Latest / UK Travel Planning / Train Travel and Tudor Tales: Lisa Olney's 14-Day Tour of Historic London and England

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Train Travel and Tudor Tales: Lisa Olney's 14-Day Tour of Historic London and England · UK Travel Planning

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the UK Travel Planning Podcast.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Your host is the founder of the UK Travel Planning website, tracy Collins.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: In this podcast, tracy shares destination guides, travel tips and itinerary ideas, as well as interviews with a variety of guests who share their knowledge and experience of UK travel to help you plan your perfect UK vacation.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Join us as we explore the UK from cosmopolitan cities to quaint villages, from historic castles to beautiful islands, and from the picturesque countryside to seaside towns.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Hi and welcome to episode 61 of the UK Travel Planning Podcast.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: In this week's episode, I chat with Lisa Olney, who, in June, spent 14 days exploring London and travelling around England with husband Ken.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Lisa has a particular interest in Tudor history and English literature, which is reflected in their itinerary, which included destinations such as the Globe Theatre, stratford-ponaven, canterbury, hampton Court Palace, heaver Castle, york and Windsor Castle.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: I began by asking Lisa to introduce herself and tell us where she's from and who she travelled with on this trip.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: My name is Lisa Olney.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: I'm from New Hampshire, usa.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: I went on the trip with my husband, ken, for two weeks.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Whereabouts did you go in the UK?
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: We did the circle around London in a way.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: We went and stayed in London for a few days and then we went to York, stratford-on-avon, down to, I think, kingston, where Hampton Court is, down to Canterbury and then back up to London.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Ah, cool.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: So I'll just say the first time that you'd been to the UK.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: Lisa, yes, it is.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: We had had a trip planned since 2020 for our 10-year anniversary and, of course, 2020 happened, you know.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: So in some ways, we'd been planning this for three years.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: We had our planes booked and I had gotten a show with the Globe, and then everything got shut down and then the following year our basement flooded.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: So it just kept getting pushed back, but I had never been.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: I'd never been to Europe at all.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, so, oh, that's exciting.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: So this is your first time.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow, so are you going to go back?
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Did you enjoy it?
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: Oh, 100%, yeah, 100%.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: And I've travelled, I've been to Alaska, I've been to Hawaii.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: So, obviously, the first trip for your husband as well to Europe, yes, yep, ah, okay.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: So both of you are fantastic.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: So, obviously, if you've gone to a place for the first time and you don't know anything about it, how did you decide what you wanted to see?
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: How did you kind of go right?
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Those are the things we really want to do.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm a big Tudor fan and I am a literature major, or you know, I was a literature major and I'm a writer, love literature.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: I'm actually going to be starting teaching high school this fall, so for me it was Tudor and literary landmarks.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: Wow, it was kind of what the heart was, because I just I love all things England.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: I just love British history, I love British literature.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: So that was always kind of always been my goal.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: So that's how I picked things.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: Yep, have you got a favorite writer?
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: I do, I actually.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: So I love the Bronte sisters.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: A lot of people.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: So it's like Austin.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: Or are you more Austin or you're more Bronte.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: I'm kind of the Bronte sisters.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I must admit I'm a big Wutheran Heights.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: I love Wutheran Heights, that whole yeah, fabulous absolutely fabulous.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: I, like you know, like Jane Austen is one.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Nothing against Jane Austen, yeah yeah.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: But yeah, if I had to have one, it would be Wutheran Heights would always kind of win for me, I think.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and so that actually is one of the places that did have to get cut off because it just was a little too far out of the loop because I wanted to go to their parsonage.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: But next trip.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Well, you're not the only one, because I had to cut it out on my trip this year and I really want to go to, so Doug went.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: So Doug actually went, I didn't go, so I'm going to be going in December for sure.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Oh great, because he bought a ticket, for I think it's a 12 month ticket, and he's like, oh, you absolutely have to go, and I was kept asking him all the photos.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: He was taking the videos and it looked amazing, but I unfortunately had to come out of my trip this year, so at least he did it.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it's hard, isn't it what?
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: You're trying to decide where to go.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: You have to take things out, yep, otherwise it becomes a bit crazy.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: So, once you decided on the different places, I guess you did some, obviously, did some research and had a look at where the different areas were located.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: That helps, isn't it?
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like okay, where are they?
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: How did you decide how to get around to those places?
