Europe 2026 - England
- Tim Madison
- Apr 13
- 76 min read
Updated: May 3
Leipzig to London – April 13, 2026
Easter week is finished in Germany and now we move on. Today there are conveyances hired to drag us to and fro: train to Berlin Main Station, train from there to Flughafen (airport), aircraft from Berlin to London, then Underground rail from Heathrow to Russell Square. I begin the day in a stunned, half-catatonic state and never feel the need to generate much more energy than that. After all, most of the day is spent sitting on one’s duff or waiting in a queue. Luckily, I am not called upon to function at a level much beyond that of a freshly baked zombie; all appointments are met and reservations in order thanks to CK. Not only that, but the machines designed to carry us are working as intended. After experiencing the unreliable decrepitude of our ferryboat system back home we have become sensitive to the perverse nature of man-made devices, particularly those belonging to the transportation industry. All goes well today, however. No sweat.
I feel that the Belin Flughafen is of some interest in that it seems to have expanded since we were here last. It is likely the same size as last time, we’re merely discovering a new, previously unknown vastness. We walk at least 1 mile with our luggage from the train platform to our gate, all of it inside Terminal 5. It is clear that one does not want to be in a hurry to get to a connecting flight here. An electric scooter would be the only chance. In the lounge area (we are flying business class) I meet my first deployed service bot. It is for bussing tables. It cruises by me once, flashing a smiley face from its screen in gratitude for my stepping aside to let it pass. Then it parks in a corner, putting up some text to the effect of “Please clean up the dishes”. Then it seems to pout there while the staff ignores it. It is a little spooky. I kinda feel like thanking it but why am I feeling that way? Can’t tip it, either. All the bot needs is a software update and some periodic maintenance. No coffee breaks, no salary, no sick days. Just a forlorn chirp every now and then, “My battery is low. Charge me”. Some humans, are, no doubt, now unemployed with the same complaint.
The loading of the plane at Berlin seems a little random, something of a free-for-all but it all settles down to an orderly flight. They serve a snack of tarted up pub food that is odd in the way that airplane food usually is. There’s something miniaturized and processed about it, like it’s been handled too much. And it’s messy. The possibility of fouling oneself with a glop of greasy clotted cream kind of robs the meal of what little flavor it never had. We’re on British Air. The flight is only 2.25 hours. Feels like we spend that much time on the taxiway.
Weather in London is dry and cool. We don’t notice it much until we emerge from our hour long slog in the Underground from Heathrow to Russell Square. From there it’s a luggage drag and people-dodge about a quarter mile to our hotel in the Bloomsbury district, The Beauchamp, or as they pronounce it here, Beecham. Our room in Leipzig was the bomb compared to this one. Let us suffice to say that the updates made to this building since the late 18th century have been a niggling few. I may feel inclined to list the sad details but that must wait until a future post. Our initial impression is simply this: We do not recommend.
For our evening gnosh, we find an alley slinking away off Southhampton Row which harbors a string of pubs, one of which is The Swan. Here we polish off a shared order of fish & chips. I had a nice Spanish lager, too. Here, also, the modern world gives us a start. As we sit down, a printed notice invites us to download an app and send in our order from our table. We did this once before, in Norway last year but that was Norway. I fully expect modernity and updated 21st century tech from them. But in an 18th century pub in London? What?! Our experience so far is an 18th century hotel with too few updates and an 18th century pub with too many. Gah.
We’ll be here for a few days doing this and that while making time to hit the theater district for three shows.
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London – April 14, 2026
We don’t have jet lag to deal with but we must, however, deal with a restroom and bath with no perceptible heat source together with a noisy exterior remodeling project adjacent to us. On the other side of our space is a room that looks to have been improvised out of a 19th century study. In it were 10-12 gentlemen in suit and tie having a jolly good time as if it were the semi-annual gathering of The Pudding Club, dedicated to the preservation of ancient dessert items. We have no idea what they are up to, but we weren’t prepared to be located next to a party room or a construction zone. After one sleep in #107 CK requests a room change.
We have nothing scheduled today so we elect to do something we’ve never done in London, the Hop-On Hop-Off bus. We don’t plan to hop off, riding the whole route as if it were a scripted walking tour. First the Underground from Russell Square to Marble Arch. There we find a City Sightseeing double decker bus and take a perch on the upper story. This spot is kind of a nexus between Buckingham Palace Gardens and Hyde Park. Our bus takes us for a loop through the neighborhoods surrounding Hyde Park. We get a running commentary through earbuds connected to their audio system. This is a part of London we haven’t seen and probably wouldn’t unless guided there by a veteran Londoner. We are shown the Knightsbridge district as we roll past Harrod’s, the Victoria & Albert Museum, Natural History Museum, and Royal Albert Hall. The posh voice in my ear feeds me bits of sugary information about how Queen Victoria miraculously avoided 7 assassination attempts. Each one seemed to lift her popularity among the Brits when it was on the downside. Funny how that works. Kensington Palace, Paddington Station, and The London Hilton on Park Lane a 331 feet tall tower. The posh voice seems excited to inform us that from the top one can spy on Buckingham Palace’s private gardens below. Also, some base jumpers parachuted from it in the 80’s and got away.
By the time we complete the loop, I’m needful of a loo. Public loos are not a thing in London, not in the zone we’re in. There’s a hotel just ahead. We plan to crash it for access to its necessary facilities but first I’m distracted by a plaque just above my head. It declares that this is the last official residence of Jimi Hendrix. Right. My curiosity is now lit. We walk right through the front door like a hobo sailor does, a liveried gentleman doesn’t ask me who I was but holds the door, making no questions. We encounter a huge space encompassing an enormous bar and restaurant adorned with a rock & roll theme obviously echoing the ghost of Hendrix. We are in the Cumberland Hotel. The restaurant is a Hell’s Kitchen, a Gordon Ramsay establishment, just freshly opened. It isn’t the only one. There are a dozen or so others around the world. This is the first one in the UK, curiously enough, he being a Brit and all. This joint is a slick operation with some TV show vibes bouncing around. We’re tempted to make a rez but don’t.
Loo managed, we feel the need for a spot of lunch. Any pub will do, so we poke into a likely spot, The Allsop Arms. This is a sports pub and pro tennis is on the screen. We like it. We split a BLT and a couple of pints.
We’re out again and hiking to the legendary address of Sherlock Holmes, 221B Baker Street to see what’s there. It isn’t far. It stands pretty much next to The London Beatle’s Store which CK must investigate for sure. This place is about as fictional as an address can be. In the 19th century when Doyle invented this address, the house numbers only ran in the 100s. He intentionally created an impossible address to deter readers from bothering someone at their home. In 1990 the City of Westminster approved the address to be attached to the museum. Before that, The Abbey House, a sprawling art deco building built in the 1930’s, occupied the spot that spanned the 221B address. Fans came looking for Holmes’ flat but ran into this building instead. Abbey House was also flooded with fan mail. Anyhow, outside the entrance to the Sherlock Holmes Museum is a friendly lad in a Bobbie kit whose job it is to direct people to the ticket sales if they don’t have one already. We have no plan to inspect this place, as it is the stuff Victorian novels are made of.
We decide to take a different loop on the Sightseeing Bus but first a stop for cake and coffee at a nearby Café Concerto shop of which there are several in London. These are a bit glitzy for a café space. The pastry case is perfection itself. The wait staff are liveried with distinctive caps. Very tré. I must mention the loo here. All is tidy, of course, but the odd thing is the pop Christmas music being spammed in them at all times. I have an idea about this that I like even though it may be incorrect: this is done to present a mild annoyance. It made me want to linger there no more than was absolutely necessary and it had the same effect on CK. Curiouser and curiouser.
On the bus again, this time on a route that takes us past places we’ve visited before: Picadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, St Paul’s Cathedral, The Monument to the Great Fire, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, The Shard, Houses of Parliament. The weather, which began the day in a sunny, warm mode has turned gray and breezy. We’re getting chilled on the roofless bus top. Luckily, the tour ends just as we’re about to holler uncle and bail out. We’re ready to find the Underground and get back to the hotel. I need the loo but I can hold out until we get to the Beauchamp.
The train is waiting as we arrive on the platform and I count myself lucky. We’ll get there all the quicker because we get off in three stops. Luck drains away immediately. The train is held at the next stop because of whatever, we don’t know. Something is happening at the Holborn station that prevents this train from moving. I gotta go, so off the train and up to the street to hunt another facility to accommodate my failing bladder. We think about the Cumberland again, but a quick check reveals that it is ¾ mile away. CK spots a busy pub on the next corner, The Argyll, and it accommodates us nicely. This is rush hour / meal time and the pub is packed. We’re impressed with this pub. It isn’t very big, but it has some class, some worthy atmosphere. The walls and ceiling are Georgian filigree in plaster, painted a dark scarlet. There's plenty of glass to reflect light and make the space look larger. We could use a bite, so we wait until a table opens and park our bums. Here we must order from an app because we cannot spot servers in action other than one person who clears tables. We split a beef pie and wash it down with lager. Good stuff. We recommend! And we did it 21st century style on our cell phones and everything!
The walk home is 1 mile including a side trip for gelato at Amarino, the world’s best gelato and I’m not kidding. There are shops all over Europe. I am known to hunt them. This particular shop has also gone 21st century: one must order from a kiosk screen; no interaction with staff. And I can’t pay with cash because that would be beyond the pale. A candy machine can do it but such pedestrian activity is beneath the dignity of an Amarino bot.
Ice cream treat sorted, we must find our new room at the Beauchamp. We are directed to #006 (one promotion short of secret agent?) We have a much better location but conveniences and lack of them remain identical. It is what it is.
Tomorrow, more London. This time we plan an encounter with the London Stage.
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London – April 15, 2026
A lazy morning today is in order. The hotel breakfast is of the continental style, no full English gigantic platter of meat and potatoes for us. I experiment with a crushed up Weetabix wafer on my fruit. It is disappointingly medicinal. I shall return to the corn flakes or the chocolate Rice Krispies with more enthusiasm now. The tea is good, though, and the croissant doesn’t taste day-old if you load them with enough jam.
We have two things on our list today. First, a walking tour. Second, a show on the London Stage.
The walking tour is a clever bit of 21st century wizardry. We download an app call Voice Map on our cellphones. On it we find a thing called “Theatreland Tour with Ian McKellen”, a trip through London’s wacky west end. It connects through the cell tower like everything else does, then uses GPS to track our progress on the landscape while McKellen’s disembodied voice guides and informs us based on where we are. McKellen gives us instructions on which side of the street to stand, and what to look at. We’re wearing our own headsets and anyone observing us must think we’re mad as hatters. But it’s really a brilliant thing to do. The walk takes a little more than an hour depending on how many wrong turns we take or how many photo stops we make. We proceed at our own pace making it as long as we like. There’s even a planned pub stop along the way. We get a highlighted history lesson on London theatre: depending on how you define it there are as many as 10 theatres constructed below ground level. One of the craziest is the Cellar Door which was once a Victorian public restroom for men. Now it’s a cocktail bar and cabaret stage for drag shows, burlesque, and jazz. We are guided past a number of historic old theatres but, of course, not all of them. In the “official” west end there are 40 live stages. Off-west end and fringe zones will run the count up to 200 more. McKellen mentions certain heroes of this zone, most of which I don’t recall now but there’s one or two that stayed with me. Henry Irving was the king of the west end in Victorian times. He ran the Lyceum Theatre as well as being a well-regarded actor. Bram Stoker was his business manager for years. It is said that Stoker based his Dracula character after Irving who tended to be intense, commanding, and spooky. Irving was doing fantastically well for himself until a warehouse containing his stock of costumes and sets was destroyed by fire. It was not insured. He could no longer present his repertoire and had to produce new plays which required that he borrow vast sums from bankers. He never returned to his previous dominance of the west end. He is mostly remembered today for his work toward making the acting profession socially respectable. He is the first actor to be interred in Westminster Abbey. Legend says that while riding in a carriage with his wife, she asked him if he planned to go to the theatre and make a fool of himself again. He stopped the carriage, got out, and walked away. He never went back to her.
