After waking up early to learn the tournament had been delayed due to high winds we decided to sleep in a while longer.  That turned out to be a good decision.  Little did we know just how long the tournament would be delayed that day.

We headed over to the train station around 10 to catch the GolfLink train to St Andrews.  Scot Rail runs these special trains to the tournament from all over Scotland.  For a 10 pound ticket you can ride to Leuchars Station outside St Andrews where you board a police escorted bus caravan right to the front gate of the tournament.  Not a bad deal and one that worked out well for us.

Crossing the Firth of Forth on the train to St Andrews.

By the time the train pulled in to Leuchars winds were gusting to 50 mph and they were hoping to tee off later in the afternoon.  So we went into the town and looked around.  It is really a beautiful area.  St Andrews University is the 3rd oldest in the english speaking world.  Down at the far end are the ruins of an old cathedral.  There are just a few walls and foundations remaining surrounded by an old graveyard.  The old and young Tom Morris’s are each buried there and we made sure to pay our respects.

Stopped for a proud father & son photo op before heading into town.

St Andrews University is the third oldest in the English speaking world founded in 1410.

Ruins – St Andrews

Not what you think – wynd is Scottish for a narrow lane! Nice hat huh – it felt good on a cool afternoon.

The graves old of Old Tom Morris and his son, “Young Tom”.

Ruins amid the cemetery – St Andrews.

We had a very good hamburger and maybe the best fries of my life right off the St Andrews town square.  Then it was back to the tournament where you guessed it – there was still a wind delay.  By that time Sunday was not looking good either and since we were leaving for France on Monday I was beginning to wonder if we had come all this way and would never see any golf played.

Beautiful square in center of St Andrews.

The Old Course – first green looking back at the Royal & Ancient clubhouse and town of St Andrews in the distance. What a grand stage for a golf tournament!

I found a nice seat in the stands by the roadhole 17th green and Smith took off to walk the course.  It was a bit frustrating because except for the wind delay it was an otherwise beautiful day.  Finally they announced at 6 PM they would resume play and finish round 2 which they did. So we sat all afternoon for a couple of hours of actual play then were back on the train to Edinburgh around 8 that night.  We were also a bit bummed out to learn we would be missing the final round which they decided would be played on Monday.  Oh well – you win some and you lose some!

The next morning we were up at dawn to catch the tube to King’s Cross Station.  Of course, that meant we took “the Piccadilly Line Service to CockFosters” – which became an early joke of the trip.  We rode the Piccadilly Line every day and every time the tube would stop the voice of a very proper British lady would make that announcement over the loudspeaker.

At King’s Cross we caught the Virgin East Coast Train for the 4 hour trip up to Edinburgh.  It took us up along the East Coast of England and Scotland was a beautiful ride through the countryside.  By the time we crossed the Scottish border we were starting to hug the coastline.

Kings Cross Station. The Friday morning rush hour is about to begin.

The most famous platform at Kings Cross. Came across this wizard on his way to Hogwarts

Virgin East Coast line from London to Edinburgh. A nice ride if you ever get the chance.

We got into Edinburgh around noon and dropped our bags at the hotel.  We had one afternoon to see Edinburgh and off we went.  First stop was lunch at Oinks which believe it or not was a pulled BarBQ place.  Each morning they place a whole roasted pig in the front window and pull the meat off him until nothing but the head is left.  At that point they close for the day.  It was actually quite good!

Oinks in Edinburgh. Quite good BBQ. They pull each sandwich straight from the whole hog. When there is no more to pull they close for the day!

A typical street in Edinburgh. A very beautiful city.

Around the corner is the Elephant House Coffee Shop which is where JK Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book.  Supposedly she couldn’t afford heat in her flat so she would go there with her baby and buy a cup of coffee and write looking out the back window over a cemetery.  She actually got many of the character names from the book off tombstones in the cemetery.

Elephant House Coffee Shop where first Harry Potter book was written.

J.K. Rowling would sit at these windows at the back of the coffee shop that overlooked a cemetery. She would stroll through the cemetery picking up some of the names in the book.

For instance does the name on this tombstone ring a bell?

At the edge of the cemetery the last tombstone near a gate has the name McGonagall. Next door is this private school which became the inspiration for Hogwarts.

Next we made our way over the Royal Mile which is the main tourist area that runs from Edinburgh Castle down to the Palace.  The castle sits high atop a hill and dates back close to a thousand years.  It’s is a large and impressive complex that also houses the Scottish Crown Jewels.

Edinburgh Castle

Crashed this wedding party shoot up at the castle.