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: So a big part of that.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: We originally were going to rent a vehicle, but then we decided we really didn't want to mess with that.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: So when I found your podcast and I was listening all about the train information I kind of assigned that to my husband to look up all the train information.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: And that's what we did.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: Everything was on a train and so well, the way I kind of started was I knew I wanted to see something at the Globe Theater.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: That was my dream, and so I started with trying to find a date for the theater.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: And then another big thing and my research is I saw that Windsor had some real.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: I made sure I checked what time they were open and what days and Windsor had some real strange times, yeah, and for some reason they were closed in extra couple days out of the week.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: So what I ended up doing was kind of like it started with okay, I know I'm going to the Globe to see.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: You know we actually saw a mid-summer night stream, yeah, and so I know we're going here on this date.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: I want I've got to do Windsor on this date, and then from there we just checked where all where we could get trains.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: And kind of connected the dots to all the places you know and that's how we did it, just looking a lot at your at the train information and how to do it, and yeah, so that's kind of what we did.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Did you do a tour of the Globe Theater as well?
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: I did so.
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: The funny part about that was originally when we had when I booked the tickets in 2020, I had gotten the package, where it was like we were getting the tour, we got dinner and then you had the show.
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: This time it looks like they changed things up a little bit and because of that, you know the change or the way I had to do my itinerary actually did Windsor in the morning and then we did the Globe at seven at night.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: So I wasn't able to do the tour during the day, but towards the end of the trip, when we were kind of wrapping up, when we came back to London, it was sort of a couple days of like what else do we want to see while we're here?
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: And I looked it up and they had, you know, we weren't leaving till six o'clock that night.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: So on the last day I was able to go and do the tour at the Globe.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: That was, I'm like they got an opening at 10, I'm there and it was incredible.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's fantastic.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: That's great to hear.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: How long ago.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: Obviously things got canceled in 2020, so you had to kind of to wait, so you kind of already had your itinerary then, so you just had to tweak it for this time then.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: I guess it was just looking at things that had changed.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so we really I ended up, by the time we got the tickets in 2020.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: I had only, like I said, I had only planned very little and that just was the globe.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that was pretty much it.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: But this time it was really starting with a clean slate and so I started in about when we.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: I said I'm not saying no again, I am going.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: This year was around December.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah so we started planning around then to come in June we were there the same time you were and it was just like every.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: You were like I would be in York, you were in London.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: It was funny and the weather was fine.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: We had you know what?
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: We had great weather, because the weather has not been that great since.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: It's basically rained, from what I gather.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Wow, since I came back.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: Because my mum was like, well, you were here at the right time this year again, because it's rained every day.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: And I was like, because I wanted to stay an extra month but couldn't because my daughter was graduating, so I wasn't missing that.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so came back to Australia and and I was like, oh, it would have been really good to have stayed.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Obviously couldn't so, but it's quite a long way to come back to Australia, yes, yes.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: And and then she was like, well, since you left, it's just rain.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: So I'm like, oh well, that's all right.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: I feel sorry for everybody that's saying that.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: So I can't.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: I would love to apologize for the UK weather, but I can't because it's so unpredictable.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: You just never know what you're going to get.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we brought, you know, the umbrellas, the raincoat, the long pants and we never, I never, wore long pants, it was always shorts.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: You know, we had one rain when we were in York.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: We were at a restaurant and it started pouring and we had to run back to the end.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: And then, like the next day, it was a little kind of misty, which was fine because we were traveling on the train to Stratford on Avon.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: And that was it.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: That was the only then, like at Heaver it like we got a little drizzle, but that was it.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: The whole rest of the time it was above 7075 degrees.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: It was pretty good.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: It was pretty good.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: So let's talk about some of the destinations that you went to and how you found so we'll talk about.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: I'm going to start with Heaver, because I got to Heaver Castle this year, which is the first time that I've been, and I went out with John John England to yes, his one partners and I had an absolutely fantastic day.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: You know, if you've got places that you've always wanted to see and then it's, it was amazing, loved it.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: So you went to Heaver.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: What did you think?
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, oh, I absolutely loved it.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: It was fantastic and it wasn't it wasn't that crowded, we actually and it was fun.
