7/20 Hotels in the UK

I am back home in the U.S. and finally getting to finishing this posting I started while i was there.  I have been to the U.K. several times over the past 20 years and have had some good and bad experiences with hotels, mostly because of my unclear expectations.  Hope this rambling post helps someone who is planning a trip there someday. 

Things You Need to Know Before You Book a Reservation 

First, if you stay in a Marriott or a Hilton or similar chain in a big city, especially London, you will find little differences between those hotels and the Marriott or Hilton hotels in the U.S.  However, if you travel and stay in nothing but big American hotel chains, it is likely that you will miss out on learning some important things about British culture.  This is very much like taking the train everywhere you go and only stopping in the big cities where all the other tourists stop at.  Yes, there is a lot to be seen from a train window and from staying in a big city hotel, but you will miss a lot of the country and its people are like. 

Second, I am suggesting that there are two other types of hotels you can stay at: one type is one of the larger chains that may or may not also have a lot of hotels in the U.S.   An example of this is Holiday Inn, Travelodge, Premier Inn, and a lot of others.  Another type of hotel is the independent hotel that is found in only one or no more than a handful of cities.  The are not quite bed and breakfast hotels, because they are larger with a substantial number of rooms--maybe 20-50 or even more.  

The Holiday Inn, Travelodge, and Premier Inn type hotels may look at lot like their U.S. cousins, but they have some important differences: 

• They may or may not have elevators, depending on how new they are or who owns them.  
• As in all UK buildings, the main floor where the entrance is located is called the ground floor.  One floor above this is the first floor.  So if you looking for a first floor room at a hotel without elevators, you will still have to climb a set of stairs with your luggage to reach your room.  My experience, however, has been that the person checking you in will often help with your bags. No tipping needed.  
• They may or may not have air conditioning.  (Most likely no AC, especially in smaller cities.  Hotels in bigger cities sometimes have AC, but you need to ask.)  AC is not a U.K. thing because until recently, even summer days were cool.  This has changed in the last couple of decades because of climate change and a few "heat waves" of 85 degrees or hotter. 
• Related to the lack of AC is that most hotels leave windows open after making up your room.  The purpose of this is to let some good, fresh air in.  However, I have never seen a screen on a window anywhere in the U.K.  I have no idea why the mosquitos and flies don't come in, but this rarely happens.  Another problem with having to leave windows open all night to cool off is that you may be on a noisy street with drunks and loud cars going past all night.  
• Very, very few chain hotels in the U.K. have self-service ice makers.  You can ask the bartender for a glass of ice if there is a bartender, but you may end up with less ice than you really wanted because his ice maker is quite small. 
• Another thing missing from a hotel room is a washcloth.  You get big towels and small ones, and even bath mats, but no washcloths because they are considered personal things, like toothbrushes are person and you bring your own.  I always pack a couple of colored ones so I can remember to remove them when I check out.   
• I have never seen a hotel with a washer and dryer for customers.  This presents a problem if you are staying more than a week.  My solution is to bring along some laundry detergent that comes on a dissolvable strip so I can wash things out in the bathroom sink and hang clothing in the shower to drip dry.  There are also very few commercial self-service laundromats anywhere, and i have looked.  You can ask the hotel desk or the person cleaning the room that you would like some laundry done, but it usually costs at least 25 GBP, which is too expensive for me. 
• A lot of chain and even some larger non-chain hotels do have restaurants attached to them.  Almost every hotel in the U.S. used to have a restaurant attached, but few do now, and I miss them.  
• The British, especially older ones, love bathtubs, so it is hard sometimes to get a room with a shower only.  When they have a shower in a bathtub, you also do not always get grab bars on tubs or showers, and as an older woman who is afraid of falling, this scares me.  
• One really nice positive in U.K. hotels that I wish were in U.S. hotel bathrooms are towel warmers.  Nothing like a nice, warm towel when you get out of the bath!  I think they tend to have these luxuries because many buildings there have steam heat, so it is easy to hook up a towel warmer.  These are also good for drying clothing, just be discrete and remove clothing before the room is made up.  
• Another tricky thing are wall plugs.  Of course you have the right plug and converter, but you may not know that you have to also flip a small switch on the plug to turn it on.  This is a good safety feature, but can confuse Americans who are wondering why their cell phones are not charging.   

