Category Archives: Britain

Visit London 2012: Tips For Planning A Visit

Check out this guest post for tips on planning a visit to London in 2012 – during or even after the 2012 Summer Olympics. This is a Guest Post is by British Airways who fly directly from Seattle to London (I know, I’ve taken that particular flight, with my kids, many, many times in the 16 years that I’ve been living in Seattle).

Visit London 2012

If you’re thinking about making your way across the pond with your family this summer but are unsure of where to start, we have some helpful, family-friendly tips on how to navigate around the city that we know and love.

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not too late to book reasonable flights or hotel stays for London – especially with the dollar becoming increasingly stronger (₤.64 GBP ~ $1 USD). Here are some helpful links to help get the ball rolling:

Where to Stay:
There’s plenty of great information on Accommodation on VisitLondon.com.
Take advantage of the British Airways “London for Free” promotion – two nights free hotel stay with the purchase of round-trip airfare between the US and UK. The offer is valid through Thursday midnight (EST), Jul. 25, 2012, with the free hotel stay valid for travel from Jul. 27, 2012, through Sep. 30, 2012.

Getting Around:
Fast track into the city on the Heathrow Express train or if you have more time consider the Tube, aka London Underground. You should plan your travel route around the city in advance, look up fares, and buy an Oyster card (fare swipe card).
Rates for Students and Children: Read up on Tube ticket deals that you and your children can benefit from.
It’s worth noting that there is a Games Travelcard, which provides spectators free travel within zones 1–9 on the London public transport network throughout the day of the event.

There are plenty of other great family-friendly sights to check out if you visit London 2012:

Ride the London Eye, the world’s largest ferris wheel. It offers astonishing city views and family photo opportunities!

Tour Buckingham Palace and celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Cruise along the River Thames to observe the city’s beauty from a relaxing setting.

Have a family picnic at Hyde Park and visit the peaceful Princess Diana Memorial Fountain.

London has many city farms that are free to visit. Vauxhall City Farm offers pony care classes and donkey rides, while MudChute Park and Farm is the largest urban farm in London sitting on 34 acres. Many of the farms also host children’s playgrounds and fresh farm shops.

If you’re lucky enough to get tickets for The Games then make time to visit Park Live: British Airways will also be hosting a live public viewing of the Games in the Olympic Park, posting giant two-sided screens for up to 10,000 viewers. Give your family a front-and-center view of the sporting action from the comfort of a serenely grassy park.

With so much buzzing in London this summer, it’s helpful to get prepared to ensure your family has a smooth, fun trip filled with heaps of good memories.

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Ye Olde English Sweet Shoppe

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Here’s a funny thing: I’ve no idea whether or not sweet shops (candy stores) such as the one pictured above ever existed in the U.S. or not. This Mr. Simms Olde Sweet Shoppe is in Falmouth, England. The jars of sweets, especially the boiled sweets, reminded me of the thrill of excitement my sisters and I had just buying candy when we were very little. Choosing which sweets to buy from the shelves of jars such as you can see through the window in this photo was a delightful yet tortuous process – for us and, I’m sure, for my parents.

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All About Tulips At Eden Project

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For Photo Friday today, I’m sharing my totally self-indulgent flower photos. Much easier to capture in the right pose than children will ever be These photos were taken at the Mediterranean Biome of the Eden Project in Cornwall, UK in March. By now, I hope you’ve been able to enjoy tulips blooming in your own garden and it’s been a colorful show.

There, don’t you feel so much better imagining the feeling of standing in a field of tulips surrounded by a riot of color and scent? Happy Friday!

Update

When I saw Debbie’s photo today, I just had to share the last two books I bought for my boys while traveling – also in Italy. They were a find in a little Italian bookstore which only had about one shelf of English books. Unfortunately these books are not available on Amazon.com, but if you’re in Italy it’s definitely worthwhile to check a bookstore or two for copies. The illustrations are hilarious and though the material is obviously weighty, my kids were just enthralled.

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Cheer for Earth Day with WEEE-Man

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weee-man

This is WEEE-Man. WEEE stands for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment, waste which usually ends up in landfill but from which this seven-foot tall piece of artwork was constructed. His teeth are computer mice, his eyes the doors of front-loader washers. Within the structure there are kitchen appliances such as toasters and microwave ovens; large appliances like washers and tumble dryers; plenty of computer-related equipment and even an electric lawn-mower.

weee-man2

The WEEE-Man currently lives at the Eden Project in Cornwall, UK. When we visited last month, I have to say I was totally fascinated by this installation. The second picture above gives a better idea of the WEEE-Man’s size and, when you’ve taken that in, here’s the thought I’d like to leave you with this Earth Day: the amount of material used to construct this structure is equivalent to the amount that an average individual will throw away during his or her lifetime. Shocking, eh?