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: I don't know how you got there, but we took the train from London and so we did the whole footpath.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: You can take the footpath and it goes like through the back and through fields and then you're like hanging out with sheep in the field and we're like going in the right direction.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: You know, like we're like in the middle of nowhere, but it was so much fun and I just kept thinking, like, take it in, lisa, this is great, you know, and it's so beautiful.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: I love how you can go and you can bring your own picnic.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: You can.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: You can easily spend a whole day there.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah you know it was beautiful.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: They did have part of.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: It was cordoned off because they were filming.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: Something, but I don't know what it was and they weren't actively shooting anything at that time but part of the gardens, towards where that there's like a lake or pond in the back, that part was shut was shut off.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: I do weddings down there as well.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: Oh, I can imagine, it's beautiful.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: I loved it and see again.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: Like I said, I'm the big, big tutor fan, so it's like I wanted to read every you know every painting.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: You know everything.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: That was there.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and we were lucky because we got to see the Thomas Cromwell his book of hours.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: So I was just in there staring and stare at just it was phenomenal.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: It was a phenomenal experience.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: I was so lucky to see that.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: I think when I was there they had they had Anne Boleyn's prayer book and I should remember who asked it.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Yes, catherine of Aragons, because we just missed that I went out with Don Tejiva, which was a was just amazing.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: Had a fantastic day trip out with him, yeah, so I didn't have to worry about kind of getting from the train station, because I know you have to walk in, organize a taxi and it's.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Another place that you went to which I want to ask you about was Stratford upon Avon, so my mum lives not very far from Stratford.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: And that was actually my favorite.
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: Like I liked that better than York.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: I loved it wasn't as busy it there.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: You know it has a completely different feel, but it was absolutely beautiful.
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: I loved how you had you know there's there's the tutor part, but then it feels like modern and other ways and it was just we did the whole bit.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: We did.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: We started in the morning and we did the you know his birthplace, yeah, and then we got on.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: Oh, hop on, hop off.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: Bus tour in Stratford on Avon was awesome.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: If anybody goes, if you want to go out to the Anne Hathaway's Cottage unless you're an Uber person, which we're not like, we're not Uber peoples, but we, when we found that there was that boss, it was great took us out there and they the like narrator on there tells you all this fun folklore stuff and history of words.
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: It was just so great and we did that.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: And then we came back we did new place, which I wasn't.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: It was OK being, I felt I had to go there.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: Being, you know a literature major, yeah, but if you're not super into Shakespeare, I'd say you could skip new place.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: Oh, and we did the guilt.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: Then we did the Guild Hall.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: Must.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: That was a must, and then we made it over to his grave and then at night we sat and we had drinks upon Avon it was.
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: It was one of my favorite places, you know.
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: Just, I would and I highly.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: We stayed at the White Swan and it was really cool because, like they have these character rooms, yeah, and we lucked out the room, if anybody goes there asked for it.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: I think it was 12th night and it was a huge room they call the character room and that was its theme and it was a really big room.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: It had a couch, it had a big one of those big tubs and it had air conditioning.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: So and it was weird because you knew is like it's this mix of like modern convenience but, like you know, really cool, rustic.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: So it was a lot of fun.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: I liked that, I enjoyed that.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: That sounds amazing.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: And Stratford the first time actually I ever visited Stratford.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: I had friends visiting, actually from Botswana.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: They came to visit me in the UK and I took them down to Stratford it was before my mum moved down that way and we did the hop on, hop off bus and it was brilliant because that's the best way to get out to Anne Hathaway's cottage a bit further out.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: So it was a great way to do it and I actually for the first time actually went in Anne Hathaway's house this time because that time we just did the trip round to look at it, yep, but I actually went this year and had a look inside.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Oh, what a fantastic place to visit.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: It is fantastic, you know, it was brilliant.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: And also Stratford itself is just a lovely, lovely time to walk around and we I'm trying to think where we went into the actual theatre and you can go upstairs and get a fantastic view over Stratford itself.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: So that's also that's also worth doing to get that kind of kind of view over the whole town or city, I'm not quite sure.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: So you get that whole view and Stratford twenty years ago that I don't think.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: I think it's fairly recently they just actually pedestrianized that main street before that cars used to come down.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: It was crazy.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Now it's so much better because you can walk it, yeah, yeah, and do a look at the Shakespeare's grave.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: I was there and there was a, there was a wedding on, so we can get into the.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: Oh no, we actually this is awful and embarrassing it's, but we actually you could edit this out if you want but we were there and I, you know, I go in, I'm all excited.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: And this guy's talking to me, you know, and I, and he's telling me about that there was an organist that was practicing and telling me all about it.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: And I'm letting him talk because I figure Anybody must.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: Just, you know, they must love to tell you about stuff that isn't Shakespeare.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: Like everybody knows you're going there for Shakespeare, yeah, so it's trying to be like super polite and I happen to reach down and I was like, oh, like something I like touched my leg and I look, well, I had gotten a bug bite or something.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: And I'm standing there and I'm trying like not to like cover the bleeding.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: I'm like I'm still talking to him and I'm like I didn't know what to do.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: And so I said to my husband I was like you know, I'm just letting the guy talk and I'm nodding.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: And I looked at my husband and I'm like, can you take a picture of you know his great, you know the boss, or whatever?