A lot of independent hotels are located in older buildings that were not intended to be hotels.  This presents some interesting problems, but I try to live at least a little like a native, so try to be flexible.  Here are some things I sometimes found strange.  

• Some hotels that were converted from other buildings have had to add bathrooms to hotels, and this sometimes means the tub is slightly raised so pipes can fit underneath.  This means the step out of the tub is a lot longer than the step into the tub. This can cause you to fall if you are not expecting it.  In addition, you might find a small step into a bathroom that can be hazard if you are not looking for it.  
• Also, sometimes you get a very strange room.  I had one this last trip where you entered the room through the bathroom!  In a B&B, you also occasionally might find that your bathroom is private, but next to your room, so you need a robe in the middle of the night.  
• It is interesting to notice that what the Brits think is welcoming may not be what we expect.  For example, a lovely room I stayed in at a B&B in Scotland also came equipped with a fake-fur covered hot water bottle!  I would have liked it better if the cover had been white cotton sheet material and clearly washed between users, although in reality, it was probably adequately clean.  

 Positives:

• One thing I really love about U.K. hotels is the thick cotton comforters on the beds.  These are stuffed into crisp white duvets!  I got these in every single hotel, including the little glamping cottage I stayed in at the sheep farm. 
• I also have had amazing experiences with hotel staff people who go out of their way to be helpful.   

 

 I'll be adding other things as I think of them, so check back here occasionally.  

 

 

 

7/18 British Museum, London

The British Museum is enormous and is best experienced in small chunks over several visits.  It can also be very crowded on weekends, so it is best to visit on a weekday which is NOT a British holiday or a school holiday.  The British Museum also contains a lot of things which you may have heard about, so it is also probably a good idea to look through online sources of stuff which is stored there before you go.

Personally, I am interested in ancient Britain, so I have focused my viewing over the times I have been there to that period.  And frankly, I can only handle two or three hours of standing on my feet, so I like to limit my visits to less than three hours.  Better to do a couple of shorter trips over a week than a long and exhausting day!

The British Museum was first opened in 1753, with collections being moved from various other museums.  However, not all parts of this enormous museum are the same age, as areas were expanded over the years.   

 

 

The central part of the museum is what used to be the Reading Room, part of the museum in 1757.  In the 1990s, the library collections were moved from the central area and a roof constructed to form The Great Court, which is allowed for much better visitor circulation and place for a restaurant and gift shop areas.  This left the main part of the courtyard out of the weather and it became a central place for information and to move from area to area in the museum.  Here are three photos of the court, looking from left to right from the main museum entrance.  

 

The upper part of the old reading room is now a restaurant.  Underneath are rest rooms and a large gift and book store. 

 

 

 

While heading for the exhibits on Saxon and Viking Britain, I bumped into the clock room.  In the center was a very early clock that was similar to the one I had seen in Salisbury Cathedral.

 

 

 Some of the Saxon gold and  silver items, showing this was not completely the dark ages. 

 

 

 

Hoards are collections of valuable items that were buried in the ground for safekeeping, but not found until centuries later.  This one had coins and gold items. 

 

 

Roman Britain items. 

 

 

And a large collection of things the Vikings had stolen and buried until they could take them back home.   Many of these items are broken up because they will be melted into other objects.  The text below describes this display.

 

 

Does this chess set look familiar?  It was used as the model for the Wizard Chess set used in the Chamber of Secrets by "live" pieces.  

 

 

More Viking stuff.  

Tiles from walls of ancient buildings. 

 

 

I left the museum at about 4 pm, and there was this huge line because Friday was the one day the museum stayed open late--around 8 pm.   