The Royal Opera House burned down twice. Once in 1808 and again in 1856. The building that stands today is the third version of it. Next door to the Opera House is the Royal Ballet School. Between the two buildings is a passageway far above ground level know as the Bridge of Aspiration. Dancers move from the School to the Opera House hoping one day to make the trip as a professional one day.
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane near Covent Garden has burned down or been demolished 4 times. The building there today is the 5th incarnation of it. In 1809 it burned. Richard B. Sheridan, an Irish playwright, was the owner. At one point he saw that the flames were out of control and so retired to a nearby pub and sat down with a cup of wine to watch it go up. When asked how he could be so calm he famously said, “A man may surely be allowed to take a glass of wine by his own fireside.”
Richard Harris lived his last days at the Savoy Hotel many of which were marked by emergency trips to the hospital. One day was particularly bad, ultimately becoming the final one. As the staff gathered to watch his gurney roll through the lobby, he sat upright and shouted, “It was the food! It was the food! Don’t touch the food!”
Agatha Christie’s play, “The Mousetrap” has been playing at St Martin’s Theatre for 74 uninterrupted years at 10 performances per week. Put that into your calculator and smoke it. Never mind, I’ll do it for you: 52 weeks X 10 shows = 520 X 74 = 38,480 performances and showing no signs of stopping soon.
One of my favorite parts of this is being guided to parts of London I’ve not seen before and having them explained to me. Stringfellows is a strip club that seems to have attracted an unusual number of celebrities. Nell Gwynne Pub named after a 17th century actress who became the mistress of Charles II, the guy who provoked the English Civil War and got his head lopped off for it. The Ivy, a restaurant favored by actors who can afford it or get a table. Seven Dials area. Even though we’ve walked through several times we did not know that there were once 7 pubs that faced the circular plaza around the monument there. Underground there was a system of tunnels that connected each one. Pickpockets would rob a person in one pub and disappear underground to reappear in another. Charles Dickens described this area as a ‘hotbed of villainy’ in his time. And there is more that I don’t recall and I didn’t take notes. It may be worth doing this tour again just to pick up on more details.
We hustle back to the hotel to change into nicer duds because we’re out tonight for dinner and a show. The weather is a little breezy so CK calls a cab. He drops us in the west end where we navigate to our pre-show meal reservation, St James Pub. CK has a reservation. This pub is quite small as most of these old ones are. It is packed. It looks like chaos and sounds like it, too, with a deafening racket of rock music and shouted conversations, everyone competing with the noise for their voice to be heard. We must wait until a table is vacated. There are no servers again. One must download an app and figure out how the bugger works. Every one of these places has a different app and a different configuration. It isn’t a relaxing thing to do, going out to eat in a London pub at rush hour, unless you like the challenge of deciphering cryptic menu apps and having your cochlea assaulted by military grade noise. We split a fish & chips. Nothing special here. We don’t recommend.
Escaping St James Pub with more time on our hands, lands us across the street at Albert’s Schloss. This is a German themed pub featuring many of the brews we just left behind us in Leipzig. The atmosphere is lively here too but not nearly as oppressive. The oddest part here is the loo. It is tiny. Just a one-holer for a sizeable beer stube. Something isn’t right about that. We’re here because we have time to waste before our show. We’re going to see the Tony and Emmy Award Winning ‘Hades Town’ at the Lyric Theater.
CK gets us really good seats on the balcony, first row. Looking around, I am the only guy in the entire theatre wearing a tie aside from the theatre staff and bouncers. One fellow is wearing a sport jacket with an open collar. Come on, you guys. This is the London Stage. Dress like you mean it. Good grief. The Milanese must weep bitter tears when they come here.
The show is billed as a musical but I’ll describe it as more of an operetta. The song and dance is non-stop. There is no dialogue between the music. It is based on the mythology of Hades & Persephone and Orpheus & Eurydice. It’s late and I must finish my writing, so I won’t get into the story. I’ll say this about it: The staging and choreography is hot stuff, no doubt. The music and singing is skillful. The songs are often doggerel poetry or free verse (no rhyme, no meter). Strange combination. Even though the orchestra is working the score, the lyrics are intentionally straying in odd ways that I don’t follow. The most entertaining for me are the Three Fates, a trio of ladies acting as a Greek Chorus, who do a terrific job of close harmony with their numbers a la The Lennon Sisters. They are solid. This tale is a good idea for a stage show, but the production fails to capture me. It is a hard sell performance; loud and louder seems to be this playwright’s formula for drama. Meh. The crowd seemed to love it, though. All this is to present more evidence that my duffer level of artistic appreciation is out of date and irrelevant. In the end I am instructed as to what the critics declare to be excellent theater these days. Who am I to disagree?
Tomorrow we take a side trip on a train early in the a.m.
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London & Cambridge – April 16, 2026
Last night’s sleep wasn’t great. Must be all the rot and corruption in my conscience. Whatever the case, I am so groggy at breakfast that I pour coffee on my tea bag. There is no place to pour it out so I must drink the vile stuff. Very often in these hotels, there’s a coffee machine bot that grinds out coffee drinks to order. It isn’t terrible. I use it when there is one. Here there’s only a carafe of drip on a warming plate. Its character is beyond medicinal, all the way to industrial. No bueno. Milk cannot save it. It did serve to shock my system toward a more alert state, so thanks for that.
Today the plan is to launch away from London to Cambridge. We walk to St Pancras rail station to catch a 1+ hour ride to the north. I have often wondered who the heck is St Pancras. Patron saint of diabetes? Of course, the internet delivers the goods: a 3rd century teenager who made some fateful choices. Number one: he became an enthusiastic Christian. Number two: he moved himself and his enthusiasm to Rome. Unlucky for him that Diocletian was the Emperor and he was using Christians for lion bait, particularly noisy ones. Pancras was martyred at the age of 14. He is the patron saint of teenagers and children. Now, I wait until someone asks me who St Pancras is so I can impress them with the depth of my trivial mind.
Our walk to the station is through the morning rush hour. Lots of people streaming into and out of the Underground entrances. The sidewalks are busy. There are cars on the streets but there isn’t bumper to bumper gridlock. We’re seeing flocks of bicycles waiting at traffic signals. Gas is the equivalent of $8.05 per US gallon and these bici commuters aren’t having it. Truth is, most probably, that they’ve been cycling a long time because owning a car in London is impractical unless you have parking staked out everywhere, not only at your home.
St Pancras is a huge station but we negotiate it successfully. Soon we are riding the rails north. We’ve just spent 10 days in Germany where we get a fair dose of their railway system. Their trains whisper quietly along the tracks like the conspiracies of a master spy. British trains squeal like a goosed Banshee that was force-fed a dry Brexit Burger. The Underground trains howl the loudest, amplified by the enclosed space. They work well enough to move us, though. That’s all we can reasonably ask.
At the Cambridge station we walk bravely past the Cornish Pasty shop without stopping. We are following directions to our booking down by the Cam River. We are going “punting”. We are doing this because this is what one does in Cambridge if you aren’t a professor or a student or a scholar. We pass a church along the way and CK must investigate. This is St Mary of the Assumption. It looks Gothic but the condition is way too good. Upon investigation, I guess correctly. It was built in 1890 by an architect who was nostalgic for the 12th century. The least he could have done was include a version of Green Man in the decoration. Nope. I find some kind of animal with a beard, but he’s not it.
Our punting craft is ready. Our pilot is Guy, a 19 year old Cambridge local with a bit of a South African accent. We’re taking what is called ‘The Backs’ route along the Cam. This is the part of the river that runs through the back yards of most of the notable properties and college grounds. Lucky us for two reasons. The cloud that has been thick all morning is giving way to warm sun breaks. And… Guy, our punting pilot, is a loquacious fellow who is quite eager to be our tour guide. We don’t think this is normal as we observe other pilots in their boats who don’t seem to be talking to their passengers very much. Guy is full of good dope about the scene. There are 30 colleges in Cambridge. This is the land of scientists Isaac Newton, Alan Turing, Stephen Hawking as well as actors such as Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, and Emma Thompson. Trinity College is the big dog here. Founded by Henry the VIII when one of his wives convinced him that he shouldn’t destroy a certain abbey, rather make it part of the University. It now is worth nearly $3B pounds and is one of the biggest landlord operations in the UK. It makes so much money on its rented buildings and land we wonder why they charge student tuition at all. King’s College is another biggie. They are famous for a lot of stuff as well, but the first thing I think of is their choir. Guy cheerfully advises us to hit the Christopher Wren Library at Trinity, then look at the King’s College Chapel. Today is a lovely day for punting the quiet, sun drenched Cam with spring flowers popping out all around. We come to the end too quickly.
Christopher Wren is the same fellow that designed St Paul’s Cathedral in London. Here, he put together a structure to house Trinity College’s library. It’s free to enter. They have some rare stuff in here. We see a first folio of Shakespeare’s works and an original copy of Winnie the Pooh. All along the alcoves between the stacks there are scholars grinding away on their projects, desks disheveled and littered with boxes, books, and bits of paper.
We’re getting a bit peckish, so off we go in search of a likely pub, of which there are several to choose. On the way we notice a curious object. It is ‘The Corpus Clock’, installed in the exterior of the Taylor Library at Corpus Christi College. It is stainless steel and gold plated. LED lights indicate second, minute, and hour. There is a monstrous grasshopper on top of it that serves as the clock’s escapement when its legs move. The bug presents itself as the ‘Time Eater’, opening its mouth to eat every second that passes. The symbology is reflecting the inaccurate way humans experience time; sometimes we feel it dragging, other times speeding up or passing by too quickly. Therefore, the clock is designed only to be accurate once every 5 minutes. The pendulum sometimes hesitates, backs up, or speeds up. There’s a Latin inscription that reads “The world passeth away, and the lust thereof.” - a Biblical passage.
Across the street from the spooky clock is The Eagle pub. Inside we find some food and some history. This used to be a hangout for WWII pilots and crews both British and US. They have what they call the RAF room which is full of graffiti left by the airmen. In 1953 Francis Crick announced discovery of DNA in this pub. His colleagues were James Watson and Rosalind Franklin.
Next, we must pay a visit to King’s College Chapel. This cost €10 each to enter. This chapel is as large as a cathedral but because it sits on private land, a chapel is all it is allowed to be. It contains the usual churchly deco. The highlight, I think, is extensively carved wood paneling dating from the 16th century. The fan vaulting is always something to behold in a building like this.