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: And he says and he's like, oh, yeah.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: And so I finally kind of managed to get out of there and then I had to laugh because I'm out and I had like blood on my hands.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, like, like, lady Macbeth, that's brilliant.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Literally collection.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, literally I'm like geez.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: You know, I hear I am, I'm bleeding at Shakespeare's grave.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: You know, we laugh so hard and these ladies were so nice and they got me it's.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: I guess it's not a band aid, it's a plastic.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah plastic.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so she had one and I still have one of them and I'm going to put it in a little frame.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: It just cracks me up like just, but it was just so funny, so it was just a real funny, but it's brilliant Because those are fantastic memories.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: That's what I say, like.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: So you know, did he go?
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: And you know he saw Shakespeare's grave?
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: But you've got a great story to go with it.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: It's like, oh, you've got a traveling, isn't it?
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: It's like we go to see the place in which, like, we really want to see, and you know, that's, that's fabulous, but it's the stories that go around and also it's a human.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: You know interest when you meet other people and make those connections and those things that you remember.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: Yes, you know, I think they're just so special.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you talked about accommodation, accommodation you had in Stratford.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Obviously, you really, really liked that.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: Was there any other?
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: accommodation that you stayed in that you're kind of like, well, this is amazing.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: Yes, I highly recommend.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: I wrote it down.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: The Cathedral Gate Hotel.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: In.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: Where was?
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: I Can debris, yes, thank you.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: Thank you, it's right outside, it's right next to the gate, it's in a great location.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: There's, and then there's a restaurant.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: You look out over the square and if you're lucky like we were, we actually had they gave us a room where there was a view.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: You could see the top of the cathedral.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: And even if you don't get that room, they have this patio like in between.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: Because one thing that I did learn, what was interesting about going to different ends and hotels in England, was how it was, like always amazed, to get to your room.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: It's not like the traditional hotel where you go down and it's just door, door, door.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: It's like you go down the hall to the left, up half a stair to the left.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: It was everywhere.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: And this one there's no elevator, is no lifts, there's yeah, and so you've got to and we had like, because we were there for two weeks.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: We didn't take a little bag.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: We did take it, you know, like a medium sized bag, but anyway.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: So if, even if you don't get a room, for that has a view, they have a patio and that like a rooftop patio and that looks out up on the top of the cathedral.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: So we sat out and had wine and and that this was the first time it said.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: You know it calls itself a hotel but really it was an in, you know, and they were so nice and the lady's son was like our bartender but also checked us in like it's just the coolest experience.
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: You know, I'd never stayed at inns or guest houses until this trip, and I knew that was a must to experience it.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: So that's one thing.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: I do recommend staying guest houses, inns, b&bs meet the local people.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: It's the best way to do it, get the local experience.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I usually stay in hotels in London, but once I get out of London I just I try and stay in the B&B guest houses and say, because you just get to a taste of kind of the local, local environment, can ask them as well Where's the best place for me to eat?
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Where's the best?
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, what are the tips, what are the things I need to know when I'm visiting this particular place?
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: They'll tell you all of that because they know it all.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: They live there.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what about?
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Obviously you visited Canterbury Cathedral.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: How did you?
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: How was that?
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: Beautiful.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: It was absolutely beautiful, like, and I think that was one of the things in my like that I put in my Facebook post, like about how I forget how many steps we we said we were and it was like we saw, I think total, kind of I mean what York's a minster?
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: But you know, I think total at least like four or five cathedrals, I feel like we were in through the whole trip, you know, and but that one was just stunning and I had to go.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: You know the connection with Canterbury Tales and yeah, I know it's fictional, but still, you know, it just has so much history and I was just we just kept, we just kept walking into these places, like the tower and and Canterbury Cathedral and you know Hampton Court, and just going like these walls, like you're touching a wall that's been there for you know, years, hundreds of years, and it's just it blows my mind.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, in New England, the oldest house we have is like 200 years old.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean Like, and so that was one of the things that really was touching about Canterbury was the history and just, you know, and you really each place just had this real feeling of history and vibration to it just like what Westminster Abbey.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: I can't wait to go back and see we decided we're going.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: We'd like to go back and go like November.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and Westminster Abbey is going to be a must.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: To go back and please be there to go back and just go back and try and try again.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: From that moment on we would like to go back and try and try to get out again and see if anything's going to be okay and find some Pittsburgh and then from that I'll get there in December again Because I always go to West.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: It doesn't matter how many times I go to Westman Stabbing.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: I've done so many tours around there always learned something new and see something new and find out something.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's really interesting.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: And this time, actually the Queens Jubilee Galleries, which was fascinating, absolutely fantastic.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: I wish you'd take photos, but you're not allowed to.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: But gosh, that was amazing up there.