 

 

Just a few photos as I was on my way to Oxford Street.  One thing I find fascinating about London is how you can find older buildings right next to modern shops.   

 

 

This place caught my eye because I imagine someone like James Bond going to this shop to buy his personal umbrellas!  It was closed or I would have gone inside.  

 

 

 

After this, I had something to eat, and then went on to the Oxford Street, the busiest shopping street in London.  And it was about an hour later that I had missed the small step and fell flat on my face, as described in the post just before this one!!  Good thing that I took the time to eat dinner before I went or I would have had nothing to eat all night in the emergency room!! 

 

7/18 Missed a Step, and My Experience With the UK's National Health Service

As many of you probably already know, travel in any of the "Old World" countries like the United Kingdom can be a serious problem because sidewalks are often uneven, there are steps everywhere, and for the most part, buildings can not be brought up to modern safety or handicapped standards because of their age and historical significance.  In other words, you just cannot replace floors that are not even, nor can you install railings and ramps in ancient buildings. 

I know these things, so have been extremely careful in my travels to hold onto railings or walls if there are no railings, and to be always looking for tripping hazards as I walk.  (I even "Mind the gap" in the Underground stations!)   In my several international trips, I have done fairly well.  I am also lucky, in spite of my age, to still have pretty strong bones.  

Anyway, just four days from the end of my trip, I was in a souvenir shop in London looking for a specific t-shirt to take home with me.  Could not find what I wanted, so headed for the door, but missed a small, 3" tall step, and fell flat on my face!  (I specifically remember the view going down and watching the floor getting inevitably closer, so I was not passing out from something.)

First thing I did was check that my glasses which had fallen off my face were broken!  Whew!  A lady passing by saw me fall and came into the store to help me, and several store employees gathered around me.  I moved my arms and legs to see if everything worked, and three store employees pulled me up.  I was afraid they might drop me, so one got behind me and one of either side got me up safely into a chair.  My right knee was scraped and starting to swell up and I had two tiny scrapes on my face.  Otherwise, no bleeding, and I could bear weight without horrible pain, so I sat for a few minutes while store employees brought me some wet wipes to clean the dirt off my legs and hands and a bottle of cold water to drink.  

I was feeling OK and the other store I was headed for was nearby, so I said I'd walk, which I did for a couple of blocks, but then decided to take a cab back to my hotel since my knee was really swelling up.  Got back to the Premier Hub Westminster hotel on Tothill Road. I had stayed here on previous trips and loved the location--a block from Westminster Abbey, half a block to a Pret a Manger takeout place, and a little over a block to a Starbucks and the entrance to St. James Underground Station!  What more could a person want??

This budget hotel of tiny rooms has a bar, so I sat down on a bench, showed the lady behind the check-in desk my increasingly puffy knee, and asked her if she could get my some ice from the bartender.  (It was a hot day, and I was wearing shorts.) She took one look and raced off for the ice.  As I sat there with the ice on my knee, she and another hotel employee got concerned and said I really needed to go to the emergency room.  I told them I could walk on it and doubted anything was broken, but they were insistent.  They were short-staffed right then, but called an assistant manager at another hotel in that chain nearby, and he came over and took me via taxi, which he insisted on paying for, to a nearby emergency room, and he waited in the long check-in line while I sat inside!!  That took about two hours of his time, AND I HAD NOT EVEN FALLEN IN THAT HOTEL!!!  

After I got checked in, about 9 pm, he headed home, and I waited about another three hours to get seen by a doctor.  The waiting room was large and completely packed, and in regards to furniture, it was pretty basic.  Most of the people waiting looked very much like the people in the U.S. who are poor and do not have health insurance.

I knew that the UK government provides free medical care to all of its citizens, but what I had not known until a few years ago was that this coverage also applies to visitors, legal or illegal!  Frankly, I find that amazing!  I also find it amazing that the hotel staff went so far out of their way, professionally and personally, to care for one of their customers.  