Time to get back to London. By the time we hike back to the Cambridge Train Station our smart watches are reporting that 7 ½ miles of trudge. This isn’t much for persons of more reasonable age but this is enough to tucker us old duffers out.
Back in London we need a light snack before calling it a day. We investigate the restaurant at the Fitzroy Hotel. 50-year-old disco music seems to be the beat they want in the dining room. This is augmented by a noisy hen party and a toddler meltdown across the room. It was soooo quiet on the Cam today. A Caesar Salad will do for us, nothing special.
We don’t have focused plans for tomorrow, but we’ll think of something.
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London – April 17, 2026
I could have stayed in bed far over the limit today. But sightseeing and bucket lists wait for no tourist. We must press on. Breakfast is a gap filler in the hotel. I’m successful in avoiding the coffee this time.
Back in December, when we were planning some parts of this trip, I suggested a run out to see the Crossness Pumping Station on the London leg. This is a monument to Victorian engineering and design as well as a testament to the adage “necessity is the mother of invention.” Completed in 1865 it is a Temple of Sewage. Of course, it has been obsolete for a long time but because of its ornate design and massive steampunk mechanical system it has been saved from the knacker’s hand. In the mid 19th century London was a nasty mess. All the sewage ran into the Thames and smaller tributaries that flowed through the city. The incoming tides moving up the Thames acted to keep the effluent stagnating on the waterfront. Cholera was becoming epidemic and the stink was shocking. Their answer was to direct the sewage through culverts to a spot outside of town to gather in an underground reservoir. Another reservoir was built above the level of the river. The pumping station was built to move the sewage from the lower reservoir to the upper. At high tide, the sewage was released from the upper reservoir into the Thames. Then it was carried away from the city by the tide. I’ll guess that’s more than you wanted to know about London’s issues with sewage in the 19th century. But it’s an impressive machine and a strange place on the planet. I am looking forward to seeing it. Today is the day.
CK is navigating the Pumping Station website and coming up with sad news. This thing requires paid admission and it is only available to visit when they fire it up which is about once per month, today in fact. There is a tour and it take 3 hours. Huh? It takes that long to inspect a sewage pump? The real bad news is that all the tickets were sold out weeks ago. We can’t get in. Bah.
Plan B: CK informs me that there’s a Wallace & Gromit exhibit open today. Ok. So off on the tube for a few stops. We find the place no trouble but there’s a ticket taker at the door. No worries, we’ll just buy one. Nope. All of today’s bookings are taken. No Wallace & Gromit. Strike two. The fact that tickets are required is a shock since nothing we could see on the website mentions that we need them or offers an opportunity to purchase. Our obliviousness may be a clue to something more serious. Gulp!
So an ancient steampunk poo processor and an exhibit featuring a cartoon character are hot tickets. There's a far better chance to snag a seat for “The Lion King” or “The Devil Wears Prada” musicals. And that's not easy.
Plan C: We know we can get into the British Museum and conveniently our next door neighbor in Bloomsbury. CK finds an audio guide online. We'll need our headsets. Now back to the howling Underground, sprint to the Beauchamp to retrieve our headsets. The online audio guide turns out to be a fail. We’re supposed to meet someone who is magically necessary. There is no such person at the assigned location near Russell Square. This is probably some kind of scam. They got us for 12 quid. Never mind. Onward to the museum! Past security and we’re in! After this argy-bargy I can use a soothing hit of ice cream. The food truck in the Museum plaza obliges with a cone of soft serve that is illegally cold. Quite satisfactory. Inside we pay 2 pound for a map. I want to see the chunks they recovered from the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. Somehow on previous visits we have totally missed this.
There is a steady stream of people flooding this place. Inside the crowds are thick around the popular exhibits but we navigate through them ok and find the display. Mischief managed, we decide to spend our time visiting old favorites: the Egyptian mummies, bronze age weapons, the clock room, Rosetta Stone, etc. There’s a need to cut this museum thing short in order to grab some rest back at the hotel ahead of tonight’s date with the London Stage: “Cabaret” at The Playhouse.
After a brief refresher and change of clothes we’re back down into the Underground, always a mildly spooky experience for me. Speeding trains push hundreds of cubic yards of air through the tunnels, filling the pedestrian passages with a fun house breeze that is strong enough to push against. It is loud. It is crowded. It is stuffy in those cars. I’m often reminding myself: the city is an interesting place to visit but I never want to live in one.
We emerge in the Tottenham Square neighborhood. Our theater is just a few yards away from the tube stop. CK has made a reservation at Boyd’s, a nice marbly joint attached to the Grand Hotel. They have nice wine and a lovely selection of food. CK has a steak and I go for light stuff, soup and a shrimp appetizer. Soon it’s time to get over to the theater.
This production of Cabaret is designed to get you into the building early. They have set up three bars with entertainment intended to simulate a taste of The Kit Kat Club. The crowd is maximum. All sold out. The rooms are small. People are just elbow to elbow. The bartenders are pulling drinks as fast as possible. They can’t keep up. It’s a bit of chaos, really, but everyone is cheerful and the actors and musicians are putting on a show all around prior to curtain. More folks are dressed for this occasion, particularly the ladies. There are a couple cross-dressing men who have gone over the top with their fashion selections. I try not to stare but hey, they asked for it. There’s a few more gentlemen with jackets and ties. Not many but better than Hades Town by bunches. The production is quite good. The sound engineer has it under control. The singers are balanced with the orchestra and only seldom did things get out of balance. I continue to comment on this because of the habit all these productions have of amplifying the singers on stage through wireless mics and mixing it through amps. Some productions fail at this in ways that spoil the show. Last night at Hades Town the sound got wobbly about halfway through. It strayed into overmodulation and distortion a number of times. But tonight these people had it pretty well in hand. It only lurched into white noise a couple of times, and then just briefly. All the singers were very pro. There were no amateurish flubs, a tight show. The house is an odd one. The stage is a round turntable placed between banks of seats in amphitheater fashion. There are two levels of balconies on each side above a base level of seats. The upper seating is very vertical, almost looming over the stage. The orchestra is set on two raised platforms on opposite sides of the stage. Photos are not allowed, so I can’t show it here. Theater in the round isn’t new but this seating arrangement and orchestra ‘pit’ is different. The directors must adjust the blocking and choreography to play to two audiences on opposite sides. There are no ‘wings’. The actors enter and exit through the house aisles. If you’re in London try to see this one. It’s worth the time.
That’s all for now. We have one more show to attend tomorrow night.
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London – April 18, 2026
CK kicks me out of bed and toward the hotel’s breakfast trough for refueling. We have a cab to catch at 8 a.m. This gets us to the Waterloo Station where we hop a train to a 3 pub village, Sunningdale. Here we are meeting with CK’s friend Sandy. They got to know each other in Palm Desert, CA, through their mutual activity, lawn bowling. Sandy meets us at the station and whisks us away to show us her home turf, the Windlesham Bowls Club where folks are busy cutting grass and getting ready to start the season. She describes the neighborhood as having a posh component since it hosts several large and costly estates as well as the homes of normal folk. One is owned by the Jordanian royal family. Brian May, Queen’s old guitarist, has 5 estates here. Another property recently sold for €75M to a mystery man. This seems odd because there aren’t really the kind of amenities in the area that should attract such sums. It must be that this spot is green and charming and only 1 hour from London. Windsor Castle looks like its only a few minutes away to the north. I wonder if that has anything to do with it? Sandy is very gracious and welcomes us to her home. After tea and chat at her house we enjoy lunch at a favorite pub. She invites us to come back next year which is actually possible. We have a lovely few hours in Sunningdale before we need to get back to town. We have a couple of bookings to attend to.
Giovanni’s in Covent Garden is our dinner reservation. We always pay a visit here when in London. The food is nice and they treat us well. The walls are covered with photos of celebrities who have supped here. Every visit I recognize a different star. This time I notice Johnny Depp’s pic. After our meal, we have a short walk to the theatre.
Tonight we are hitting the London Stage for our third and final time this season: Phantom of the Opera at His Majesty’s Theatre. I’ve never seen or listened to this musical in its entirety until tonight. I’m just not a fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical output. But tonight I’m reminded that it must be performed on stage to properly release the hounds, so to speak. I’m still not a fan of his music but I understand better how it works. I am struck by a couple of things beyond the top quality of performing talent which is, in itself, pretty doggone awesome. This doesn’t get any better, I’m pretty sure.
Number 1: the technical features of the production. Various backdrops, furniture, structures, props flowing in and out with silky smoothness. This is a massive staging, Aida level. One could expect elephants if the script had called for it. An enormous false proscenium covers the permanent one, made to reflect the set themes. There must be north of 75 mini-lifts in the stage floor for raising specific bits scenery. There’s an excellent illusion of a boat being punted on a lake carrying two actors. The opening number of Act II is a multi-level spectacle featuring the full cast outfitted in a bewildering assortment of mardi-gras / steam punk costumery adorned with about 14.5 billion sequins, rhinestones, and glass beads. The number is “Masquerade” but could have easily been “Sparkle Plenty”.
Number 2: The script and the director tag team to create a show that, in many ways, behaves exactly like an opera, not a broadway musical. Through many scenes I cannot sense the usual cheesiness of Broadway in it. It feels more dignified, like an opera somehow. Two numbers stand out this way: “Prima Donna” is a septet in Act I that is very much like the finale of Act II “Marriage of Figaro” and 4 or 5 other operas that employ this style. “Masquerade” again. It hit me in a way much like La Boheme’s Act II “Aranci, datteri” with the whole stage throbbing with color, sound, and glittering fury. The singing was also operatic in the sense that when one attends an Italian opera, one does not understand the lyrics unless one speaks Italian. You must read the translated libretto if you want to understand. Same here. One must brush up on the story ahead of time because even though they sing in English, the lyrics are not intelligible for, I’ll say, 70% of the time, and particularly so when the characters are cranking up for and delivering a leather lung’d dramatic blast. Only in places does that shallow sound and look of a ‘Broadway Musical’ sneak in to break the spell.
I can’t criticize the production very much because it was stunning. I must mention that the sound was excellent for the most part but there were a handful of moments when the system just got overwhelmed and overmodulated, slipping into the white noise zone. Any attempt to deafen me I consider as evidence that the sound engineer is partially hearing impaired. This could be easily dealt with by turning down the gain a hair, but whatever. CK loved it. I wasn’t bored. I’m not much into the drama but the techniques used kept me involved.
We’ve had a wacky few days with our blitz of 3 shows in London this week. If you’ve never experienced the London Stage scene, you’re engaged in the equivalent of blindfolded archery: you don’t know what you’re missing.
We walk 1 mile back to the Beauchamp Hotel through hoards of party animals and simultaneous outflows of theatre goers. Along the way we investigate a noisy scene in the Chinatown area. It turns out to be a young guy in the street singing a pop tune through his karaoke gear. This isn’t unusual here. The odd part is the dozen or so young ladies giving him the full pop star experience; singing along, dancing, and cheering. Here is a 1:30 snip of it. This link will take you to YouTube: https://youtu.be/GY7U_sO-tBI
That’s all for today. Tune in again for our last full day in London tomorrow.