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: Yes, we did that and I was gonna say highly recommend that.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: That was fantastic yeah.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: You know what?
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: I don't think a lot of people go up there, but really seriously, go to Westman Stabbing.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to go up there.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely you have to go up there.
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was shocked.
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: It was not even busy up there, like compared to what we left.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: When we went up I was like holy moly, you know, and nobody wanted to spend.
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: What.
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: Was it like an extra 10 pounds?
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: It wasn't even that much more.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: You know Exactly and it's absolutely you've got to add that to Westman Stabbing experienced 100%.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: And yeah, like I don't know how many times, how many abbeys and cathedrals and ministers how many times.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like because I went to.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: I took one woman to Bath for her 18th birthday and so I took her to the room at Bath's first and we came out and she went oh, have you got tickets to go to Bath Abbey?
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: And I went oh, I didn't know if you wanted to go into it.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes, that's a cue up, so that was another one.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, it was like, okay, brilliant, I'll add that to my list of being.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: I haven't actually climbed to the tower there, but I went in where I took some nice photos, so that was really good.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: And yeah, you know something.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: I think that's what specials when you go and you go into all these places and you know, like, if you know the history or you've learned about the history, you've studied about the history, obviously you know the tutors and you go and you're like walking in the same place that Anne Boleyn's looked in, where Henry VIII has been, or all these people that you read about, and you know I just have a, because I have a real thing about being able to just feel that presence in the past.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: You can feel it there exudes it from the walls, doesn't it?
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: Yes, so if you really want to get kind of in touch with that history and feel what it's like, those are the places to go to, you know, 100% 100%.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: You know, you said it exactly and I feel that 100% and especially that was one of the things I said about like going to Shakespeare.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: It was these people you read about and you hear about, but there's still somewhere else in your head.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: You know they're in books during your head, but then when you go and you see that they are where they're buried or where they've lived and you're, it just becomes so much real.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: Everything became so much real to me after seeing it, and then it just makes me want to jump in even more and I'm like I want to go back and get my history degree now.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: You know, like I just like I loved it in learning about all the history even more.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: It just opened.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: It opened my mind in so many ways.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: Windsor was like that too.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: Like Windsor, I just I couldn't wait.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: Well, the funny part about Windsor is that I made a beeline for St George's Chapel, and Not because it's for Harry and Meghan married, but because Henry the 8th is buried in it, you know.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: And so when, when I had, I went right there because it said sometimes it can close after one.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: So I was like I'm not messing around, I'm going there, and we were so lucky.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: I had no idea that we were going to be able to pay our respects to the Queen.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the late.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: Queen.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: I had no idea because you know, you see it on the TV and you'd like, literally.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, I know, I knew that there's, you know, underneath, that's where Henry the 8th would be.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: I didn't realize they would actually have the visible, you know, I guess they're crept.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: I had no idea.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: So I that was a pleasant surprise that we got to do that too.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: So what, you obviously went to the Tower of London.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we did that and we were, you know, did one of the water tours we should have got.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: We should have got it sooner because by the time we got to it there was, like it was already like a hundred people per group going through.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: But that was another place.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: We spent all day there.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: And one thing I am so thankful for is that Originally some people had said, sure, you could probably do the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey in a day.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: But I'm glad that I didn't, because the way you know, you got to worry about being there at three o'clock or, you know, whatever your time is in the afternoon.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: We would have felt rushed and I'm just so grateful that we we didn't.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: We didn't do that because we spent just about all day at the Tower of.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: London.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it's good to give yourself that kind of flexibility.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: I'd say if you give yourself you've got some like the Tower of London booked in in the morning and if you've got the time in your itinerary to not have anything that you have to have booked in, that you've got to be there Specifically, yep, it's easier because otherwise you're watching, you know You're clock watching the whole time and you can oh we can only spend such and such a length of time here because we need to leave.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: And so it's good to have that, that you had that ability to stay, because you can easily spend like three, four hours in a Tower of London.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: And I say that when people say oh, yeah, and now I said no, it's not enough, definitely not enough.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I was really lucky this year that I did the ceremony of the keys and it, oh, honestly, honestly say, if you get the opportunity to Go back to one, I highly recommend you do.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: It really made such an impression on me Having the time with the Yermen Warder.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: It was just 14 of us with the Yermen Warder for an hour and a half.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: He took us into the chapel and talked about all the different things in the chapel Obviously, you can see where you know Anne Boleyn's buried and he just told us so much of the history that I didn't.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't have known.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: Like he said, I can't.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: It's difficult to do that when you've got 30,000 people through the Tower Londoner day.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Even when they do those in the morning, they can't give you that level of detail.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we could ask them questions.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: And then we got to see the actual ceremony of the keys, which you know, the.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: There's no video photography, nothing is allowed.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: It's.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: It's been going on for seven, eight hundred years now, this ceremony, so every single night it's gone on and so you get to see something that is it's historic.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: Your name gets written in the book at Tower London.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: It's just.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: It really was the highlight of my trip to London this year, so I know it definitely would recommend next time you go about that you do that really 100%.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that that I would love that.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: It was so special, so so special really really was so it was good.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: So we're gonna swivel the topic away About.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: About food was there any particular?