The Royal Mile – Edinburgh

This guy was pulling down some nice tips.

After several hours we finally made our way down from the Castle past all the tourist kitsch to the Palace.  The european cobblestones were starting to work on our feet by day 4 so we caught a cab back to the hotel to watch the golf tournament on the BBC.

We had an early dinner and back to the hotel to get ready for the train ride up to St Andrews the next morning.

Following another proper English breakfast we were off to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard.  We walked up to the Palace and Smith spotted an empty spot along the barricade near the gate even though several thousand folks had already staked out better spots. I stopped to talk to a policeman.  It wasn’t a few minutes until I heard a collective gasp from the crowd then right there in front of Smith the Queen of England and Prince Phillip drove right past (see video below).  Timing is everything I guess!

Buckingham Palace

The old gal herself & Prince Phillip.

Here is the video.  You can hear all the excitement.

Once the motorcade pulled out there wasn’t a good spot left the view the ceremony so we walked up the street and waited for them to march down to the palace.  That ended up being a good move because they marched right past us without anyone in the way.

Guards on way to daily changing ceremony.

On the way over to the Churchill War Rooms we passed this neat little cottage complete with English garden backing up to a lake.  We were told it was the Hyde Park gardener’s cottage.

Gardener’s Cottage Hyde Park.

We toured Churchill’s war bunker and museum which were very interesting.  Churchill ran much of the war from these rooms particularly during the blitz and early years.  They were no more than basements under the government buildings that had been hastily re-enforced.  They weren’t really bomb-proof.  After seeing real bomb craters in Normandy a week later the bunker would not have protected Churchill from a direct hit.  It must have been pretty miserable living down there for any period of time.  But it was very impressive to see nonetheless and think of the history that was made there.

Cabinet room in bunker. Churchill ran much of the early war from this room. His chair is center on far side of room.

Lunch was at an old pub across from Parliament.  It had a bar and dining room on each of 3 floors – very British indeed.  We had the best fish and chips of the entire trip there although lunch cost us over $50 for 2 orders and drinks.

Big Ben (although technically it’s the bell inside that is really Big Ben not the entire structure)

Afterwards we inquired at Parliament whether we could peek in.  There were no crowds around so that kind of threw us – guess it was too boring for most folks.  So in we went to both the House of Commons and House of Lords. They were each in session.  It sort of like sitting in the galleries of our own Congress.

I lost track of time and we ended up missing the last tour of the day at Westminster Abbey which was a bit of a bummer.  However, there was a queue for the Evensong service so we joined and were able to attend that an hour later.  The choir and organ were beautiful.  They wouldn’t let us walk around on our own but we did walk right past Sir Issac Newton’s tomb. Cathedral’s in Europe are notorious for charging some fairly alarming rates for touring and they protect that jealously.  There is still no charge for praying but are no free looks around!

Westminster Abbey. We missed the tour but did attend the Evensong service.

That just about finished up our last day in London.  We stopped by Harrod’s food court to check it out.  I had always heard it was incredible and it did not disappoint.

Famous Harrod’s department store. Food court inside is unbelievable.

After a good night’s sleep and breakfast at the hotel we were ready to attack the Museums.

We took the tube to the British Museum. It seems Britain went on a serious collecting spree during the height of it’s empire.  Some might say they plundered many ancient sites but nonetheless they have a fabulous collection covering many ancient civilizations.  The highlights are the Rosetta Stone and Elgin Marbles.

The Rosetta Stone was discovered in wall of a fortress in Egypt.  After  Egypt went into decline many of it’s monuments and temples were torn down and the stones reused for building material.  A French soldier from the Napoleonic expedition saw it mortared into the wall and realized it’s importance.  The stone was originally a decree issued in Memphis, Egypt shown in 3 languages.  Two of the languages were known but the third in hieroglyphics had long since been lost.  It still took scholars 25 years to finally decipher the ancient hieroglyphs.  

The Rosetta Stone was one of the coolest things we saw on the entire trip. As you can tell it is very legible and you can get right up to the glass.

In the early 19th century the 7th Earl of Elgin was appointed ambassador to Turkey which controlled Greece at the time.  He supposedly received a permit from the Turkish authorities to remove sculptures and friezes from the Parthenon under the auspices of preserving them.  His agents began the process and removed about half of them.  There has been much controversy between the Greek and British governments ever since but they remain proudly displayed in the British Museum and you do have to wonder if Elgin had not taken these measures if they would still be around today.

One of the many original friezes from around the top of the Parthenon.

