to exit by taking the spiral stone staircase all the way down, to which I did gracefully & carefully. June 2026 this basilica will be completed, making it the tallest church in the world & an observation platform showing 360 for the public within the Tower of Jesus Cross, recently installed.

Gaudi was killed by a tram in 1926 after leaving the basilica where he spent most of his life on-site. His funeral was massive & is body buried next the main altar in The Crypt below the main floor. Through other architects, engineers & sculptors he commissioned & trained carried on his innovative project. The Tower of Jesus with its upper arm of the 56-ft-tall four-armed cross, installed in late March 2026, making it the tallest church in the world & providing a full 360° view of Barcelona city. The cross was built in Germany using white enameled ceramic tiles, stone interior and glass that were made in the Spanish region of Catalonia. It was then transported in parts back to Barcelona by ferry and trucks and finally assembled at the church with precision crane work.

The outside of the basilica is fully biblical, with statues, symbols, nature & about everything else whereas the internal of the basilica is dedicated to light & peace & the stone columns representing trees of life. The colours of life (blue, yellow & green, etc) occur through the glass windows every morning & then changes to red/ orange for the setting sun. Every night, since the Cross installation the basilica has an amazing light show.

Barcelona is a must-see city & there is a lot to see but the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia totally did it for me. Blogs 14 & 15.

Lisbon – Portugal

I had a short flight into Lisbon from Barcelona & took a city bus into the Restauradores (CBD of the historic area). Not a great deal to see in this city however taking a full day bus tour to Sintra, Pena, Regaleira, Cabo Roca Coast & Cascais plus the additional Full Pena Palace and Regaleira really made this stay worthwhile. I was really surprised of what this day uncovered & was well worth the expenditure. Blog #18

Dublin – Ireland

A 3hr flight from beautiful sunny & mild Autumn of Portugal to the usual Dublin windy, rainy 11°C was not fun. Best to get the Dublin Express bus that takes you into the city for 30mins trip at €10. I did a very average walking city tour the next morning for 2hrs, but I’m sure there must be better ones so do your research. The Guinness Brewery Tour for ($52AUD) was well worth the long afternoon tour. Once you find the entrance, the facility is a great experience venturing up to the 7th Floor Guinness Gravity Bar for your free Guinness pint & mingling with a hundred or so thirsty drinkers & a great view of the city of the weather is fine. The history & statistics will blow your mind. 4hrs of free roaming can be over in just ‘minutes’.

The next day was my Walking Pub Tour & I wished I had done this before the city walking tour. Kevin Adams was an amazing guide with so much knowledge & he also does food tours http://www.walkingfoodtours.ie. There are 798 pubs in Dublin alone. He told us The Brazen Head on Liffeyside Bridge St is Dublin’s oldest pub where it started beer moonshining in 1198 & now on the same site the pub was built in 1754. Smithwick’s (Irish Red Ale) is traced back to 1710 as the first official beer produced in Dublin by John Smithwick’s Brewery at St Francis Abbey (Kilkenny) adding on to the same beer produced by the then monks. Pls read my respective blog of this tour to learn some old sayings of drinking & how they came about. So funny & forever in my memory. Blogs 20 & 21.

Bristol – UK

Leaving Dublin was easy for me being close to the River Liffey where I walked over in the dark to the Custom House bus stop (800m) for the Dublin Express to Dublin T2 (€10, booked online for 4.05am) for 06.35am – 07.55 BA (British Airways) on Aer Lingus flight to Bristol Airport, UK (1.5hrs) to stay with my married friends my eldest son & I met doing the Machu Picchu 4day Trek in Peru in 2019. This is where my ETA came into play (new entry tax for Britain).

David picked me up at this small airport & for the next few days, saw lots of Bristol & Bath which were quite surprising & enjoyable & had lots of Roman buildings & infrastructure plus the famous Roman Baths. Sue really looked after me & David at times had soccer commitments. I finally got to inspect the last operational Concorde aircraft jet where my last opportunity was missed back in 1986. Despite staying with great friends my blogs had plenty of info & photos. Sue managed to get me to my train after a 4day stay for London too which was amazing & so thoughtful. Such treasured memories with great friends.

