London: Don Juan in Soho, Verger’s Tour at Westminster Abbey & Hail

As soon as I returned home from my 2016 trip to NYC, Edinburgh & London, I went online to Rabbie’s Tours site to see what they offered in addition to day trips out of Edinburgh and Glasgow. I found numerous short trips (for a few days) and long trips (for a couple of weeks) out of Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, and Dublin. All of them were small group tours for 16 people max. Perfect. I printed out the ones in which I was especially interested and began to think seriously of returning the following year to take part in them.

So when, in November of 2016, I discovered that David Tennant would be starring in a comedy, Don Juan in Soho, in London’s West End in April, May & June of 2017, I already had planned everything else I wanted to do. With a few calendars from MSWord printed out and the dates of the play plus the available dates of the tours I wanted scribbled on them, I went online to the theatre site for the play and bought tickets for two performances. Then I booked the Rabbie’s tours — one for five days out of London and another for four days out of Edinburgh. I planned the remaining days and booked the day trips, air, hotels, airport transfers, and round trip train to and from Edinburgh. All set. Just needed to wait until April.

This time I had enough frequent flyer miles to get a free round trip flight. Yay! That saved a good amount of money. Enough that I decided to splurge a little on my first hotel in London, which was next to the river, and get a room overlooking the river. Since I didn’t want to go back to the hotel I used to use in London, I was experimenting with other hotels.

For the first three nights (before taking off on one of Rabbie’s tours) I had booked the Royal Horseguards. This was the one on the river. Built in 1884 as a luxury apartment building, it was located close to the Horse Guards Parade and Banqueting Hall just off Whitehall.

After my plane landed at Heathrow, I was supposed to meet the transfer I had booked to get me to my hotel. They were late. I called the company (I always keep the information about my bookings with me just in case) and asked where he was. They said he should be there. I said he wasn’t. Eventually he showed up. He didn’t speak much English and left me to deal with my own bags while I followed him to where he had parked. Then he drove like a maniac all the way to the hotel. I had been in some taxis with some wild drivers before, but this guy won the prize. I closed my eyes and prayed like crazy.

I was there too early for the hotel to be ready for me (checkin was 3pm). So I checked my bags into their baggage room and set off to get some lunch. One of my favorite pubs – the Sherlock Holmes – was nearby. So I walked over there and ordered some fish & chips with a half pint of cider (hard cider). In pubs it is necessary to place your order at the bar, and then sit down. They bring it to you once it’s ready.

While waiting, I received an email asking me to give feedback on my airport transfer. I kept it clean and civilized, but really let them have it regarding the driver they had sent.

When outside of the US, I turn my cellular data off so I can only receive and send data via WiFi. I always get hotels with WiFi included. Sometimes pubs and other places have WiFi available to customers. The cellular data bill would be astronomical. Once it is late enough in the day so I am not waking anybody up, I send a quick text message to the family letting them know I am safely at my destination. Otherwise I mainly use the hotel WiFi at night to post a few photos on Facebook and send any emails that need sending. Since free hotel WiFi is not secure, I am very careful about what I do on my phone — no banking or anything else dangerous should someone else be able to see what I am doing.

After lunch, I walked to Wyndhams Theatre to pick up my tickets and vouchers (I had a voucher for a program, another for a glass of wine, and one for an ice cream at the interval – intermission). I also took a few photos of the theatre and scouted out where the back stage entrance was located. I had decided to do something I had never done before and wait at the backstage door to ask for an autograph.

The play was both very funny and very tragic all at once. Things didn’t end any better for Don Juan than in any other version of the story. The cast was very talented. Both David Tennant and Adrian Scarborough were especially wonderful.

The mistake that I made was getting my ticket for that first night in the first row center of the Royal Circle (one level up from the main floor). I couldn’t get out of there and down the stairs fast enough to get to the backstage door and be anywhere near the barricade. No autograph for me that night. It was also cold.

I headed back to the hotel and discovered my second mistake. The last block from Whitehall to the hotel was deserted. Never a good idea to be on a street completely alone – especially at night. I stepped up my pace to a very brisk walk.

The next morning, I arrived at Westminster Abbey at 9:35am. I then bought the Verger Tour ticket for £5 on top of the regular admittance. It had taken a while to get through the line. I had until 10:30am to wander around the abbey on my own before meeting up with the rest of my group and the Verger (who is a caretaker of the abbey). That ended up being about twenty minutes from the time I got the tickets.

The Verger was a young woman and was absolutely delightful. She was very knowledgeable about the history of the abbey. She didn’t sound like she was reciting what she had memorized, but like she actually knew all of the information she was giving us. We could ask questions and she knew the answers. She started us off at the Coronation Chair and the portrait of Richard II, followed by the memorial to Sir Isaac Newton. Then came the quire.

We are able to sit in the stalls. This was where she gave us the history. Henry III built the abbey from the quire back to just before Henry VII’s chapel (demolishing much of what Edward the Confessor had built in the process). Richard II built the part from the quire forward to the front door (where his portrait was). Henry III had also created Edward the Confessor’s Shrine, which is between the High Altar and the Henry VII Chapel.