These statues were originally in one of the pediments of the Parthenon.

There are also many many artifacts from the ancient middle eastern civilizations of Assyria, Irag, Iran and others.  About the time we finished this section of the museum the fire alarms went off and they evacuated the entire building.  After waiting outside a few minutes we decided to catch lunch down the street while they sorted things out.  About the time we finished lunch they opened up and back in we went.

There were rooms of tablets from ancient middle eastern cultures.

Later that afternoon we took in the special 800th anniversary of Magna Carta at the British Library.  As part of the exhibit they supposedly had the original US Bill of Rights on display.  We were a bit skeptical but it looked authentic and wasn’t nearly as protected as it is in our own National Archives.  We kind of felt taken because we paid 20 pounds and you go through this long maze and finally get to the Magna Carta at the end only to learn it was heavily damaged by fire a couple of hundred years earlier.  It was black and King John’s seal just a blob of wax.

A very early copy of Magna Carta.

But the highlight of library for us was the Collections room which has an incredible assortment of historic documents and books.  Smith’s favorite was Mozart’s diary from the last 8 years of his life.  It had the name of each composition and the date and comments and so forth followed by the first few bars of the piece – all in his own hand.  There were original scores by Beethoven and Bach including an early draft of Handel’s Messiah.  They had 4 or 5 of the Beatles most famous lyrics written on scrap pieces of paper like the backs of Birthday cards and cocktail napkins. Those would have been lost forever if their agent hadn’t retrieved them from trashcans and such.  There were many drafts and originals by famous British authors and poets. A Guttengurg bible was also on display along with the Codex Sinaiticus from the 4th century.  There was also a letter from Michelangleo to his father reporting he had finished painting a chapel ceiling at the Vatican Palace and that the Pope seemed “very pleased” with it.  What a treasure trove of documents!  It made up for the Magna Carta.

Sir Isaac Newton measuring the size of the universe. Out front of the British Library.

That night we capped another long day with a bargain dinner at a great little Italian restaurant not far from the hotel.  Two Margherita pizza’s and drinks for 13 pounds – maybe the bargain meal of the trip!

The Virgin Atlantic flight across the Atlantic was very nice.  It was my first international flight so I have nothing to compare it too but it seemed a step up from our domestic airlines.  Will see how it compares to the Delta flight back across.

Our chariot to Merry Olde England!

Our only problem with the flight is neither one of us got any sleep.  I had upgraded the seats for more room but we just couldn’t get comfortable.  I don’t sleep that well at home so I’m not sure why I thought I would on an airplane.  So we hit London without sleep and serious jet lag – double trouble!  We soldiered through although by afternoon we were just going through the motions.

We got our bags dropped off at the hotel around 9AM and hit the hop-on-off bus tour of the city which gave us a quick viewing of all the major sites.  Stopping at St Pauls Cathedral and The Tower of London we toured each of those sites.

Nice panorama of Parliament Building from upper deck of bus.

St Pauls is the magnificent creation of Sir Cristopher Wren.  He was an astronomy professor and had never built a building . What a building he built!  After the great London fire of 1666 he was assigned to rebuild the battered former St Pauls.  It was decided to tear the old one down and build a grander one in it’s place.  The main feature is the towering lead covered wooden dome. One of the iconic photos of World War 2 is the St Paul’s dome surrounded by smoke and debris surviving another air raid during the bilitz.  They actually had volunteers who would climb the roof during air raids to protect it as best they could if a bomb fell.  There was damage during the war but the dome and most of the building survived.  Wren and a many other famous citizens are buried in the crypt.  Churchill’s funeral was held there.

Interior of St Paul’s famous dome.

Towers of St Paul’s with London in distance from first level of dome.

The Tower of London was built on the River Thames by William The Conqueror in 1078.  It has been used for various purposes over the years.  Early kings and queens lived there.  It has also been used as a prison, a mint and currently houses the royal jewels.  We first took the Beefeater tour which gave us the background and ins and outs of who all was held prisoner, tortured and/ or executed there.  After a bit of that we decided to get in the very very long line to see the jewels.  I must say they were incredible and worth the wait to see.  By the way the Beefeaters and their families live on the tower grounds.

Tower of London

Tower guard

Tower Bridge from Tower of London grounds

Big Ben inside London Eye!

By the time we finished the tower tour we were just about to the point of exhaustion.  We made our way down to the Thames and took the river cruise back down debarking at the pier near Parliament.  From there we took a cab back to the hotel.  We had an early dinner and were in bed well before sunset.