London – UK

The train trip was such a breeze from Bristol (1hr 40mins) to Paddington Station (a very busy station) & it was just a simple 15mins walk to my Thistle Hyde Park Kensington Hotel on Bayswater Rd aligned with Hyde Park. The walk had a mixture of shops, apartments, pubs & basically everything else of a busy suburb. A great location.

Hyde Park is a fantastic green space & HUGE!!!! Kensington is a great suburb & rather close to most of Westminster CBD landmarks & then onto London CBD. Quite a few blogs on this major world city & our birthplace of Australia. Lots of photos & of course I was aligned to not seeing everything. No use writing more as you need to read my blogs. London was brilliant but had to watch the British Pounds against my poor AUD. So much history & architecture.

Home – Australia

I took an iconic taxicab to Paddington Station. The driver was a pleasant surprise to experience a real taxi driver & cab. Without a hassle I caught the 4.30am direct train to Heathrow Airport T2/ T3 platform. At this terminal stop I must disembark but stay on this platform as per the platform announcement & digital signage for the next train in 5mins that took me to my required Terminal 4. So easy.

After my 5day stay in London I was back onto the long-haul flights back to Brisbane & then more travelling to my birthplace of Grafton, then to my new home of Yamba (40mins bus). All in all, my travelling time getting home was in total (allowing for layovers, hotel stay & waiting times) at 44hrs 20mins. 37hrs directly associated with travel & all of a sudden, it hit me … I had just completed Europe Stage 1 & saw so many things I thought were out of my reach in life. At some point I’ll be focussing on doing Europe Stage 2 asap. I quickly reviewed my Polarsteps App of all my Europe blogs & ordered 2 large volumes of my blogs & photos (high volume of writing & photos) & they arrived quickly & are such a blessing to review them to prove I did this tour.

I’ll finish this summary blog now, so please stay safe, happy & healthy & my usual quote I used to put at my endings follows.

Eckart Tolle – “If I am not the hero in my life .. who the hell could it be”? Ciao for now. Stay safe, happy & healthy.

My Europe Tour 2025 – Blog #26 – London UK B 08/11/25

8/11/25 Another HUGE day with so many photos, including Westminster Abbey. Keeping to my body clock I showered, packed my day bag & completed my mandatory protein enriched brekky. Having a big protein brekky is a must for anyway touring & walking as much as I do plus frequent hydration. I headed off West, the opposite way I have been starting my days, & seeing the other end of Hyde Park to view Kensington Castle, Princess Diana’s residence for years & her favourite sunken garden & pond where a now famous statue of her, dedicated by Prince William stands. Coming from the direction I took you come across the gardens, sunken pool & statue prior to seeing Kensington Castle. Also, numerous squirrels being silly in thick Autumn leaves. Certainly, brings some laughs & smiles.

After surveying the area, you can see why Princess Diana liked this area, for its ambience of retreat & solitude. Princess Diana was my favourite royal & now I admire Princess Kate (Catherine). I left the grounds of Hyde Park & walked along the ultra-long street of Kensington Rd, joining onto Knightsbridge & I felt another nosebleed from the air of money to live in these buildings. Plenty of embassy’s too & very expensive cars. Located at 161 Knightsbridge I came across something quite extraordinary to be found in London … a suspended rhinoceros above Samer Halimeh NY, a 2-storey famous US jeweller shop with 30mm bulletproof glass windows & prices start at £5,000. This renovation cost £10mil based on bringing NY architecture to London. With the ‘nosebleed’ & constant viewing of architecture & the like I ultimately took a wrong turn & headed down Vauxhall Bridge Rd but realised in time before I got to the River Thames. The more you look around London, the more you see.