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London – April 19, 2026
We have loose hours to spend today, nothing is programmed, no sights to see nor shows to attend. Naps will be involved which don’t figure in travel blogs unless one is an old fart who likes to hear of such things, thereby gaining a kind of permission to do the same. Go for it.
Also, there will be some shopping. We are now looking forward to our upcoming adventure in Wales, a thing that requires acquisition of a couple of items. That isn’t worthy of comment either except that it gets us out of the hotel and walking about. The item I’m shopping for seems problematic. This is Sunday and very often stores are closed. We’re not sure what we’ll find. Even Google is unreliable about Sundays in London. We head off toward the department store district and hope to get lucky. Lucky in the sense of finding stores open and lucky again in not being robbed. This is an expensive town in just about every way.
Lucky can also be a good descriptive about our weather. We’ve had dry and cool conditions for the entire week with the exception of one drizzly morning and that wasn’t a bother at all. Same for today: sunny, cool, and dry. Perfect for a walk out to town, about a mile. Luck holds out for us again as we find the most economical department store in London, Primark, where we find what we’re looking for. We’re out of there in 20 minutes and I didn’t get robbed! Mischief managed without impressing anyone with our wealth and taste (as if there were a chance of that!) We now set out in search of tea and scones. CK looks at several shops but can’t find the right baked goods. We continue walking. Soon we’re traversing Soho Square, where a curious statue stands. The plaque says “King Charles II” by Caius Gabriel Cibber (1681) Restored to the Square by Lady Gilbert in 1938. This is the seediest statue I’ve seen in London, a very appropriate representative for Soho district, too. It was originally the center piece of a fountain. It was removed when the square was being remodeled and acquired by a local businessman. It passed hands again until it became the property of W.S.Gilbert of Gilbert & Sullivan fame. W.S. Gilbert died and the statue was then willed by Lady Gilbert back to Soho Square. In the 1930’s someone attempted to replace the face with cement since it had been completely eroded away by time and neglect. It also spent some time underwater, apparently. The result of all this is a sad-sack, beat-to-hell, melted-beyond-all-recognizance rendition of a Royal personage. I'm sure there's a much nicer rendition of him in the National Portrait Gallery.
CK wants to continue the hunt for tea and scone. I’m content with a gelato, easily captured in Soho. She heads off for the tube to Harrod’s and I bail out for a nap back at the hotel. Upon returning she reports that proper tea and scone was successfully sampled (at Harrod’s how could she miss?) The Apple Store also yielded a new power brick for her phone. Yay! The tube journey serves to remind her of our current status in this timeline: people offer us their seats now. This is a good thing, too, because sometimes these underground cars are packed solid with human flesh. I snapped a photo of an underground platform at Waterloo station yesterday. It was literally a gridlock of humanity. And the train that stops at that platform was already stuffed full. Yet people will squeeze in. Look, the cabin of a 737 Boeing jet is 3.54 meters wide (11.61 feet). A car on the London underground is 2.64 meters wide (8.66 feet). It feels tiny even when empty. Having to stand with people cheek to jowl while grabbing a strap is probably better than walking but maybe I have evidence to place that in doubt. Only one young fellow offered me his seat this week and I declined. I’m still in denial stage. CK isn’t.
Our meal tonight is at a spot we noted a couple of days ago on one of our walking routes. Fumo. This is a tapas style joint, Italian style. Our server is actually Italian. We like the menu. The service is a little edgy. They miss CK’s order for prosecco, bringing her a sparkling Rosé instead. This causes the barman to have words with the server as we can observe from our table. Our server is uncertain of his English which isn’t a crime, but it comes off as self-conscious fright covered over with a layer of authority. Kids. The food is nice. The dishes are much larger than tapas serving size but smaller than a ‘main’. Just right for us. We recommend but get reservations! Fumo is situated in the theater district and is likely to be crushed before showtime. We’re here on a Sunday. Plenty of open tables today because there are only 7 theaters in town with Sunday evening performances.
Tomorrow we hit the road, moving north 2.5 hours by train.
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London to Chester – April 20, 2026
CK claims we slept in this morning for 1 hour. I’m not convinced she isn’t gaslighting me. One final breakfast at the Beauchamp Hotel; the fruit and croissant are fine but train station coffee is a vast improvement. I think the awful coffee is intentional. I didn’t see anyone fill their cups with it this morning, which makes sense. Less money spent if nobody drinks it.
A taxi gets us to Euston Station in two shakes where it’s hurry up and wait again. Our train is at 11 a.m. Weather is broken cloud and sun, cool & dry. Perfect weather for traveling. Our outrageous luck is holding. Our stop will be the town of Chester, 2.5 hours by rail. The 40 minutes of hovering allows me to indulge in a machine bot brewed cappuccino, so intensely the spiritual and moral superior of that which was offered at the Beauchamp. Have I mentioned that coffee in the UK is a dodgy bet in even the best of situations, certainly unlike Italy or France where coffee is like a religion and Hell awaits those who sin. Here, machine bot coffee can be the most acceptable form of it one can find. Today I am reminded of this bit of sadness as I sip tepid joe through the tiny hole at the top of my paper cup.
The 2.5 hour ride passes swiftly, probably because I spend a percentage of it snoozing. There’s a chance I didn’t snore because nobody smacked me on the head for it.
Chester is in possession of a wacky salad of architecture featuring structures dating from AD 74, the first Roman occupation of this spot. On top of the Roman stuff lie hundreds of years of renovations mostly from 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The historic town center features a collection of buildings dating from the 14th century through the 16th which were restored in the Victorian era. 21st Chester kept the restored facings and rooflines while modern updates fill the rest of the structures. There is an extensive city wall that is almost 100% intact, also a restoration from the 18th and 19th centuries. The gentlefolk of those times found that walking along the top of the medieval wall was an essential, social activity. Therefore, they spent considerable cash and effort keeping it in useable shape.
After checking in to our hotel, The Indigo, we’re out for a stroll. CK is peckish and wants some soup and a crust of bread. This we find at a Marks & Spencer’s on the town’s main drag, Foregate St. We order chicken vegetable soup from the nice lady who warmly welcomes us to Chester after inquiring about our origins. We are both expecting a brothy preparation with fresh veg, chunks of chicken, and maybe some noodles. We are served a bright green slurry with no identifiable bits whatsoever. It has an indifferent flavor like something that would be served in a hospital or nursing home. Generous applications of salt does not save it. Tabasco is unavailable and probably unadvisable. Dipping buttered bread into it only makes the bread seem alien. Yeah. I’ll rate this experience as medicinal simply because I don’t have the feeling that this stuff will injure me.
After this culinary contretemps, we need to log some steps before dinnertime. We only manage a few blocks until we spot stairs leading upward to the right. We have discovered the legendary city wall. Nice. And the weather is perfectly fine. This is a very pleasant walk. We get views of the city, river, the estates of some of the city swells, the Cathedral’s back yard, three city gates at least, ruins of a Roman amphitheater as well as a Roman garden and bath complex. Just by poking around we’re seeing much of what Chester is famous for. Tomorrow we’re here all day. CK has booked a 90 minute walking tour at 11 a.m. We think we’ll get some re-runs then of what we just discovered on our own.
We have a dinner reservation at 7 p.m. at Chez Jules, which styles in the French manner. It’s a bistro atmosphere and we feel comfortable here. The menu is interesting with several tempting dishes. I’d be more excited about them if I had more of an appetite. CK goes for a rib-eye steak. My choice is a savory crepe filled with ratatouille which is very tasty. I can only finish half of it, though.
Tomorrow, we’ll discover more about Chester and perhaps hit a particular pub we have in mind.
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Chester – April 21, 2026
First morning in Chester. We have some exploring to do today and it must be successful because this is our only chance. Tomorrow we're on the rails again. Breakfast in a new hotel is usually awkward. Coffee source must be tracked down. Food items identified. Seating captured. Annoying pop music minimized. Here, the continental breakfast isn't featured. The version most available is the Full English of meat, potato, egg, beans, toast, and tomato presented in buffet. The coffee machine bot has been intentionally sabotaged, very likely due to the outrageous prices now assigned to the beans. This machine produces what appears to be mostly powdered milk infused hot water. The coffee that squirts into the cup is little more than an illusion, a cheap conjurer's trick of prestidigitation. I am sipping only the airy wisp of foamed dairy fat in an egregiously processed form. Fail. Tomorrow it’s back to tea if I can find it.
Our room at the Indigo is well appointed but small. Best features are the spacious bath area and excellent shower stall with overhead rain panel and easily twiggable controls. Bad news: no heated towel rack. When one of these exist, our laundry challenge is simplified exponentially. Good news: I have a desk for writing!
We stroll through the sunny breeze to our appointed spot in the town center for a walking tour at 11 a.m. with Ian. He wears official looking colors because he is a Freeman of the city. So titled for medieval trade privileges that still nominally exist. His ancestors were members of the Baker’s Guild, therefore he can swan about in the gown.
Our gathering place is an open square where the town hall once stood, a building called The Exchange, a late 17th century building. In 1862 a fire began in a chimney. The fire fighters arrived but they didn’t understand how to use the equipment because it had just been recently acquired. They didn’t know how the gear worked so the building was gutted. The city hall was rebuilt by 1869. Its clock tower has 3 clocks on three of its sides. The 4th side faces Wales but has no clock. The joke is that the Chester citizens don't want to give Welsh the time of day. The truth is that the city fathers were too cheap to put one there.
Ian is full of historical trivia that makes the tour move right along. Handel rehearsed Messiah here in 1742 on his way to debut it in Dublin. He borrowed the church choir for the session and was mortified to find out that none of them could read music. Ian didn’t explain how he managed to carry on with the rehearsal.
Edward the Caressor, aka Edward VII, Queen Victoria’s eldest son, was king from 1901-1910. His image is carved in wood on the corner of a building here for what reason, I’m unsure. He was a party animal. Queen Camilla is related to one his numerous mistresses, Alice Keppel. Now there’s a bit of history repeating itself, eh Charley?
Ian takes us into the Pret A Manger fast food shop. We pass through and down to the basement where we can view the remains of the Roman Palladium. Some column bases are exposed there. They are made of sandstone from a quarry 15 miles away. There’s another shop nearby that has the remains of a Roman heated floor called a Hypocaust.Once upon a time there were 356 pubs in Chester. I don’t know how many there are now, but it must be less than that. Ian shows us the doorway of an unusual one, The Disguisery: Inside it looks like a clothing shop for men. But it is really a bar. What a shame it is closed today.
St Peter's Church. Even though it looks a little like a beatnik coffee house inside, it is a functioning church. CK finds walnut coffee cake here, something she could not find in London. Here we find a very old bit of paint on some stone. Guesses are that it may be from the 14th century.
We are in the land of the Cheshire Cat, the inscrutable feline of Lewis Carrol’s imagination that would fade away until the only thing left was his smile. I expected to get a straight answer from my research into this but instead found that there’s no definitive answer to the origin of the Cheshire Cat. It could have been the result of several ‘cats’ that appear on sandstone carvings, cheese labels, the shape of the cheese itself, family crests, and cultural phrases. Whatever the inspiration, Chester has adopted it.