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: Did you anywhere that you eat that you enjoyed?
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know if your foodies or not, but was anything that you ate that you enjoyed, places you went to thought, oh, this is great.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, um, so we're not big foodies, we're very much pub people, and so what actually happened is when we went to Greenwich.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: So what we did end up doing is we did westminster abbey in the morning and then took a boat up to Greenwich to go.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: My husband's in the Was in the coast guard.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: So we went to the naval, a museum up there, and we went into this pub and we, we went into one place it was kind of like posh and we were like man, weren't feeling the vibe.
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: And then we went down and we found like more something we were looking a little more for and it was like what they call the green, like green king pub.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: Yep, I guess.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, and we started to realize you know that how.
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: I think that one of the Somebody had told us how, like, breweries own a certain amount of you know, pubs in and around, and yeah, anyway, so we loved it in my husband's favorite beer levelhead, he, he fell in love with that beer and actually my favorite was there too I think it's the abbot and we had fish and chips and it was fantastic.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: And so we started noticing these other green king pubs.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: So by the end of the day, a lot of times we just went into one that was green king, because we knew what we were gonna get.
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: We knew the quality was gonna be great, we knew the service was gonna be.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: We were never disappointed.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: There was one that was in london that was a little busy, yeah, um, and but other than that, you know.
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: So we kind of did that, yeah, but we actually were able to.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: In york, we were able to.
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: We did a sunday dinner or the sun and, um, we, that was in, it's a famous spot, the Guy fox in.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: Yes, oh, yes.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: We had a sunday dinner there, yeah, yeah.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: So that was great.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: That was like a nice pub.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah and I just fell in love with okay, you're gonna have to help me say it, is it?
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: Halloumi fries?
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: Halloumi fries, yeah, halloumi fries.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was my favorite halloumi fries and steak pies like, and I was a little bummed because I wanted to like yorkshire pudding, but I, I just I didn't love it and so I was bummed because it just looks so yummy.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: I do have your.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: I always have your spuddin on it.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: Everybody a roast I know you have to have.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, the law, yes, yeah, good, look, you need a lot of gravy.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Lots of gravy.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: Yes, no, yorkshire pudding, it depends.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, I always think the smaller ones are better.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Sometimes these places you go they're trying to make these massive, huge yorkshire puddin's that are half the size of the plate and I think they're less tasty.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: So I don't have it really one of these huge ones.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: I always say go for the smaller yorkshire puddin's.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: That much them Right.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: So really good, yeah, but that's good that you kind of you did the whole pub culture and vibe and had your beer and enjoyed all of that and and kind of you know, yeah, you know, because some of the places you go you can order at the bar and then other places you have to go to sit down and then you figure out what you want.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Then you couldn't order it.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: The gun order the bar.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: And there's a few more of these kind of like scan Happy things where you can kind of order on your phone.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: Yes, in fact, you had.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: You know, one of the questions you had said, like, was there something that you know, surprised us, and we were surprised that there were no seats at the bars, like in our vision, was like, oh, we just want to sit up in a bar.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: Um, because they were all the go up, order, order your food, order your drinks, and then they find your table and we're like, oh, is this covid?
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: They're like, no, no, this is how we do it and we loved it.
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: We loved it because, you know, here in the states I just want turnover tables, turnover tables, and you never feel like you can just sit there and enjoy your drink.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: But there it was the best.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: We our food always came in a reasonable time frame.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: It was.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: You know, I think the funniest thing that happened was that our credit cards kept alerting that we got double charged because you do, because you go up there, and every time you go up it's like 15.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: Oh one, and then the next time 15.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: Oh one.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: So they kept seeing because of all the things.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: But, um, we Love that was our favorite.
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: One of our favorite favorite things is the way the pubs are set up out there.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: The trading system obviously moving around quite a lot.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: How did you manage that?
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: So that was what.
