After a good night’s sleep after yesterday’s sleep-deprivation, we had an early start to the day.

Our guide, Diane, pointed out many green spaces (London is ⅓ green areas) on our way to a big one— Kensington Park/ Gardens. Most of us rode bikes through this large park and we crossed a couple of streets and connected to Hyde Park, right next door. 

We made several stops, one at Kensington Palace, home of Charles and Princess Diana where she raised the two princes, at least the first part of their lives. It is among the least pretentious of many of the palaces and castles we saw, but still imposing. 

The bikes we rode were not great but were adequate for pedaling through the parks.  Although biking on the left with joggers and walkers going by as well as faster bikes and scooters going around us was a bit challenging at times😜.

One and a half hours later we were back on the bus, very happy for the AC.  The last two days were pushing 90, the hottest weather they’ve had for a long time. Although we’re used to that level of temperature, we’re not usually outside for extended periods of time.

Onto Windsor Castle, the largest in-use castle in the world.

The guide was not able to go inside the buildings with us, so we got the audio guide which was great. The King was not in residence, but the private quarters are in a totally different (and inaccessible) part of the castle. We also “lost” Stella who has bonded really well with the other 6 or so teens and hung out with them the whole time—and didn’t see her again till we were all on the bus. I’m really proud of her, first of all for being so mature to handle this kind of thing on her own, and also for adapting and making friends so quickly.  

We did get a bit tired of hearing endless minutiae about the royals, but the history of this castle is amazing. We also walked through St. George’s Chapel, which among many other things, is the burial place of six kings, including Henry VIII, and Queen Elizabeth 2nd and her family.

No photographs were allowed in the castle but I doctored a few from the audio guide as well as a few surreptitious ones.

This was a long day, 12,000+ steps, a 3-4 mile bike ride, walking around Windsor town for an hour, and two long bus rides. But a great day, especially knowing Stella is happy and having fun. That’s why we took this trip!

Finished the night with dinner around the corner at a restaurant called Strings which was forgettable. Tomorrow, another super busy day with an early morning start. Pace is exhausting!!

We arrived after an uneventful flight to Boston late Friday morning on June 28. Megan served a wonderful lunch and we relaxed with the family during the afternoon. We learned a new game called Monikers—be prepared next New Year’s Eve!

Our dinner at Gibbet Hill that evening was delicious and we passed a wedding taking place which brought us immediately back to Joanna Peterson’s wedding there quite a few years ago. 

The event of the evening was seeing the Josh Redmond Quartet at the Groton Music Center— a stellar new building that reminded us of Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood and acoustically just as good. The band was fantastic!

Saturday lunch was an unexpected reunion with Julie and Matt Buxbaum and their sons Benjamin and Aaron. They used to live in Shrewsbury but moved to Florida (east coast) for work about the same time we moved to Sarasota. 

Unbelievably, there were no problems or delays with our Virgin Atlantic flight across the “pond”. 

A small glitch at customs in London where Stella’s picture wasn’t accepted and she had to go through the agent line. Luckily it was very short, the agent was great and we were right there. So, problem solved! We’re still not sure what the “ problem” was🧐!)

Not as great a check in at our hotel, however. We are staying at the Marriott County Hall, right in the heart of Westminster across the river from parliament, Queen Elizabeth Tower, aka “Big Ben” (apparently “Big Ben” officially now refers to the bell) and next door to the London Eye.

Fantastic location! But after arriving at 9:20 am, our room wasn’t actually ready until 2:15.

We walked around checking out the area, then took the tube to the London Bridge area we knew from our last visit, Boroughs Market. It was Sunday afternoon and market was crazy busy, but fun.

Found some light food and around 1:00 took the tube back hoping that our room was ready. Finally getting into a lovely room at 2:20 gave us ½ an hour to get ready for our meeting and bus tour where we finally got to meet everybody!

On our own private tour bus (there are 40 on the group—pretty large), we got a tour of West London’s highlights. 

Our meet and greet dinner was quite lovely— each group got to introduce themselves. There are several large multigenerational families (one has 11 people, another 8), one elderly grandmother with her 23 year old granddaughter, and a few like us with just one kid. 

After an ice breaker, we broke into dining tables of adults, young and preteens and a teen table. Very nice people, we came up at 9:15, Stella finally came up at 10. I think this is going to a successful trip!

We all fell into bed exhausted, jet lagged, full and excited for tomorrow’s adventures starting at a nice bright and early 8 am bus pick up after breakfast.