The doctor at the emergency room ordered a cat scan of my head since i had a couple of small scrapes on my face, an x-ray of my knee to check for anything broken, an ECG of my heart, and a complete blood count.  My blood pressure was high, but I told them I had missed my night meds, so they ordered some for me.  Also gave me option of one stitch or glue on the one small cut just above my lip that was still seeping blood.  I chose glue, so that went on along with some steri-strips. 

I got the results about 3 am, and I was waiting for my paperwork to leave, when they told me that they really preferred that I stay through breakfast so they could observe me because they did not think it wise to try to find a taxi so late, and hope to get into the hotel that late.  They said they were also worried that because I was alone, if there were any problems with my brain and I passed out, I would not be able to call anyone for help.  

I told them my back was really painful from spending so much time in a hard chair in the waiting room and the uncomfortable "trolley", as they called the emergency room beds that we call gurneys.  Anyway, they said they would put me in a much more comfortable regular hospital bed with pillows and warmer blankets, in a nearby room they reserve for patients they want to observe for a few more hours.  At first I refused and said I just wanted to go back to hotel, so they sent in their supervisor="convincer" who talked me into.  If I was still OK, I could leave after breakfast.  

So, I got wheeled off to a nearby four-bed room with curtains dividing the space and the nurses station right outside the entrance door.  I tried to nap, but mostly stayed awake while other patients came in.  Breakfast was porridge, toast, corn flakes, and tea.  No eggs, sausage, bacon, or orange juice as we might get in a U.S. hospital, but the bed was comfortable and the head and foot could be raised or lowered.  Nurses were also attentive and helpful.  They also gave me a government-issue cane.  I did not think I needed it, but took it anyway so they did not have to call in the convincer.  

So, about 10 am, I got my release paperwork and headed off to the taxi they had called for me.  As I got near my hotel, I pulled out my credit card to run it through the payment machines, but the driver told me my fare had already been paid for by the government health service!  Walked the half block to Pret to get some takeout food so I did not have to out later.  Said hello to new set of hotel staff and took elevator to my room. Quick shower and a five-hour nap later, I felt 100% better, but what an experience!!!

Overall, it was a similar experience you would get in any big-city emergency room on a Friday evening--long lines that barely seemed to move, lots of people uncomfortable on hard chairs, long boring wait, and uncomfortable "beds" with those thin hospital blankets in the emergency room. 

However, I think the medical and personal care I got was excellent, which is what really counts.  Also, I saw a lot of other people getting that level of care where in the U.S. they might not get such care.  Having the taxi prepaid was utterly amazing.  I cannot imagine that ever happening in the U.S., can you?  

You hear a lot of negative reporting about the long wait times for necessary surgery in countries with national health care, and you also hear about certain drugs not being available and people who can afford it having to pay for private doctors and hospitals, so I thought it was important to tell you about my experience on this trip.  

I don't know if I will be taking any more long trips to London, but if I do, I will most likely stay at this same hotel again.  It has very nice queen beds and bedding in tiny rooms, and it really is mostly appropriate for single travelers, but overall I like the chain because the hotels are so consistent.  I'll be writing about choosing a hotel later today.  After one week, by the way, my lip is almost healed, and my knee is still sore and stiff, it is on its way to becoming less swollen and less sore.    

7/17 Victoria & Albert Museum - Casts and the Jewelry Collection, London

I am back in the USA, and I am still working to finish the last few postings for this UK trip blog.  It has been a long day, but I will squeeze in this post before I go to bed.

The Victoria and Albert Museum was founded in1852 as a result of the Great Exhibition of 1851, which was intended to support British industrial design and to bring art to the working class. Some of the original exhibits from that Great Exhibition came here after the exhibition closed, but the collections housed here continue the intentions of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to promote art among the masses.  

Much like the very large British Museum, you really cannot see all of this place in one visit, so over several trips to the U.K., I have tried to focus on only one area during each visit.  This time, I focused on the incredible jewelry exhibit.

I actually visited this on two separate days, and this first day was HOT, so quite a few children were enjoying this pond in the central courtyard.  