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: When I made all the arrangements or my husband actually made most of those what I wasn't thinking about was that it wasn't you know, I would put in like oh, york to strafford on avon and the you know the train line app, and it's like oh yeah.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: But what I didn't realize is that we're, like, you know, three changes in between, like so that we we didn't quite plan for the hardest one actually was york to strafford on avon, because we went to Birmingham and then actually had to change a station.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, which we probably missed a sign that there was a walkway to it, so we kind of went a different way.
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: But um yeah, so we, um yeah, we got around.
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: The trains were great.
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: We had we didn't have the carry on small carry on bags, we had like ones that were more medium.
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah and it wasn't.
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: It wasn't that bad.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: I think the most times we got a little nervous was when we knew we had to take it on the tube.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: The tube, thank you.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the tube, that, because sometimes those would go by and you're like, where am I gonna stand?
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: That was the one time.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: And then the trains.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: There was one and I'm trying to remember which one it was, but some like it only the one to York were we able able to put our Bags on the top.
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah it didn't fit anywhere else On the other train we had to have it right next to us and I wasn't sure what the attitude was when your luggage basically takes up a seat, you know.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: But we we tried to.
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: There was like I can't remember, maybe it was on the way, I think it was on the way to Canterbury, and there was one and I realized it was so busy because it passes by where the, the tunnel or where the Paris Line goes through, even will even further down, like there's some tell you what today my mind's got to go yeah but it's that it's on that way towards.
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: It's only like Ashford, yes, yes, yep, and I think that one we're like wow, like we weren't expecting it to be so busy, but that's why, so that one, we were kind of like squished a little bit with our bags, but yeah, we did it and you know we did it.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: And if we had gotten any bigger of a suitcase we it would not have been fun.
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: But and sometimes rolling over the cobblestones, that's another.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think some European cities actually banned, really, suitcases, but because the cobblestones actually say that, oh, wow, yeah.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I know it's one of those.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: It's one of those things when you pack your stuff and you think, okay, I know I'm gonna have to be traveling by train, I'm going from 8 to beat the CD, so how can I minimize what I take to make it as easy as possible?
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: Yep, but yeah, it is hard and and We've done obviously a lot of traveling by training it's trying to find on some of the trains.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: You, you can't find the room to put it above or doesn't fit, so you've got to leave at the end of the carriage.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: So I try to sit near it and sometimes you know if it's not busy, I've put that the Luggage kind of beside my legs, yep.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: So if it's in, I know sometimes, like if it's a really busy train, they'll say if you've got a bag on your seat, could you move it so the people can sit there.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: But generally they'll say that, yeah, but yeah, it's.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: It can be a bit bit difficult if you've got a lot like a lot of luggage.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: I always said people try and minimize what you can if you're gonna be doing that kind of that, that train travel aspect a bit, but but I'm glad to get it by train.
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no 100%.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: And we studied, like I studied the Facebook group, the UK travel planning Facebook group, all the time on like, really studied on, like what can you fit in a small case?
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: What can you fit in a medium?
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: You know where it goes on the train, and ultimately we just had to kind of, do we?
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: There was just no way for 14 days.
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: I, we're not the kind of traveler that can fit 14 days of stuff in the little carry on.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: So that was it's alright, trying to, but I, you know, and especially, I mean I was there for three months.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: I could leave some stuff at moments but I had to keep going back.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: But yeah, still, it was.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: It was hard.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: But if you, yeah, it's like sometimes you see people with massive, huge suitcases on, like, oh no, no, no, that's not.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to do that.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, no, no.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: So I know we kind of briefly touched on it before, but was it anything, when it's anything else that surprised you about?
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: Because obviously so, first visit to Europe, first visit to the UK, was there anything that surprised you that you didn't expect?
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: I think One of the things that I wasn't prepared for were the crowds right it was.
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: It was Much busier than I had anticipated and like I've done the whole, like Disney World lines and Disney World crowds.
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: I've been to Boston on the 4th of July and it is crazy, but it it was really crazy in London like it was I.
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: I you know, I know we're from up here, you know New Hampshire in the country, but I just was not.
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: I Was a little overwhelmed at times and actually for 14 days straight together my husband and I did Fantastic.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: You know, there was like there were a couple times where it was you could tell it was just hot.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: There were a lot of people and you're like I don't know where you want me to go.
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: It was busy, yeah, it was busy.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: It was busy in April it was busy.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: I was in London April and I'd never seen it as busy.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: I was a bit shocked.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: That was just before the coronation.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: I was like this is crazy and it stayed busy.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: And I don't.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: I think it's just this people couldn't travel and now everybody's traveling.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: So all those yeah and and that I think it's it's happening a lot of kind of popular places around the world.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: But it did feel at one point that everybody in the world was actually in London.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: I know, actually everybody in the world was in Westminster Abbey with me, have to tell you.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: Yes, I felt the same way now, and the day we went to Westminster Abbey, the like that was the busiest.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: We had seen it on the streets.