Again, many weird sights, memorials & ultra-strange building designs like the Underground Victoria Station (curved roof building). With many frustrations with Google Maps, I eventually found my way back to Westminster Abbey & finally the public are allowed entry, so I managed to find the ticket booth to the side & buy an entry ticket on a concession rate (over 60) for £28. A bit of a wait to get in & the volume of people within was amazing. A bit of patience is required as we saunter through the mire of elevated & sectionalised tombs with the number of conga lined viewers. The left photo below shows the Eastern elevation & the right one, the Northern Front Entrance.

The Abbey is amazing, but for me it was predominately, a crypt for the volume of tombs inlaid within. Some 3,000+ burials & 600 memorials lie within the Abbey. It is an architectural masterpiece, particularly from 13th to 16th centuries where many royals, dignitaries are entombed & royals commemorated. No-one knows when the first church was built on this swampy, previously Thorney Island site, however it is estimated over a thousand years ago. History became more factual once King Edward, The Confessor, started his church. To be absolutely clear you could spend 4hours minimum here just going through the entire Abbey & looking at everything that catches your eye. The Great Rose Window & the other glass windows are a standout but as you see the works involved in the construction of the ceilings, some 102′ above the floor & well, that is beyond amazing.

The Abbey is divided into so many chapels, & recognition memorials of various human achievements, such as literature, music, science, law, mathematics, physics, medicine, exploration, navigation, governance, war heroes & the list continues of so many famous names. Queen Elizabeth 11 was the 1st funeral for a reigning monarch at the Abbey for some 250years. She was later buried in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle alongside Prince Phillip who died 1yr prior in 2021.

Currently, King Charles 111 is building a Sacristy extension to the Abbey. Forty monarchs have been crowned in the Abbey since King Edgar in 973AD, latest of course being King Charles 111. Entombed in this Abbey are approx. 3,300 burials of previous Kings & Queens & so many others, but more importantly, King Edward, later Edward the Confessor back in 1065 passed away who started this Abbey & is intombed in front of the High Altar.

The ancient Coronation Chair (1301) is still present in the Abbey for viewing but you need good eyesight for the distance from the barricade & is used to this day but has been decorated over the centuries. The happiest event of late was the marriage of Prince William & Catherine, 29th April 2011. At the West Door entrance, the first tomb inlaid in the floor is The Unknown Soldier from WW1 surrounded these past days with the recognised poppies & wreaths are laid in every war service. Upon leaving, I bought a booklet for £9.00 for future reference & hasn’t that been a godsend of good fortune.

Walking away from the river slightly, I walked from the other end of Parliament St to view Downing St, but with the usual security & TV camera setups no access was freely available. Whitehall is the Parliament House & other main government departments. House of Commons & House of Lords area, etc are over to the West behind Big Ben & Westminster Abbey closer to the River Thames.

Apart from wandering around, I didn’t see all that much, but I loved walking around London compared to some other cities on this trip however, you can see the terrible changes with the confronting attire of the Muslims & their arrogance of walking right through you. How can anyone get used to black letterboxes walking into you? What they are doing is real colonization & not in a good way like the British accomplished. Sadly, Australia is following the failed British society. Always something to see or experience. Again, it was getting quite late & it was dark when I reached my Thistle Hyde Park Kensington Hotel. Today I walked 27,263 steps = 21.37kms & straight into food, beer & writing my travel blogs … Oh … & a good shower.

Post Blog: I wholeheartedly wish for our current King Charles 111 to abdicate immediately for he is the Defender of the Faith of Church of England like his predecessors for some 500years with the common title of Supreme Governor. Since his coronation it is becoming aware he has a very strong bond to Islam & did not do an Easter message to Britain but did one for Ramadam & also had a Ramadam Dinner at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle where Queen Elizabeth 11 is now buried. What a disgrace!!! I NEVER liked this imbecile & definitely not for a role as King. Thoughts?