Ian guides us around part of the city walls explaining things like the 12th century weir (dam) in the river that caused the port to silt up. Soon we stand across from a pub named the Bear & Billet. It was an inn in 1871. John Lennon’s grandmother, Annie Millward, was born there in that year. There’s more backstory to that which has to do with unmarried mothers and social shunning. The Magical Mystery Tour continues.
Gamul House is another building just next door to the Bear & Billet. In 1645 King Charles I fled here after his army was defeated by the Parliamentarian Roundheads at the battle of Rowton Heath. The King would be captured by Cromwell a few days later, then taken to London as a prisoner. So, basically, the English Civil War ended here. Now the building is home to the Spitting Feathers Pub.
The tour ends and Ian leaves us in this pub. As we walk back toward the center, CK sees St Peter's and its coffee shop again. She must acquire another Walnut cake. She finds Ian here having a break after his guiding. We have a nice chat until the Vicar flicks on the microphone to launch a religious monolog in the middle of this coffee shop environment. This setup has the flavor of a Salvation Army mission for me. Ian gives us some bonus info about St Peter's after the Vicar winds up his advice. Clearly this is a place he appreciates a great deal.
There’s one last major box to check here in Chester and that’s the Cathedral. The first record of humans occupying this property was the 1st century when it was part of the fortress of the Legio XX Valeria Victrix. You know, those pushy Italians. A Celtic temple may have been there prior to the Roman invasion. It began its history as a church some time in the 8th century. It became an abbey in 1093 run by Benedictine monks, imported from Normandy. In 1540-41 Henry VIII kicked them all out and the Church of England was the new sheriff in town. The architecture is mostly Gothic and Gothic revival which means there are some grotesque features dotting the place, like gargoyles and other imaginary beasties making up some kind of rustic symbolism only the folks of the 12th century would know about. In a place like this I look for my guy, Green Man. Given the eroded nature of some of the old cloister features, I’m not sure I’ll recognize it if I see it. But hey. Voila. There he is in the form of a roof boss in the 11th century cloister passage.
There’s another treasure hunt in the map we picked up coming in. The Chester Imp is a stone carving hiding somewhere near the Great Organ. This is supposedly the Devil in chains, made to calm the fears of a violently superstitious craftsman who thought he was being stalked by Old Scratch on the worksite. We are failing to spot it. We wander around, circling the same floor space, staring up at the arches, doing this repeatedly until we become conspicuous enough to attract the attention of one of the church officials. Fiona approaches us asking what we’re looking for. “Trying to find the Imp”, we plead, knowing that she will soon solve this for us. She says that she sees folks like us all the time. Whenever people are stumbling around the nave, she knows what they’re looking for. She points out the Imp quite a distance away, up on a column. He's part of the Gothic revival architecture. I need my cell cam on tele to see any detail. I wouldn’t have recognized it even if I had spotted it. Fiona offers to show us other hidden items left by artists long ago. There’s a mouse carved on a notice board. Another in the railing near the altar. I ask her if she knows about Green Man and she doesn’t! My turn to be the guide and, as such, I have the privilege of pointing out a Cathedral curiosity to an expert!
We’ve spent the day investigating Chester from several angles. All that remains is getting a bite of supper. This we manage at the Brewhouse & Kitchen on Love St. This is a spacious, quiet pub with clever and comfortable fittings. It has its own brewery on the lower floors. We test the stout and the hefeweizen, both quite worthy. We share plates of salad and BBQ ribs. If you’re in Chester, we recommend.
Tomorrow we move again, further south to Llangollen, Wales.
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Chester to Llangollen, Wales – April 22, 2026
This morning at the Indigo Hotel in Chester I promised to avoid the coffee bot in their breakfast parlor due to its miserly coffee output. I’m following through on that but there is no tea selection visible. I must request a pot of tea from the server, they inform me. It is then prepared in the kitchen, delivered to the table. Just so. Now the water for my tea must have begun the day as a block of solid ice. There’s a process to melt it, then boil it, then get the tea bag in… it all takes time, I understand. I make advantage of this bizarre leakage of my brief moment on Earth to soften the frozen butter packet enough to spread it, start composing the entry for today’s post, edit photographs, check the world news nightmare, plan our walking route for the day, review the train schedules, and investigate the progress of the search for dark matter. I’m down to searching through the baseball standings to find out how close the Mariners are to the worst record in both leagues when my pot of tea arrives. The butter is now warm enough to smear properly across my room temperature toast and dark matter is still a mystery. Perfect timing.
We have only covered half of the walk along the old city walls of Chester. Our goal this morning is to cover the other half. We must watch the clock a little because we need to catch an afternoon train toward the south. Llangollen is our next sleep tonight.
We hop up on the wall near the clock gate and retrace some of our steps of the last two days. As we begin to explore new sections, a café appears to our left. Yes, there are cafés and ice cream shops on this wall, more than one. A quick peek inside reveals… walnut coffee cake. CK initially declines demurely but I continue to urge her to yield to the Dark Side. At last, she caves and we both plunge into yet another slice (3rd) of this confection that we could not find in any cake shop in London. Our
walk continues refreshed with coffee and cake energy. This promenade above the town gives my imagination a reason to wander. It’s possible the Victorian Age gentry of Chester liked to use this wall to get from one part of town to another without mucking about in the streets dodging the mud, the horsecarts, and the poo thereof. One of the reasons they kept it such good repair, I’m guessing. In Chester there is a very popular turf horse racing venue called The Roodee. On race days, 30,000 people will attend. Compare that with the population of Chester: 93,000. Racing has been taking place here for nearly 500 years. Guinness World Records reports that this is the oldest racetrack still in
operation. The first races were launched by a local potentate to take the place of the violent football games of the day.
The wall walk loops around to our ending place yesterday, so we head back to the center of town. We are letting our curiosity wander now. We have no agenda other than to catch a train later. A place called Oddfellows Hall beckons us from the sidewalk. Inside we discover Alice’s Parlour, a tea room set up in Wonderland style. CK wants to refuel ahead of our journey into Wales. I think she wants to eat lunch before she’s really hungry in order to avoid the sensation of being hungry. It’s similar to her habit of loading up two butter dishes; to have one butter stick ready when the first one plays out. “Butter in Waiting” she says. We find a likely eatery called Shrubs with a terrace table above Eastgate St. As we sit, a busker with powerful karaoke gear sets up and makes an unholy racket crooning out 50 year old Motown hits. This combines with the Pop Playlist beaming from the restaurant's speakers above our heads. Our server explains this noise to us since we're confused and annoyed by it all. He asks for our order. I request a slingshot and marbles. He thanks me for the thought because he's annoyed by the buskers too. Alex is our man here. He seems pleased to know
that we are from the States. He asks about us and our plans. “To Llangollen”, we blunder with our best Welsh accent, and he instantly offers inside dope since he's a local in that zone. First thing we learn is that the train to Ruabon is the best intermediate route because the buses from there to Llangollen are more frequent and direct. He also writes a list of his dining recommendations and things to do. Honestly, we’re most grateful for the transport advice than anything else since we were only just guessing about that.
At Chester station we find the train to Ruabon, no trouble. It deposits us at a desolate, crumbling rail platform. We are the only people on it. There is a station house but it was boarded up long ago. The rats use it for special events now. Outside the abandoned station is a very dog-eared bus stop. A schedule is posted with what appears to be a vehicle coming our way in 20 minutes. I don’t trust it. This spot is too lonely to expect a bus to appear. I open up my Uber app. There appears to be something available so I start to hail one. The app cannot confirm a ride after 10 minutes of searching so I give it up. Just then a local happens by, spots us for the rubes we are and informs us that the bus meant to stop here is blocked on the road by an accident of some kind. Don’t know when it will arrive. But 50 meters away in the main road we can get an Arriva bus to Llangollen, no problem. At the stop, a group of school children in their uniforms regard us with deep suspicion. We’re gathering sensibility about the infrequency of total strangers in these parts. 45 minutes later, the Arriva bus opens its door for us. Bus driver can't take cash. Only touchless payment such as G-pay, Apple Pay, or their own card system. The driver waves us aboard. We ride for free. His mother raised him properly. Grats to her.
Once in Llangollen we have a short luggage drag to The Hand Hotel. This place is creaky with a vibe that speaks of centuries of minimal maintenance and upgrade avoidance. There is a strange acrid smell in the lobby that may be coming from the pub just through the doorway. There are no lifts. I must hork the luggage up stairs (only one flight, I can manage). Our room is the smallest yet on this trip. We’ve survived much worse. But praise the Gawds, there is a heated towel rack! Also good, a small table for me to work on. Bath area is workable, mostly, although it is poorly lit and gloomy. The light bar above the sink is inoperable. I shall be shaving by braille.
For our evening supper we aren’t going to fuss around much. We grab a table at the Dee Side Café Bistro. There isn’t much here to recommend. It has a nice view of the river near the bridge but there are only 4 tables with window seats. The rest of the place has the uplifting charm of a bus station, a clean one. Food is ok. And for dessert, guess what… walnut coffee cake (slice #4 but who’s counting?) If you’re here in Llangollen, give this one a pass, although we won’t condemn it for crimes.
We’re here for a full day tomorrow. Looks like it may be easy to run out of things to do here.
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Llangollen, Wales – April 23, 2026
We are at The Hand Hotel, as previously mentioned. This morning I’m even more convinced that the last remodel of this hotel was circa 1947. This is the kind of atmosphere that moves the ambiance appreciation needle to the questionable zone. Just a fresh coat of paint and redesigned lighting would lift the spirit of these rooms. Add some silk plants and they’d have a cheap but effective upgrade. But then, I’ll suspect such changes would take the locals aback. The obese woman with her yapping, puntable dog named Toffee would no longer wish to spend their afternoons here harassing tourists. Best leave things as they are. And they have. I asked to have the light bar over the sink looked at but this did not happen.
We learn that there is a nice burst in tourism here but mostly later in June. There is an international music festival, car shows, and pop concerts among other things. CK and I go questing for the Information Office in the middle of town in hope of understanding how to get to Chirk and how to buy tix for the steam train excursion but the door is locked. There is a spiral stair next to us that leads to small public library. There at the desk a nice lady informs us that the Information Office will not open today. She is willing to help but she couldn’t understand the bus system any more than we could. Her suggestion is to take a taxi. We already had this as one of our alternatives, she simply confirms it.
Our next quest is to investigate the ancient steam train excursion across the river. And wouldn’t you know it, the whole thing is shut down today. We speak with a fellow who seems to know what he’s talking about. “It will run tomorrow”, he offers cheerfully. Ugh. But tomorrow we’re lugging ourselves to Chirk! If we want this train experience we’ll have to get it done in the morning and leave ourselves time to get to Chirk and take care of business. CK thinks we can manage it.
Since the train is a no-go we have time to ride the horse drawn canal boat. This event won’t be ready for 45 minutes. Lucky us, there’s a café and a table in the sun with a sweeping view of the town. CK declines the coffee sponge cake and goes for a scone and tea instead. A Jackdaw (smallest of the Corvid family) drops by for a quick inspection. Finding nothing to scavenge, he’s off. I regret not getting his photo so, I put a piece of scone out as bait. A 10 minute stakeout is all we need. He swoops in and poses for me, showing off his bit of scone.