When we left the quire to take a look at the altar and the floor in front of it, she pointed out where Anne of Cleves (fourth of Henry VIII’s six wives) was buried. Of all of the times I had been to Westminster Abbey, I had never seen her grave before. It is very unassuming, just a plaque in the wall.

The big reason why I wanted the Verger tour came next. This was Edward the Confessor’s Shrine. They only allow ten people at a time up there. So we needed to wait for some of the clergy of the abbey and some special guests of theirs to vacate the space before we could go up.

In addition to Edward the Confessor and his queen Edith of Wessex, the shrine platform contained the tombs of Edward I and his queen Eleanor of Castile, Henry III, Edward III and his consort Philippa of Hainault, Henry V, and Richard II and his queen Anne of Bohemia. Most had the effigies of whoever was in the particular tomb. But Edward I had no effigy at all on his very plain tomb. He hadn’t planned to stay there long. He expected that his son, Edward II, would conquer the Scots and that he would be buried up there in the country he had tried so hard to conquer and control. His queen and Edward the Confessor’s queen were not buried in the same tomb with them, but in separate tombs nearby.

Although we couldn’t take photos and we weren’t allowed to touch any of the tombs or effigies, we could kneel in one of the niches of Edward the Confessor’s actual tomb and pray if we wished. I wished. It was a place where people have knelt and prayed since 1269, when Henry III had the new shrine built.

Once we finished our tour and I explored the rest of what I wanted to explore, I headed over to the Westminster Arms, where Mom and I had usually eaten lunch on our prior visits to Westminster Abbey. I had bangers and mash (sausage and mashed potatoes) with a half pint of their special ale.

After lunch I took a walk, first over to the Horse Guards Parade on the St James Park side. It decided to rain, so I put my cap on, pulled my jacket hood up and tied it on over the cap. A few seconds later, it stopped raining. I pulled the hood back down and the cap off and it started to rain again. It went back and forth like that for the rest of my walk through the park to Buckingham Palace.

From the palace I walked over to The Mall and then Green Park. From Green Park, I could pass through a gate to go by Clarence House (though I could get a better photo from The Mall). This used to be the home of Elizabeth II’s mom, the Queen Mother, and is now the home of Prince Charles and Camilla. It is right next door to St James Palace.

St James Palace was commissioned by Henry VIII in 1530 and was the secondary palace after Whitehall for the Tudor and Stuart monarchs. After Whitehall burned down, the Hanover monarchs used St James, then Clarence House, and then Buckingham Palace as their main residence. When I was there in 2017, Prince Harry was living there as were Princess Anne, Princess Beatrice of York, and Princess Alexandria.

I went around the side of St James Palace along Marlborough Road to get back over to The Mall. I had just crossed The Mall over to the park side when the heavens opened up again. This time, though, it was hail – about marble size. Since there wasn’t any thunder and lightning involved, I took refuge under a tree, on a bench. I sort of went into a seated fetal position until it was over, trying to make myself a smaller target.

Although I will carry a small, lightweight umbrella in my case when I travel, I have it along for the possibility of rain when going out to a play or dinner at night. During the day when sightseeing, I leave it behind. It isn’t possible to take photos when trying to hold an umbrella over my head. I wear an all-weather jacket and a baseball cap. If the weather is warm, I’ll take the lining out of the jacket, roll the jacket up, and stuff it into the lightweight nylon bag I carry with me. It has various pockets to keep my camera, maps, water bottle, extra camera batteries, purchases I might make in a gift shop, etcetera, and it packs easily in my luggage.

Once the hail ended, I headed back to the hotel through the Admiralty Arch. The central arch is only used by the queen, so the gate is closed and locked unless she is using it.

On the other side of the arch, I took a photo of the Statue of King Charles I. He has stood at this location, which was the original location of the Eleanor Cross (a copy of which now stands in front of the Charing Cross Rail Station) from the 1290s until it was destroyed in 1647, since 1675. He faces down Whitehall in the direction of where he was executed in 1649.

The Statue of Charles I had been created in 1633. During the English Civil War, the statue was sold to a metalsmith to be melted down. But he hid it instead. Once Charles II was asked to return to England from exile and crowned king, the statue of his father was brought out of hiding and set up where it stands now.

This time at the play, I had a seat at the end of the second row in the stalls on the main floor. This time, although I didn’t make it to the first row behind the barricades (Did those people even see the play? Or did they just line up outside at the stage door?) I found a couple of short women who seemed friendly and chatted with them before David Tennant came out. It wasn’t terribly long before he flew out of the door, waved at everyone and dashed down the line to the end so he could work his way back down to the stage door.

I managed to get my ticket autographed (photo included here), but I couldn’t get a selfie taken with him since I wasn’t close enough. However, I did manage to take a few photos of him after he signed my ticket. We also exchanged a few words when he handed my ticket back to me and I thanked him for having signed it.

Next time – the Tower of London and an experience with Scotland Yard

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