All photos are copyright of bhlifestyles.travel.blog

My Europe Tour 2025 – Blog #25 – London UK – A 07/11/25

7/11/2025 Again, brekky at 7.30am & I’m walking back toward Paddington Station on my way to Lord’s Cricket Ground for a tour starting at 10am. It was about a 20min walk to Lord’s & I was surprised to find the classic canal water boat sanctuary along the way. These boats are mostly permanent residences too. The closer I came to Lord’s the more expensive the housing & units became. Paul McCarthy has a home near to Lord’s at the Nursery end along with Mick Jagger, a unit at the other end of the cricket ground to name a few. I wonder who else has an apartment here. Something of note was to understand I’m looking for a cricket ground & not our usual cricket/ sports stadium we are so used to in Australia & with that I almost missed Gate 6 & fenceline of the Lord’s Cricket Ground in a quiet street of Middlesex/ Marylebone. I’ve seen houses with the same fence height & look. LOL!

Of course, being traditionally early as always, the friendly uniformed guard at Gate 6 (meeting point) told me to fill in the time by walking back almost the way I came by some 5mins & I’ll come across the famous pedestrian crossing of Abbey Road, the Beatles album cover they did decades ago. It didn’t take me long to know I had found the pedestrian crossing for all the self-indulgent idiots stopping traffic trying to get the same Beatles photo. Talk about self-entitlement on display. A couple almost got hit by a car due to their selfishness & stupidity. I took my required photo (without the fanfare, etc) & left the idiots to cop the rightful tirade from motorists. I wonder how the nearby residents handle this crap plus the numerous horn toots.

With still some 20mins for the 10am entry, the same guard let me enter the grounds with the only entry available being the museum which was most satisfactory. With complete shock the first item, near the entry was the original & famous Ashes Urn in its unique glass encasement. I was expecting a replica & not the real thing & especially close to the entrance/ exit. There was a replica further in too. Lady Janet Clarke, a well-known Australian philanthropist, residing in Melbourne used a tiny terracotta urn (4″ high) on her dresser, believed to be a perfume bottle bought by Lady Clarke at an Egyptian bazaar, was presented to Ivo Bligh, the captain of the English touring team of 1882/83 who was defeated by an Australian team of a test match (a national calamity by the English press), where she placed the ashes of a bail from a social game between the touring team & her estate staff on her property & offered it as a gift to the English Captain who treasured it for years. When Ivo Bligh passed away, he gifted the urn to the MCC & that’s where the legend began between the two countries.

Lord’s is very small when compared to our MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground, capacity of 110,000) but full of history. Lord’s attendance record is 31,180. Cricket is the only sport carried out on the actual ground. No concerts either, purely for cricket. The Lord’s premises does cater for tennis, squash, etc for the member’s participation in other buildings.

Getting into the museum early was a bonus to peruse the artifacts, etc at my pace & that allowed more understanding & relevance when Neil, our guide joined us for the tour & showed us certain items in the museum & the statistics just kept flowing from his mouth with no intention available to us to remember just some of it. There were so many familiar famous names that brought back wonderful memories. He certainly knew cricket history & his bucket list is one day to visit our MCG. I told him never say ‘one day‘ & now is the perfect time, for the AUD is about 2 for 1pound plus you could see his health needs improving. I hope he took that advice strongly. Below is a painting of a cricketer, the low stumps & the hockey type bat they used in the early days. The other photo shows several caps, but the standout was the Umpire Dicky Bird’s cap, a treasured & much-loved umpire character.

Neil showed us the famous Long Room where teams come close to members during the match, how & where they walk out into the ground. The next room we saw was the Committee Room, where a certain chair was used for Queen Elizabeth 11 to watch cricket. It was not the best seating location, for the Queen was not a true cricket fan & it possibly gave her more privacy. Prince Phillip on the other hand was an avid fan & would attend every chance he got. Every year a person becomes President of the MCC & when it is formally taken that person immediately nominates the next president to be ready for the next year. Currently, a woman is the first ever woman to take the President’s role.