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Paddington Bear and Harry Potter Make The Day

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bren-paddington
We caught the 8:30am train from Truro to London Paddington. It seemed just wrong to pass through the station a second time without stopping for a photo of BigB, his bear and the statue of the eponymous bear.

But, we weren’t all done with trains. We needed to get to St. Pancras for our (thankfully short) train journey to Woburn, which presented us with another photo opportunity – since St. Pancras and King’s Cross stations are literally across the road from each other.

bren-kings-cross

Wondering why we’d want to visit three train stations in one day? Because of Harry Potter of course! King’s Cross being, as all true fans of the boy-wizard know, the station where Harry and his school-friends disappeared through the station wall at the magical Platform 9 3/4 to catch the train to Hogwarts.

King’s Cross is a busy station and you do need to persevere through the busier platforms at the front of the station to find Platform 9 3/4. There’s also construction work happening at the station so Platform 9 3/4 isn’t currently located between Platforms 9 and 10 at all – but there are plenty of signs to the re-located site and the station staff are also well used to people wondering around, cameras in hand, in this area.

bren-plat975

Two trains, three train stations, one very happy kid.

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Proposed Cornwall Trip Itinerary

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truro-cathedral

Truro Cathedral, photo credit: Flickr

I obsess about trip planning. There are times when I’ve been known to research a destination so deeply that I’m stymied by all the possible things to see and do when we get there. Inevitably, I find I need to step back, think about the goal of the trip whether it’s relaxation, sightseeing or visiting family and then formulate an overall itinerary building in plenty of options and flexibility – because when you travel with children, flexibility is key. Here’s the itinerary I’ve come up with for our upcoming trip to the U.K.:

Day 0 (evening): Depart Seattle on overnight flight to Heathrow.
Day 1 (midday): Arrive Heathrow, take the HeathrowConnect train to Paddington, and the train from Paddington to Truro. Arrive Truro approximately 20 hours after leaving Seattle. Whew!
Day 2: Explore Penryn and possibly Truro – although all sightseeing in the afternoon could be sidelined to watch the Ireland Vs Scotland rugby match Since this will be our first full day in this time zone, I expect that we’ll all be tired from the journey and hence it doesn’t make sense to try to plan a busy day. But, fresh air and exercise walking and exploring these towns, will help with everyone’s jet-lag and hopefully ensure that we all get a good night’s sleep.
Day 3: Visit the Eden Project and take a short driving tour of the Lizard Peninsula.
Day 4: A day devoted to King Arthur. Although realistically, I think we’ll only have time for Tintagel, Camelford and Dozmary Pool. BigB really is beside himself at the prospect of ‘seeing’ the Lady of the Lake.
Day 5: Hike Bodmin Moor. This is an easy 4-mile hike in beautiful countryside and, hey, it’s a moor, so I can have a Kate Bush moment where I can belt out Heathcliff at the top of my out-of-tune lungs – most likely to the WanderDad’s consternation. (And yes, I do know that Wuthering Heights was set on the Yorkshire Moors, but hey, you’ve got to adapt when you’re traveling).
On Day 6 & 7 we’ll be at a family event and we’ll be back in Seattle by bedtime on Day 8. A short, but busy trip.

Attractions on my ‘oh-I-wish-we-could-squeeze-that-in-too’ list include: the National Maritime Museum, the Heligan Gardens and any number of other interesting castles, parks and other places. But, cramming our days too full will leave no time to just wander which is our favorite way to travel. If you’ve got a must-see attraction or destination in Cornwall, let me know – and hopefully we’ll be able to add it to our plans.

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public transport options from heathrow to central london

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I’ll be traveling to the U.K. in March, flying from Seattle to London Heathrow. Usually for us, Heathrow is a lay-over point where we connect to a flight to elsewhere in Europe. This time, however, we’ll be staying in the U.K. – visiting family, tasting pasties, and finding pixies in Cornwall.