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: Now, there was the day we were there for is it the trooping of the guard?
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: Oh true, the color yeah yeah, oh, trooping of the color, okay, we were there, for that was what the day we went to Westminster.
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: So I don't know whether, like everybody, got pushed out of that area and into Closer to Westminster Abbey I don't know what it was, but that one was like pure chaos.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: Well, I got out of London that day in fact Doug was gonna go because I said, oh, you can do, you could go and do the trooping of the color and I went to Paris for the day, but he said no and he went off to the island like the day.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: I cannot imagine how busy it would have been around Westminster on the day of the trooping of the color.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and we didn't know, like we didn't know how big of a thing it would be, and it just happened to be something that I I noticed when I did the itinerary that it showed up some you know some research.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: It showed up that there might have even been mentioned in one of your podcasts too, and so I was like, oh, that's there.
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: But the cool thing is is, as soon as we were done with Westminster, that's when we made a beeline for the, for the boat, yeah, and while we were on the boat up the Thames, we got the air show.
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: Oh, perfect.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: Wow, there you go.
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: So that was amazing.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: Like the poor guy on the boat, though, trying to do the tour, I don't know why he just didn't give up and be like I'll just come back when it's done.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he kept going.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's funny.
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: And that Uber boat.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: We took the Uber boat on the way back from Greenwich.
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: That thing, that is awesome.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the boat's excellent.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: I do say to people because you know, obviously everybody always thinks about the Tube or catching the London buses.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: But you know, go down the Thames, you can see if you get great views of the bridges and views of London Skyline and London.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: The buildings that you don't, you're obviously not going to see when you're walking up close to them.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: So, and I'm glad you went down to Greenwich, that's always a favourite of mine.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: I did fit in a day in Greenwich again this trip.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: I always go down there.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: The Naval Hall is my particular favourite, the painted hall.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: It's fantastic, oh, so beautiful.
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I'm glad that you managed to get down to that, that's really good.
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we didn't stand on the whole Primaridian because there was another line for that, and by the time we made it up the hill it was so hot and we were like we must have walked over the Primaridian at some point around here.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, you're definitely on it.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: So is there anything, lisa, next time, that when you plan a trip, that you would do differently?
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: I think maybe we would like to try trying to do a B&B, an Airbnb, as like a home base.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: Right yeah.
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: But we had never done that before and we're like I'm not picking my first trip to Europe to mess with that.
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: I had never done it.
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: I haven't done it in the States, we haven't done it there.
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: So that was one thing.
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: When I read that question to my husband, that's what he said, maybe doing that.
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: But even when we're already thinking of our next trip there, I don't even think that's going to work because there's so many things we want to see that I just don't think that's.
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: So maybe the other piece of advice would be just make sure.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: Or one thing I would do differently is just planning.
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: Making sure I planned my train trips just a little more in mind.
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: Realizing like that also means you're going to miss a half a day.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: Don't forget that.
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: So trying to do that and maybe extending it.
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: We were lucky.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: Ever where we went we stayed two nights, except London was longer, but it was just enough to get there.
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: Do what you have to do and go.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good and you did plan and really it was a good the way you planned.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: It was really good in terms of doing that circular route as well, so you got the best out of it and also you get to see the countryside when you're on the train, which is always.
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it was beautiful, very beautiful.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: Well, that's good.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: I always end with one question yes, so what is the one tip that you would give to anybody who's planning their visit to the UK for the first time?
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: Okay, so be prepared for crowds.
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: Can you tell I was a little too far from the crowd?
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: Yes and cute, have patience, but book whatever you can early.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: So I think the best thing was I was so grateful that Windsor Castle, the tower and all of those places that we booked online ahead of time and didn't have to stand in the line where you didn't have tickets and pick your times you can pick your time, that you go in the timed entry.
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: It's not necessarily a guarantee I would kind of let everybody know that but at least it gives you something to go by.
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I would say anything you can do online ahead of time, 100% do.
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Lisa, for coming on the podcast.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: It was great to talk to you.
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: Yes, no, it was great.
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: Thanks once again to Lisa for joining me on this week's episode.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: You can find information and links to all the places Lisa mentioned in this week's show notes at UKTravelPlanincom forward slash, episode 61.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: If you've enjoyed this episode and would like to support our work, you could become a podcast sponsor from as little as three US dollars a month.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: You can find more information via the show notes and receive a shout out in a future podcast episode.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: That just leaves me to say for this week happy UK travel planning.