Having amused ourselves with tea and Jackdaws, our canal boat ride is ready to launch. This is a made-for-tourists experience that has been going on here since the turn of the 20th century. When the railroads displaced the canal system as a means of hauling freight, the canals were mostly abandoned. This particular stretch of it remained in decent shape. Then a clever fellow realized he could sell visitors 40 minute rides in a canal boat. They’ve been running it ever since. A horse pulls the boat along like they did 240 years ago. We glide over the water under a leafy green canopy, no stinky motor churning the water, just the oat powered clip clop of hooves. Other than the scenery, the back end of a horse is the main show here. Welcome to the 18th century freight transport system!
The canal ride is short and sweet. We meet some folks on board who offer us some advice on how to manage certain features of the canal, such as canals too narrow for two boats to pass and how to turn around after going over a particular viaduct. This is all very unclear to us, but we appreciate the clues we can gather.
Lunch takes place at The Corn Mill on the edge of the River Dee. CK has fish & chips. I have an appetizer and cider. The food is nice here but slow to appear. We recommend with advice to allow extra time.
After lunch CK must investigate the church that sits next to our hotel: St Collen. The door yields to us and we’re in. We’re all alone in this place, just us and a CCTV security camera. I see a very dark space, spooky like a Bram Stoker novel. The graveyard outside is equally creepy. A few stone chest tombs in the yard are opened on the side. Many gravestones are eroded to the point of illegibility. Some have been pulled up and repurposed as pavement or steps. The interior has that ancient smell that speaks of ghosts, rats, damp winters, and vampires. Eeek.
We have another point of interest to investigate today: The home of Sarah Ponsonby & Rt. Honorable Eleanor Butler, The Ladies of Llangollen. These two women fled Ireland together escaping the likelihood of forced marriage or convent life. In 1780 they settled in Llangollen and remained here for the rest of their lives.
During this time, they gathered some fame, known for their Romantic philosophic style and eccentricities. Llangollen sat on the main route between London and Dublin. This meant that notable celebrities and intellectuals passed through. They would often stop to visit the Ladies. Let the name dropping commence: William Wordsworth, the scandalous Lord Byron, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Southey, Percy Bysshe Shelley, the Duke of Wellington, and Charles Darwin among others. Periodically, The Ladies became the topic of scandalous gossip but they remained above it all, becoming pioneers of homosexual lifestyle in the early 19th century. Even though they set up housekeeping in the Georgian era their home is a fun-house of Gothic deco. Georgian style was causing the gentry to redecorate their homes in the newest fashion. They were tearing out their old Gothic style interiors and furniture. The Ladies would take these items and repurpose them in their home. Nearly all of it was donated. In this Gothic zone, I’m looking for Green Man again. I don’t find him until I enter the main sitting room. Here there are maybe 4 candidates although none of them are a classic Green Man.
The evening meal is at The Hand, their pub area. We can’t complain about it but we are likely to damn it with faint praise. We recommend with a ‘meh’.
We finished the evening with a stroll along a walking path by the River Dee.
Tomorrow, we want to catch that steam train joy ride before we leave town.
Note for those following this blog: starting tomorrow we may not be able to post every day due to lack of wifi availability. We expect this to be an issue until May 1, perhaps.
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Llangollen, Wales – April 24, 2026
No steak, liver, sea bass, or curry! Such was the Chef’s special last night at The Hand Hotel. We know this is the shoulder season but here a shrug comes with it. That’s a little harsh. The food here is ok and gets better as the memory of London restaurants recedes further into the past.
This morning’s hotel breakfast is convenient and edible. We’re not certain how the coffee bot died but I want to blame Toffee the Puntable Yapper. We can’t reasonably accuse the Eastgate Street Motown Karaoke Crooner. He’s several miles behind us. “Yawrite?”, bellows the server. We interpret this as, “May I help you / take your order / is everything ok?” We always feel stunned every time they shout it. We should be accustomed to it by now, but the deer-in-the-headlights gaze gives us away.
Making our escape from the morning food trough, we scamper over the bridge to the steam train platform. We half expect to buy tickets on the word of that fellow we spoke with yesterday. Our hopes evaporate seeing that there’s no activity except for a solo worker in dirty orange overalls. “No trains today”, he informs bluntly. I charm my way up into his sanctum, the Signal Box, long enough to get a snap of the inside of it. Meanwhile, CK has found yet another citizen willing to state that the trains will run tomorrow. This will require a more complex plan of action if we want to ride this thing, provided that we have accurate information this time. I have my doubts. The blackboard states that the first train runs May 1. The answer is, I think, that we need the spirit of Sherlock Holmes to help us figure this out in addition to a fat helping of luck.
There’s no time left to hang around Llangollen. A taxi is summoned to haul us and our bags to the village of Chirk where we have a date with destiny! We have booked one of those narrow boats to cruise the old Llangollen Canal for the next 6 days. And again, we have no bleepin’ idea what the bleep we’re doing. After binge watching a BBC TV show featuring two old duffers [Timothy West and Prunella Scales] indulge their canal cruising habit, we rashly decided that this would be a worthy adventure. Today is the day we launch it.
Let’s start with “The Taxi Drops Us At Chirk Marina”. Bags in hand we blunder into the office where the man checks us in. 30 minutes later our boat is ready. Dave is our orientation person. He goes through the checklist with practiced efficiency and hands us a manual for us to read if we need to. He learns we are from the Seattle area. This is what we tell everyone because that’s what they recognize. Lopez Island would never do. “Do you follow the team?” – “Which one?” – “Seahawks, the football!” OK, here’s a guy in Wales who follows the Hawks and he knows the names of several players. He says the NFL is big stuff in these parts and people buy streaming services to get the games. Crazy. This year with the Hawks taking the Super Bowl, he gets exclusive bragging rights for backing the winner because most folks he knows are Bronco backers.
Next, another lad steps on board our barge, named LUNA btw. Luna is the boat’s name, not the lad. He is a David, too. David, not Dave. Dave was the first guy, the Hawks fan. Never mind. He is going to take us for a spin out on the water to give us some coaching on how to handle it, plus a demo on tying up.
Ok, mischief managed, papers signed, confusion well established. Time to turn these barking mad senior citizens loose and get them down the line. I suppose I should explain what this is. Back in the late 18th century the Industrial Revolution was in its toddler phase. The steam engine was in development but hadn’t yet been scaled into transportation applications. Cities and builders were in need of large quantities of coal and building materials among other things. Moving heavy freight in barges on water was the most efficient idea they had. Horse drawn wagon just wasn’t cutting it. For a span of 80 years or so, an extensive system of canals was built to accommodate freight. After the railroad system was built out the canals went obsolete immediately and were soon abandoned. They were revived and brought back into service in the mid 20th century by groups of folk who imagined them as a recreational opportunity. Today there are many canals and locks that have been returned to useable condition solely for the purpose of pleasure boating. We’re giving it a go.
The original canal boats were towed by horses who walked a path next to the canal. Our narrow boat has a diesel engine and prop together with plumbing, electric lights, a fridge, a microwave, a gas range, a shower, a head, nice beds, you get the picture. It’s glamping afloat. We get under way about 4 p.m. Our guides direct us toward a pub called Poachers about 2 hours away. It is easy going, they say. We only have to get past a tree that fell into the canal, go through a dark tunnel, and cross an aqueduct spanning a chasm 710 ft long and 70 feet high. The Chirk Aqueduct was finished in 1801 by Thomas Telford, just in case you needed a little more trivial input. We managed it and didn’t crash. We even found the pub and got tied up with the help of a local who says he helps rookies with this stuff all the time. Not too bad for a first day. We are quite needy, though. Screwing up royally is totally a possibility. We have several days left to achieve total chaos in full radiant glory.
A 30 second video of our passage through Chirk Tunnel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VeYfx0FhOo
With the boat all tied up we hit Poacher’s Pub for a bite of supper. Nice pub food here, nothing remarkable. One of our young servers is excited to know that we’re from the US. She wants to tour Washington DC and pursue her interest in politics. Her bright and sunny demeanor suggests strongly that she hasn’t been keeping up to date on things. We decline to quench her enthusiasm.
After supper, we choose a 12 minute hike to a M&S food shop at a gas station on a busy road. We need some more provisions if we’re going to glamp properly.
And that is the full report for the day. The barging around will continue tomorrow.
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Llangollen Canal, England – April 25, 2026
Last night was our first sleep on this ‘hire boat’. Yesterday we learned about the lights, heat, water, power outlets, and engine. We had a 30 minute demo on how to drive The Luna before they cast us adrift to fend for ourselves. Two hours downstream we lashed ourselves to the bank near a pub calling itself Poachers. We then set forth to capture some food and supplies. We passed out in the bunks and woke up to a rather chilly morning. We are instantly challenged to put yesterday’s instructions into action. To get hot water we must do this. To operate the electricity we must do that. The heating will work but we must be patient after following procedure. When taking a shower we must not forget to press this drain button. The microwave can only function under certain conditions, etc. I expect that 5 days from now we will have developed a working confidence in everything just in time to check out and move on.
CK spent last night working out a skeleton of a plan for today’s progress. We’re going thataway, meaning, the direction we’re pointing. The process of turning around looks tricky and requires practice which we didn’t get at all. When we come to the point of turning about I’ll be depending upon thought experiments as my guide.
Today we have our first experience with canal locks. The first goes smoothly, more or less. We locked ‘up’, that is filling our lock to float the boat higher. The second was locking ‘down’. This lock is empty so we must fill it to our boat’s level by opening the water gates. No problem. Boat slides in, paddle gates close behind, CK opens the water gates ahead to drain the lock and lower the boat. It doesn’t work. The boat only lowers partially. It takes a moment for me to notice this and twig it: we left the upper water gates open. After closing them, all goes well. Rookies!!
Our weather continues to be just bonkers. Another sunny, bluebird sky summer day. It is warm! We’re not dressed for it. We have layers for cooler days and perhaps rain, not 70F and drenching sunshine. I’m scrambling through the odd bits in my kit to find sunscreen samples because I’m getting fried on this boat. The sunshine also highlights all the new leaves on the trees, the blooming cherries and apples, wildflowers, geese & goslings, ducks & ducklings. Haven’t seen cygnets yet but it’s a possibility. Today while handling the mooring lines I got a handful of stinging nettles. Sneaky devils don't look like nettles when they're 6 inches high.
Nights are cool, in the low 40sF. We have to crank up the Luna’s strange heating system in the morning to get comfy and provide a means to dry our laundry. The water system is easy enough but the engine must be running to manage a warm shower.
As we cruise along we are getting a dose of the canal reality. The peak of the canal hire-boat season is a few weeks off still. Many of the boats we see belong to people who use them for their homes. Yes, we have discovered The Nomad Culture of the UK. They are often adorned with house plants, garden crops in containers, chunks of firewood, odd equipment and tools, motorcycles lashed on, bicycles piled on top. Many of these boats have been beaten by the storms of many winters, evidenced by flaking paint and thick coats of green algae & moss, dotted with chartreuse lichen, windows that haven’t seen elbow grease in a decade. Some boats advertise mechanical services, items for sale. One was a very tidy gift shop offering notions and jewelry. Some have bright, creative paint jobs. Others look derelict. We're floating through a human zoo.