Picking up a rental car at Heathrow and driving to our destination is not an option. Do you remember how tired you became looking after your newborn in those first few weeks after birth? That’s just how I feel when I disembark from a 10-hour overnight flight – I don’t sleep well on planes with or without children. Driving in that state is patently unsafe. (I broke this rule once, after arriving in Dublin, and narrowly avoided a head-on collision within my first 45 minutes on the road).

Now that my boys are older (8 and 12), they self-entertain easily on board the flight and are pretty good at managing themselves and their baggage through customs and passport control. But, as I plan, I assume that no-one will have slept enough and tempers will be short. Connections, to another flight or ground transportation, therefore, need to be easy to find and at least provide seats for everyone.

After reviewing various options – including a FREE flight with Ryanair, we’ve decided to take the train from London to Truro. At ~$180 return for the four of us, it’s not cheap, but since the Ryanair flight in question leaves from Stansted daily at 6:30am, the train is actually cheaper than the cost of getting from Heathrow to Stansted plus an overnight stay at a hotel at or near Stansted. Not to mention that arriving at Noon on Day 1 and planning to catch a flight at 6:30am on Day 2 is NOT a good recipe for happy traveling children. (I know, because we HAD to do this to get to Lucca in time for my sister’s wedding this past June and CAM is still complaining about the experience).

The First Great Western train to Truro leaves from Paddington Station which is connected to Heathrow via the Heathrow Express trains, Heathrow Connect trains and London Underground (Tube). (You can find a summary of all transportation options from Heathrow into central London on the BAA Heathrow Airport website).

Here’s the surprising – and important – information I found out in researching this trip: Using Heathrow Connect, the total cost of open return tickets between Heathrow and Paddington for all four of us comes to GBP 41.50 (USD 62). This makes Heathrow Connect the best overall value for families traveling with children between five and 15. The journey time is 25 minutes direct to Paddington beating the Tube on price and service provided (the approximate journey time on the Tube is 35-55 minutes with at least one change of train required).

Heathrow Connect terminates at Terminal 4 and since we’re flying into the fancy, new Terminal 5, we’ll have to navigate through Heathrow Central to catch the train. This makes the Heathrow Connect service less convenient than Heathrow Express, but at 35% of the price, it’s excellent value for money – and transfers between terminals are complimentary on the Heathrow Express trains from T5.

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Novotel Tower Bridge Review

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We had two days in London to catch up with siblings. I needed a reasonably-priced hotel room which would sleep four people comfortably. I was going a little nutty after a few days searching for something suitable when a friend recommended the Novotel hotel at Tower Bridge. I checked out the Novotel website, loved the “convival family room for 2 adults and 2 children” and booked a room.

Hotel entrance.

Location, location, location.

We took the train in from Gatwick and hopped out at London Bridge tube station. OK, so if you look at the map, you’ll wonder why we didn’t just get out at Tower Hill station. The District & Circle line was closed for the weekend – go figure. But it was just a short walk across Tower Bridge to the hotel.

The Novotel is tucked on the end of a street just around the corner from the entrance to the Tower Hill tube station. If you stand in front of the tube station and look to your right, you’ll see the side entrance. (I’m just adding that because I couldn’t find it, so I called and felt like an idiot when the person at the front desk instructed me to “walk two steps forward…look to your right…”).

The location is killer. The Tower of London is literally right outside your doorstep. If you’re in London with kids, don’t have much time and want to get sightseeing right away, that’s pretty darn convenient.

Which is a good thing because the “convival family room” we had was a shoebox. There was one double bed and one sleeper sofa. When you folded out the sleeper sofa, you couldn’t walk between it and the bed. But it was clean and bright and the kids were free. Yes, that’s right F-R-E-E. Can’t beat that.

But the deal-clincher for my kids: there was a Playstation in the lobby. In fact, there’s a kid’s play area right in the lobby, with legos and some other sturdy toys for younger kids. And a Playstation in the corner. Last time I observed such riches in a hotel was at Disneyland. IMHO, the Novotel was better: I didn’t have to deal with oversized mice or rodents or any other animals. Or the incessant happiness. But, WanderDad and I did get to have a nice drink at the bar one evening – with our children in sight, in their own happy place courtesy of Sony and Novotel.

Details
Website: www.novotel.com or seach ‘novotel tower bridge’ using your favorite search engine
Room Rate: GBP 244 (with breakfast). That’s $428 at today’s rate. Which may make you gulp, but just think, it would have been $512 last November. Who knows what you might end up paying ?

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