Our trip comes to an end with a day of sightseeing in London

The ship arrives back to Southampton and we must say goodbye to a wonderful crew; it was a very nice cruise.

We take the Princess transfer via coach bus to Heathrow Airport.  Heathrow is HUGE!  We are dropped off at Terminal 3, which we will fly from tomorrow.

Today we need to make our way to Terminal 4 as our hotel is the Hilton Heathrow.

It is connected to Terminal 4 with a walk way and will be handy for us to take the Tube (subway) into London for the afternoon.  We take a train from Terminal 3 to Terminal 4 and easily find the hotel and check in.

It is sunny and unseasonably warm for London, so with a quick change of clothes we are heading back to Terminal 4 to take the Picadilly line on the Tube into London.  It was easy to find and we were soon on our way into London.

 The Tube is really easy to use.  The Picadilly line (blue) runs from Heathrow Airport directly into London.  It was about a 30-minute ride to Gloucester Road, our stop for lunch.

We then set off to find a pub that got great reviews on Trip Advisor....the Stanhope Arms.  Once we got going in the right direction after leaving the Tube Station, we found it.

It is a typical British pub and today it was all decorated for the World Cup games.  England was playing this afternoon and the pub would soon be packed with people to watch the game on the televisions set up like a sports bar.

The ceiling was decorated with flags of all the countries participating in the World Cup.

After lunch we headed to the Victoria and Albert Museum, just a short distance away.  We have previously spent a week in London and covered a lot of the sites...the Victoria and Albrt Museum is one place we had not seen.

Although it was less than a mile away, it felt so hot outside we hopped on the Tube and traveled only to the next station, South Kensington, and entered the museum.

One could spend days in this museum and not see everything.  It has 150 rooms and more than 12 miles of corridors.  Our plan was to just find a few of the "highlights".  Here's just a bit of what we saw:

The Dale Chihuly Chandelier

It is made of glass blown bubbles.

The Hereford Screen.
Created in 1862, this is a 35 x 35 foot, 8-ton screen that looks medieval but was created with the most modern materials of the Industrial Revolution.  It would have taken years to create by hand in medieval times, but in 1862, only 5 months.

Samson Slaying a Philistine, by Giambologna in 1562
This was carved from a single block of marble.  Influenced by Michelangelo, the sculptor used a spiral-shape pose.

Casket for Relics of St. Thomas Becket (c.1180)

 King Henry II was a good friend of Thomas Becket (1118-1170).  The king gave Thomas the job of archbishop, the head of all England's Christians.  When Becket was loyal to the church instead of the kings policies, Henry had Becket killed.  Then the king was remorseful, but too late, Becket was dead.

Three years later Becket was made a saint and pieces of his DNA were conserved in this enamel and metal box from Limoges, France.

Michelangelo Casts:
There is a whole room full of plaster-cast versions of famous Renaissance statues by Michelango and others.  These copies allowed art students of the 19th century to study the classics right here in London.

And, of course, there is David in all his glory.

 Behind the David statue is the clip-on fig leaf that was hung on him when modest aristocrats visited during the Queen Victoria time..

Notebook by Leonardo de Vinci
He recorded his observations and inventions in tiny notebooks like this.  This particular book dates from years when he was living in Milan in1490-1493, shortly before undertaking his famous Last Supper fresco.

Siva Nataraja (12th century)
The Hindu god Siva creates the world by dancing.  They believed that as long as Siva keeps dancing, the universe will continue.   I guess he is still dancing!

Wine cup of Emperor Shah Jahan

This wine cup is made of white nephrite jade in 1657 and belonged to one of the world's most powerful men, Shah Jahan.  He ruled the largest empire of his day.  He had the Taj Mahal built.

Tippoo's Tiger (1790s)

This life-size robotic toy is a Bengal tiger that has a British soldier down, sinking his teeth into his neck.  When the crank was turned, the soldier left arm would flail, and both he and the tiger would roar through organ pipes.  I don't think India liked the British taking over their country...