Today we stop in Ellesmere, a place that looks much like it probably did 80 years ago. The only thing about the 21st century we notice here is the cell phone signal. This is the furthest extent of our sailing toward the east away from Chirk, our starting point. We’ll work our way back toward Llangollen where we’ll turn about again. I know it doesn’t make much sense but there isn’t much of this that does. We’re engaged in a silly lark of an adventure just to see what we can see and be able to say we’ve done the Narrow Boat thing in the UK. In this town we are looking for a meal. We visit the White Hart: a very active local dive bar occupied by elderly gentlemen who are deeply engaged in chat. The only food is crisps and nuts. Nope. Next the Ellesmere Hotel: same story as the White Hart only this time we get the stink eye from an unsteady fellow weaving about just beyond the door who looked like he was on his 5th pint. Nope. Next, The Vault: steps descend into a basement. We hear loud voices drifting up from below. Nope. The Black Lion is the winner. We get a comfortable table and two fresh, young folks to wait upon us. CK has fish & chips again and I go for a salad.
One thing left to do today. There’s a big Tesco store. We must gather a few more things before plunging back out into the boonies. Sunscreen is one of them!
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Llangollen Canal, England – April 26, 2026
Last night was our second sleep on The Luna, a touring canal ‘hire boat’. Our current spot in the world is Ellesmere, a piece of England that has been ignored by promoters and developers. But most notably, it has been avoided by the restoration movement. We find it musty, crusty, crumbling, and infrequently charming. We see a cricket pitch but it is far from level. Built on rolling and sloping terrain, a match there must be a curious thing best enhanced by pints.
Getting started in the morning on this rig is a slow-motion affair. We literally must run the engine to heat up some water; not very copacetic with the ecological etiquette of the 21st century. This boat doesn’t have solar panels but we see many that do. I encounter some frustration in the shower. The water is too hot and my understanding of the temperature control knob is that of a Connecticut Yankee in a Google Server Farm. I expect this chromium thing to turn when I put a twist on but it won’t budge. Do engineers and designers test these devices before manufacturing 125 septillion of them? I don’t think so. There’s a little button on the knob which must be the key to it. This I press, squeeze, push, pull, and manipulate in every possible way. Bah. I’m getting scalded. This reminds me of the shower we experienced in our hotel in Leipzig. The water there was illegally hot but there was also a perfectly logical temperature control to go with it. The one on this boat just wants to kill me without negotiating a diplomatic solution. I think it must be Australian.
We’re up and stirring at 7:30 a.m. but don’t get under way until 10 ish. We’re now sailing back the way we came. Our rough plan of action is to sail back to Llangollen, Wales by Thursday. On our way out we tie up by the water station to top off our tank again. We need a good solid squirt, too. I must have used a lot of water trying to figure out how to change the temp.
The Luna is all set for a day of barging along through pastures and people’s back yards. This is Sunday. There’s more canal traffic than Friday and we meet several coming the opposite direction. There was a floating birthday party for a lady turning 70. One guy had a plush teddy bear on the bow rigged to wave its arm. Another was tricked out like a 19th century bordello, The Perseus. I would have loved to photograph the interior of it.
There are two locks to go through. We went through them yesterday, passing the opposite way. But this time the upper lock doesn’t lift the boat all the way to the next canal level. It halts about a foot from the top. This isn’t close to good enough. The water pressure from the upper canal prevents the gate from opening. The problem is some kind of leak at the rear gate. CK suggests we drain the lock, open the lower gate and just do a re-set. I like it. After a full re-do we go about filling the lock again. This time it rises properly and we’re on our way. We don’t know what we did differently. Turns out that 19th century canal locks are like 21st century computers. Just re-boot them.
After a few hours of cruising we next put in at Lion’s Quay. There is a resort here that offers mooring and a free drink. We’ll bite but we’re suspicious. Turns out that they offer a nice restaurant. We have a bite to eat and a glass of wine while they play their annoying 80’s and 90’s playlist of pop music. CK forgets to cash in the free drink chit. HA!
After supper we launch out on the canal again looking for a likely spot to moor for the night. We drift past Poachers Pub until a sleepy spot appears under some leafy hardwoods. Across the canal from our mooring is a garden full of found objects and gnomes. I need to make a photo study of them in the morning.
Day 3 of our canal adventure is in the books.
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Llangollen Canal, Wales – April 27, 2026
We spend the evening at a spot called Chirk Bank, a leafy, watery ditch that cradles our canal boat between the back yards of some citizens. I am selecting the shady spots for mooring. We have had a summery set of days here and I don’t want the boat to become a hot box which it definitely could do. No chance of that happening overnight with temps in mid to low 40’s. Tuesday night it will dip to the high 30’s. But daytime will be sunny and warm.
Our morning is a riot of birdsong and a parade of geese and ducks who regard the canal as their personal fiefdom. After some toast and tea, CK reviews the way ahead. We’re crossing the Chirk Aqueduct (again) and the Chirk Tunnel (again) in the opposite direction of a couple of days ago. Over the adqueduct we are gifted with expansive views of green swards and trees below. In the tunnel, immediately afterward, the view narrows to an arching brick lined ¼ mile long shaft of darkness. The only light is the headlamp on the boat and the daylight at the other end. This one has been in business since 1802, a Thomas Telford production. [For perspective, in 1802 Napoleon negotiated the Peace of Amiens with Britain and had himself declared First Consul for Life.] This was the first canal tunnel in Britain to include a towpath for the horse. Other canals were only wide enough for the boat. Crew had to lie across the top of the boat and walk the boat through the canal with their feet on the tunnel walls.
We are making a lazy day of this Monday. After passing the tunnel we moor up hoping to find the road to the village of Chirk. CK sees a church on the map and the possibility of a tea shop, which often appears in the vicinity of a church together with pubs. Also on the map is Chirk Castle but this is an hour’s walk and we have already declared this to be a lazy day so that’s out. The church gets an inspection. It is creepy [my opinion]. I find some nice wood carving on the ceiling joists. The term might be pilaster or corbel, not sure. I get some photos that I may do silly things with later. Church dismissed! Across the road there’s a tea shop, The Teddybear’s Tearoom, I think. CK observes that it is run by a mother and her two daughters. Our order is two pots of tea and a scone. Easy enough. However, as we sip our tea, the daughters are taking lunch orders from other tables and getting them all messed up. The chaos is strange since it seems that this is a well worn shop and the daughters are no longer 20 somethings. We haven’t the time to figure this out. There is laziness to achieve! We grab a loaf of bread from a bakery to round off our experience in Chirk. Back to the boat for naps!
Consciousness returns for the next chapter of our canal adventure. CK says our next stop is Froncysyllte (vron-kuh-sulth-the), a town upstream. As it turns out we get there PDQ. It’s a one hour sail from Chirk. Lazy I say. As we approach the town there is a foot bridge over the canal that needs to be lifted. CK goes ashore to take care of it. At the bridge she finds a crew of kids from Holland who are eager to help. CK doesn’t have to crank at all. The kids are all over it.
Our meal is at the Aqueduct Inn, The Akki as the locals call it. There is a commanding view from this pub. The pub food is nice, the usual fare. I have a nice blackberry cider, salad, and a soup. CK goes for the BBQ Ribs.
We are going to moor overnight in this Welsh town with an impossible name. Tomorrow, we move along toward Llangollen, where we began a few days ago.
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Llangollen Canal, Wales - April 28, 2026
Last night was a little chilly in the boat. Tonight will be a few degrees colder. But we’re ok under the thick comforters that are included in the rental. Even if that isn’t enough we have layers of clothing to add. We moored in Froncysyllte overnight right across from The Cake Boat, another floating cottage industry which seems to be not uncommon in this culture. The Cake Boat is moored right behind The Water Witch who creates clever sculpture from found items and abandoned things. My guess is that their customers are the foot traffic using the tow paths and the canoers who launch in Froncysyllte to float across the aqueduct just a few meters from town. By the way, Froncysyllte translates from the Welsh to The Slope of Syllte, Syllte probably being a person’s name. Otherwise Syllte translates to Shillings which doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Speaking of which, today is the day we are planning to float across The Pontcysyllte. The translation here is similar but Pont indicates ‘bridge’. This is an aqueduct, an iron trough supported by 18 cast-iron arches. It spans a 1,007 foot gap in the valley above the River Dee. As we float across, the river is 126 feet below us and there is no railing on one side. It is alarmingly open to space that way. Telford was the designer again. It was finished in 1805 and was the highest navigable acqueduct in the world at the time, the New Hotness of the Industrial Revolution. On the east side there is a walkway with a sturdy rail. Tour boats, hire boats (like us), walkers, and canoeists swarm this thing during the season. As we approach it there are some folks in canoes taking their time inching across.
We must wait because there is no room to pass. Behind them are two other canal barges, so we wait a bit longer. CK wants to be sure about the traffic on the acqueduct. It is time to break out the walkie-talkies, brilliantly suggested and loaned to us by friends David & Alex who have been here and done that. She walks out on the aqueduct keeping me informed of the procession of traffic as I stay with the boat keeping it pinned to the canal side. Eventually our turn is up and we’re out and on it, asking ourselves instantly, as we stare out into yawning chasm from the deck of our boat, “What the Hell are we doing?” The answer is that we saw this on TV and decided that it looked like an awesome thing to do. It’s a little breezy, cloudy, and dry as we pass over giving me to think
about the poor sods 200 years ago whose job it was to cross this thing in all kinds of nasty weather. As we exit the aqueduct the canal makes an extreme 90 degree bend to the west. I must crank the tiller like a Roman galley slave to make the turn. Hooray! I didn’t crash into anything!
This next section takes us to Llangollen, a place we’ve already spent some time in. It’s an odd bit of canal. It follows a ridge which means that the canal is higher than the valley floor below. We get glimpses of the landscape below us through breaks in the thickly treed banks. And it is a very pleasant area, as we float through a green tunnel of freshly leafed out trees all the way to town.
Just before we get to the tie-up at Llangollen the canal narrows to one boat width for several hundred feet. CK must get out and walk the path with the walkie-talkie to make certain there aren’t any boats entering the canal from the opposite end. Again, this gear from David & Alex is just the thing.
Boat is secured and we’re loose on foot in town. We learn that the steam train WILL run tomorrow which is a week sooner than the announcement we read 4 days ago. CK finds the lawn bowling club and makes some new friends instantly. After dinner we’re coming back to observe them in action.
Dinner is at the Corn Mill. They’ve modernized an old mill with a designer’s touch and cleaned it up to make it a comfortable space. Our table is a window seat with a view of the River Dee and the steam train station. Our server is a chatty young lass who asks about us since we have that goofy Yankee accent. She wants to travel more but, of course, things are out of balance that way. While young and strong you don’t have the money or the time. As an ancient you have the money and time, but sturdy no more. Meh.
We’re all tied up at Llangollen about 3 hours sailing from Froncysyllte. We’re planning on two sleeps here. That means a completely lazy, nothing day tomorrow unless ambition seizes us unawares.