Apparently, there are more than 188,000 people awaiting the approval to be a registered member & can take more than a decade or two minimum. When a person turns 16, they start the process & if it advances several interviews, performances & demonstration of cricket becomes essential & critical to further advancement up the ladder with no guarantee of any success, let alone the fees involved. The members on match day have no set seat assigned. First in first served, so some members sit outside the entry gate before dawn to get in first & the second the gates open, the stampede starts, obviously little decorum is shown.

We could not see the player’s dressing rooms due to a cricket function that day. Neil then took us to Section C of the largest grandstand (named Grand Stand .. LOL) which showed the incredible 8’ slope from one side to the other (across the front of the Pavilion). It is economically not viable to rectify this slope as it affects everything on this estate & beyond. From there, we ventured into the ‘spaceship’ Media Centre but was quickly told the architect referred it to the hull of a ship. None of us got that inclination. Spaceship for all of us. Neil identified the chair our great Richie Benaud used when commentating. When he passed away, the seat remained vacant as respect. I miss his voice & cricket wit. I bought a booklet to remind me of this great experience for £15.00 from the museum shop.

On this tour I met a group of Australians & straight after invited me to join them for lunch which was a blast. One married couple from Ex-Melbourne (Wayne & Bernie) now live in a village in Bali & they still contacted me when I arrived back in Australia & they did most of the communication out of the group at lunch. They certainly love living in Bali through their ‘retirement’. The lunch catchup was truly wonderful to hear their stories & also to share mine of course. It was priceless to be so welcomed to share their time with me. I love meeting these people who openly interact to expand my life network & to learn their life stories. After a great talkfest, I said my good-byes, for they were e-biking/ scooter in a different direction to me. With this buzz of positive interaction, I quickly hit my steps.

I headed back down through the suburbs following my brain compass & sometimes Google Maps to ultimately arrive near The Strand & then onto Big Ben area again. It was quite a walk of looking at suburbs & shops & more landmarks & great architecture/ history & it wasn’t till I got back towards the river the scenery became obviously more impressive. The Strand area is certainly worth visiting. I came across the famous communication BT Tower with its impressive height of 191m. The viewing area is not open to the public, which is a shame, but understandable. Next was Bush House as a standout which was a 1925 building for trade by an American Irving T Bush & was later a base for the BBC & now is used by King’s College.

The next unusual architecture that caught my eye was surprisingly the Australian High Commission (Australia House). King George V laid the foundation stone in 1913, but the building only opened 1918 due to WW1. It is the oldest continually occupied diplomatic building in London. It’s location on The Strand is part of ‘Old London’. Within the building foundation is an uncovered ancient well of some 900years old & that is where the local name of Holywell originates from. The well was tested recently & the fresh water still remains suitable for human drinking. The staff can sometimes show you around the magnificent interior when time permits but of course, I was unaware of this availability. Certainly, the interior & designs would be amazing. Such a shame to miss this. Just outside of this building is the Lord Dowding Statue of a great aviator reaching the rank of Air Chief Marshall of WW11 with Battle of Britain & his aviation also started in WW1. He later became 1st Baron (1943) who died in 1970 at 87yrs old & buried in Westminster Abbey due to his critical contribution.

Another standout & wreaked of importance & stature was the Victorian Gothic architecture of The Royal Courts of Justice, opened in 1882. This Royal Court houses the High Court & Court of Appeal of England & Wales plus other courts of notability. There are over 1,000 rooms within this structure. The architect, George Edmund Street died during its construction.

With further walking around the Big Ben area I started to unwind, people watched & slowly made my way back to The Marble Arch & along Bayswater Rd to my Thistle Hyde Park Kensington Hotel. It turned out a day of minimal after yesterday’s huge day & after the Lord’s tour but managed to walk a good 28,093 steps = 22.19 kms just below my tour record of 25.55klms yesterday (Blog 24).

I’ll end my Blog #25 here. Many thanks for reading my blogs. My next blog will be more of London UK B. Please stay safe, happy & healthy. Cheers.