    

 Some of the detail that references the original manufacturing design museum.  

The photo below is of what is called "The Cast Room."  Victoria and Albert knew that very few of the citizens of Great Britain would ever be able to afford to visit Greece and Rome, so they brought it to them by having select items from those countries copied by making casts of the originals.  

  

 

 

Now to the small, but packed with history and some of the artists' jewelry pieces that made history.  I liked this circle of rings because it came with a documentation that ased stones in the specific rings. 

 

 

 

 

I spent about an hour-and-a-half in this jewelry collection on this day, but it is also very worthwhile to see the huge rooms full of sterling silver if you ever are here and have an extra hour or two.  Note that there is a small second floor, so don't miss a brief climb on this stairway.  

 

 

 The next few photos show just a sample of this jewelry collection!  I can't possibly explain them all!

 

 

The crown shown in the middle belonged to Queen Victoria.  

 

 

The description below shows us which Pope's wore the following huge rings! The rings on each side, by the way, are about 2" tall and must have been horribly heavy. 

 

 

This museum also has a terrific museum shop and has several other great galleries, so don't skip this if you ever go to London.  There is no entry fee, so it is easy to pop in for just an extra hour or two. 

 

 

 

 

7/17 "Our Own Church", St Olave's Church, The Church of Diarist Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys was a young man who is known for beginning a diary in 1660, where in code, he describes the goings-on of his life and his observations of London during the Plague, the murder of Charles I, and the Reformation, the Great Fire of London, and the Restoration of James II to the throne.  He kept up daily postings for 10 years, which makes his diary one of the best documents describing daily life in those distant years.  He also wrote about his amorous affairs, financial concerns, and personal weaknesses, all of which makes his diary very readable. 

He worked his way to become the  Chief Secretary of the Admiralty under both Charles II and James II in London.  Part of this career rise was due to his reforms in purchasing and administration of the Royal Navy.  He also was instrumental in getting the Navy sailors to help in blowing up wooden buildings to stop the Great Fire.  

At the age of 22, Pepys married 14-year-old Elizabeth de St Michel.  Unfortunately, they never had any children, probably due to his operation in 1658 to remove a very large bladder stone, which likely made him sterile.  

Pepys and wife lived just down the road on Seething Lane, which is currently a tiny street in an area of huge skyscrapers which would have certainly amazed Pepys, however, the church he and his wife attended still stands, no doubt partially due to his efforts in the London Fire.  Pepys and his wife, Elizabeth are buried under the alter of this church, and there are memorials to both of them.  

This small church has been here since at least the 13th Century, and possibly earlier, though it was rebuilt twice, so that the current building is from about 1450.  Here are some photos of St. Olave's, their "Own Church."

 

 

Notice the signs on the church indicate it is on the corner of Seething Lane and Hart Street.   

As you can see, it is still a functioning church, and visitors are welcome. 

 

The inside of the church.  When i was there, there were several employees and/pr parishioners moving some things in preparation for the next day, which was St. Olave's Day. 

This is the memorial for Elizabeth Pepys.  She is said to be looking directly at the pew owned by the Navy, where she and her husband usually sat.  She died a couple of years before him and is supposedly keeping an eye on him!   

 

 

Can anyone translate Latin? 

And the memorial for Samuel Pepys:  

 

Some views of the church. 

 

 

This photo shows the insignia of the Navy Pew where Pepys sat every Sunday.    

I had visited this church before, but this time there were people there who suggested I could go into the crypt below the church to see the remains of previous versions of the church down there.  Here is the small and very narrow staircase going downstairs. 

 

 

 

 

At the bottom of the stairs was a tiny chapel.  This shows the back of the chapel. 

 

 

This case shows items from the 13th and 14th Centuries found when the church was rebuilt.  

Here is the staircase I came down to get here.  

And the front of the chapel.  

Behind the church is a small garden with some benches and a few ancient graves.  I noticed several people from nearby offices using it as a quiet place during the workday.

 

 

 

These notices were on the back entrance gate, which is nearly always left open.