There was more that we saw, but this is enough for here.  It is an excellent museum.  Even though the building is made of stone, it was very warm inside (no AC) and we wanted some fresh air.

So off we walked to the Kensington Palace area.  Our first search was to find the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain.  We checked the map and searched and saw lots of people enjoying some water on this very warm summer day.

This is the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain.

Designed for children to play in.  I think she would think this was perfect!

We walked on and came to the Prince Albert Memorial.

Prince Albert was the husband of Queen Victoria.  He died in 1861 and was mourned by Victoria for decades until her death.

It's quite the monument for a dead husband.

And it faces the Royal Albert Hall where concerts are held.

We walked on and saw some pretty flowers in Kensington Gardens, although a lot of the acreage was not watered or maintained.

Finally we reached Kensington Palace.

It had been Diana's birthday the week before so there were many flowers and memorials attached to the fence.

We saw no sign of the Princes William or Harry and families, so it didn't appear that we would be invited in for afternoon tea.

And with this, we declared our siteseeing over and headed to the nearest Tube station to travel back to Heathrow and our hotel.

The next day was an uneventful flight back home to Colorado.

Our next adventure will be in November - December when we will go to Egypt, sail on the Nile, and then to Morocco and the Sahara Desert.  So stay tuned for more AngellTravels!

Bergen and this wasn't the weather forecasted!

Today is our last Norwegian port, Bergen.  We have previously been to Bergen and pretty much covered the history of the historic wharf and its Hanseatic sea-trading heritage.

So today our plan was to simply take the funicular up Mt. Floyen and do some hiking on the trails on top of the mountain that overlooks Bergen.  The weather forecast was:  Sunny with a high of 68 degrees!  Perfect!

But that's not the weather we faced when we walked off the ship!  It was foggy and there was a mist in the air.  We were not surprised.  Bergen gets an average of 80 inches of rain annually.  A good year has 60 days of sunshine...but not today.

Determined to hike, we put on our rain jackets and headed to the funicular station.

On the way up the mountain, we could see some of the town through the fog.

 And as we got closer to the top, we saw less of the town...

 When we reached the top and walked out to the viewing area on top of the mountain, this is what we saw...

The view is actually quite nice on a clear day, but not today.

We had a hiking trail printed out on a map so off we went.

The mist was more of a light rain up here in the clouds.  Bergen is probably the rainiest city in Norway.  It's a great place to grow moss...

We tried to follow the hiking map and came upon what we thought was referenced as the cabin...

so, on we trekked.  We thought we were at a lake when we saw the bench...

but we were not sure.  It was either the lake we thought we were walking beside, or the side of the cliff with the town down below!  

We would come to a Y in the road, and there was no signage to direct us.

We looked for signs posted, but only saw this.

Not exactly sure where we were on the trails,  we came upon a runner who pointed us in the direction to walk to reach the funicular station.

A while later we saw signs!

And knew we were close..

Knowing we still had time to hike, we headed to a nearby lake.  This one we could actually see.
We stopped and talked with a young lady from Australia and learned she had participated in the Iron Man Race that we had watched on a pub's television just a few days ago!

Then it was back to the funicular station; there were a lot more people there now, hoping for a view.  It was better by now, but not worth lingering here.

So we caught the next funicular and headed down the mountain to the city.

We walked around the Bergen Hanseatic Quarter, called Bryggen, where there is a long row of old warehouses...the typical postcard picture of Bergen.

I noticed a name above one of the buildings that was new since our last visit.

The last name is my maiden name. 

Some of these most photographed buildings are undergoing a facelift, but their image is still portrayed on the front.

Soon it was time to walk back to the ship.  We walked through the Fish Market and this time, thanks to a little Vicks under the nose, I didn't lose Terry disappearing across the street.

It was a short but still an enjoyable day here in Bergen.  We were sailing by 2;00 pm as the captain explained we had to go full speed in order to reach Southampton, UK by Saturday morning.

July 5 at Bergen:  Sunrise, 4:21 am; Sunset, 11:05 pm

One more day of sightseeing before we fly home.  To continue reading, scroll down and click on Newer Post.