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Llangollen Canal, Wales – April 29, 2026
We have the entire day to loll about the town of Llangollen to do whatever or not do whatever. The Luna will remain attached to its mooring. Much of the morning is spent in the not do mode. It was a little chilly last night, but all was well beneath the comforters. I fire up the engine about 6:15 a.m. to get the heaters warmed up. CK stirs up a breakfast of toast, tea, mandarin oranges, and sliced tomatoes.
Somehow, we fritter away the time until about 9:45. CK has a date at the Lawn Bowling Club at 10. I plan to find a wifi connection in a pub in town. My need is to catch up on the blog pages. I haven’t been able to access the blog edit feature since Friday last because no wifi. My first attempt is The Hand Hotel, the place we stayed last Thursday. They said ok, move right in, make yourself at home. About 40 minutes later their router drops the signal for the 5th time indicating that this device is “knackered” (Liverpudlian slang). I would spit in its guts and kick it, if I had my way, but no dice. I must give it up and hunt another connection. I find it at The Corn Mill. At 11 I’m installed and working away with a deadline attached. The table I’m camping on is reserved at 12:30. No worries. I can get plenty done in that space. Meanwhile, CK is getting her Crown Bowling experience across the river at the club. Cool.
We both finish at the same time and meet back at The Luna for lunch about 1 p.m. Soup and sandwich prepped in our galley by the lovely CK. This inspires a nap. I told you this was a lazy day.
Before we know it, we need to get to the train station for our sightseeing excursion on The Llangollen Railway. Our ticket is for 3:15, the last train of the day. We think we’re early, plenty of time to select a seat. Nope. The train is nearly stuffed with bus touring sightseers who boarded at Corwen, the other terminus. We find two seats but they are cramped and not very comfortable. The Amazon program that depicted this excursion as having a steam engine is very much out of date. That locomotive was scrapped 5 years ago. This train is an odd duck, the last of its kind anywhere. It is a Wickham 2-car railcar 50416/56171. Built in 1957. The diesel engines are located under the passenger space on the wheel carriages giving the train the appearance of a subway vehicle. It was an experiment, an attempt to get away from large, expensive engines. It was a fail. Only 5 were made and Llangollen Railway has the last one. It gets 4 miles to the gallon. The following is a photo essay of the train experience.
The original railway here was built in 1865 for moving coal and slate to Barmouth on the coast for shipping. Most of the line was torn out when this became unprofitable, about 1965. In 1975 a group of volunteers set forth the task of bringing the line back. Beginning in 1981, progressing through stages to 2014 it was extended 10 miles to Corwen. This is what we ride today, but no steam engine, grrrr. Our ticket inspector, Kieran, happily explains all of this to us as we roll along, ka-chunk ka-chunk clickity-klak. We roll to Corwen and back, admiring the Dee river valley in all of its sheep dotted springtime glory.
Our evening meal is at The Corn Mill again. We like it, obviously. I discover a new pepper there. It’s a Biquinho, Portugese for ‘little beak’. It’s a delightful garnish and delish. I’m gonna hafta get some.
We end the evening with a stroll along the River Dee in fine weather. Tomorrow, we float back toward Chirk.
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Llangollen Canal, Wales – April 30, 2026
It was a frigid night on the boat, but the comforters were up to the task. The engine warms the radiators in about 20 minutes, shower is hot, we’re scrubbed and ready. CK wants one last tea and scone in Wales. The tea shop in town opens at 9 a.m. We enjoy it al fresco, drenching in warm spring sunlight which reminds me to mention again the spectacular weather we have had all week. We must pour out a libation to the Travel Gawds just to demonstrate our gratitude and humility before That-Which-Is-Greater.
We are moving out today after lounging around in stationary mode for a day and ¾. Our goal is to move back the way we came to Froncysyllte. But the boat is pointed the wrong way. I know this doesn’t make much sense to most folks reading this but let me just explain that these canals are narrow and making a U-turn is only possible in certain places designed for this maneuver. Our U-turn spot is about ¼ mile ahead, past the Horse Drawn Boat venue which we indulged in a few days ago, remember? As we’re passing by, a horde of 8 year olds on a field day arrive on the scene. As I turn the boat in the designated spot the kids are cheering me on. I give them a thumbs up and a few toots on the horn. This sets them into a simultaneously unanimous cheer that was actually awesome. I wish I had the presence of mind to ask CK to start a video of it. Alas.
Our swim back down the canal toward the Pontcysyllte is met with delays caused by traffic and a narrow canal that has only space for one boat to pass. Here we use our walkie talkies again. CK trudges ahead to check the way before I commit the boat to an irreversible situation. Several times she tells me I must wait to let others come through. Once I needed to take advantage of a pull-out to let a boat pass. These walkie-talkies saved us a lot of grief, methinks. All the while on this stretch we are passing through a tunnel of leafy green given by overhanging trees, sunlight dapples, soft cooling breeze tickling the water, the dreamy setting interrupted only by the low chug of the diesel and splash of the prop.
We arrive at the acqueduct expecting to wait again, probably for canoeists but no. The entire Pontcysyllte is open for us to barge across is slow motion splendor and sunshine. This is the last time we’re likely to do this, so multiple selfies are snapped as we creep over. CK suggests we stop here in Froncysyllte for the night. This works for me. We’re only 1 hour away from the Chirk Marina which is where we turn the boat in at 9 a.m. tomorrow. After mooring up we hike up the hill to the Aqueduct Inn, the location of another meal two days ago, and indulge in another small bite and ciders. Did we mention that the view from this spot is breathtaking? Well, it is. Lunch done, back to the boat for a nap, a luscious, decadent nap. Ha!
The weather is wonderful and pace is slow as can be. I can see why folks who live on their boats are seduced by the lifestyle. That said, I wouldn’t. I’m sure these boats need a lot of paint and repair. And winters on these things cannot be fun. We see the wretched state of some of these lived-in craft and some others that appear to be abandoned but aren’t.
We take advantage of the exquisite evening with a stroll back across this lofty acqueduct to the village on the far side. I struggle trying to capture the acrophobic sensation of vulnerability and altitude on my cell cam. I don’t think this is possible. On the other side we discover The Telford Inn, a local pub with a generous patio area. All the customers are outside this evening, it being so pleasant. I have a half pint of Old Speckled Hen. CK teetotals with fizzy water. On the breezy walk back over the acqueduct, CK makes a video. Now my challenge is to get it on YouTube and link it here. Let’s see if I can do it.
The plan is to be up at dawn or slightly before. We have chores to attend before we sail and we must sail no later than 7:45 a.m. We don’t want to feel rushed after enjoying such a laid back week on the canal.
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Wales to London – May 1, 2026
Our peaceful repose on this rented canal barge is startled by the 5 a.m. alarm we left for ourselves. We need to be at certain places at certain times today. We’re moored at Froncysyllte and must return the boat to Chirk Marina at 9 a.m. It’s about a 1 hour sail from here but first we need to do chores: gather the linen, clear the beds, clean the dishes, sweep up, and mop the floors. By 7:45 a.m. The Luna is under way.
We’re the only ones stirring in Froncysyllte at this hour. That makes it easy to get past the lift bridge. We encounter a little traffic further on as we meet other early risers. We follow a boat through a tunnel, then wait in a two-boat queue for a boat coming the opposite way to clear a narrow spot. This gives me a hint about the chaos that could ensue on these canals during the peak of the season. Many points along these routes are only wide enough for one boat to pass, namely under bridges and there are dozens of bridges. At other times boats are moored on both sides of the canal leaving room for only one to pass between them. Near Llangollen there are long stretches of single width canal, making things a nip dodgier. To make matters worse, in high season, there can be queues of 4-7 hours to get through a single lock. Some locks require bookings in advance. Given my experience here I don’t even know how that works. The term we heard for the obvious conflicts this might spawn is “Canal Rage”. Lucky us, we don’t experience any of this. We enjoy outrageously pleasant weather and very light traffic. We can’t imagine how this adventure could turn out better.
At 9 a.m. we arrive at Chirk Marina and take care of business, saying goodbye to The Luna, probably forever. Now begins the overland portion of our move toward London. We wait 30 minutes for a cab to take us back to Chester Station. We are reaffirming our habit of haunting and re-haunting places we’ve recently left. Our train is at 1:30 p.m. We have a 3 hour wait. CK inquires with the ticket desk about changing our tickets to an earlier train. Yes, they say, but it’ll cost you £56 per ticket. Ugh. We’ll wait. Next idea is to use the time to walk around Chester again, maybe raid another tea shop and plunder more walnut coffee cake. Problem: we have all our luggage in hand. Idea: there’s The Queen Hotel across the street. Maybe we can use their luggage room for a few hours. Answer: yes, but it’ll cost us £30. Ugh. Back to the station. Time for CK to demonstrate her Master Picnic Skills. She bagged up supplies we didn’t consume on the boat and now she brings them forth. Making a serving tray out of the top of our rolling bags she serves a proper munch of Stilton, Cheddar, and apple with a few crackers and ginger ale. Yum. No complaints.
CK thinks I should take a walk into town for exercise and plunder that ice cream joint up on the city wall one more time. Ok, so twist my arm. She luggage sits while I hike off to downtown Chester about 20 minutes on foot. Chester is very busy with foot traffic today, not sure why. Coffee, ice cream, and people watching make the time drain away. My arrival back at the station coincides with the appearance of the Chester Station Cat, a veritable Cheshire Cat for sure. One worker says he comes to hang out every day, just watching people, saying that he’s friendly and will sit on your lap sometimes. Another uniformed gentleman told us about his rat catching skills, that he leaves corpses for them to find in the morning. CK makes friends instantly. He comes over to visit me for a few moments. I get a portrait of His Majesty.
Our train is on time. It will carry us to Euston Station in London, about 2 hours. I try to snooze through most of it but my creaky old bones can’t find any comfort on these commuter seats. At Euston we connect with the Underground. We’re going to Heathrow Airport. The route is Northern Line to Leicester Square, then change to Picadilly the rest of the way. It is a hot day in London and the tube is a sauna. Crowded too. CK steps onto the car but the door slams in my face. It must have been open for all of 15 seconds. Just as the train pulls away she mouths through the window “Leicester Square” to make sure I know where to get off. It is a strange feeling to be standing on the platform with both suitcases watching CK roll off down the tracks. I grab the next train and meet her two stops down. No problem, really, but it was a small bit of drama. The next Underground stretch to Heathrow on the Picadilly Line is about an hour. I have to stand most of the way because too many monkeys. I have time to read every notice and placard. I learn that the car we’re in was made in 1973. This thing is 53 years old. No wonder it’s so worn, dingy, sad, and not in a nice way hot. Did I ever tell you how much I dislike riding the tube? But it’s the only way, really. Overland the traffic to the airport is horrific, much slower, and a taxi just crazy expensive.
Here’s moving day breakdown from Froncysyllte, Wales to London, Heathrow:
1 hour canal barge
30 minutes wait
30 minutes cab
3 hours wait at Chester Station
2 hours train
1 hour tube
Total 8 hours. To compare, flight time from Seattle to Miami is 5 ½ hours. New York to London, 7 hours. This is only part one of the move. Tonight we stay at a hotel at the airport. Tomorrow we’re taking a flight to Stockholm. Catch up with us on the next chapter Europe 2026 - Sweden.
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