2006-08-01

From March 23 to March 29, 2004, I went on a trip to the British isles with my friend Hans. We first stayed in London for a few days, then had a stop-over in Dublin, before we went to the west of Ireland to visit Hans' brother George in Galway, for 3 days. This is my travelogue!

We boarded our RyanAir plane from Malmö Sturup around 09:00 on a tuesday morning. Two hours later, at 10:00 local time, we landed in London Stanstead, got our luggage and took the Stanstead Express to London Liverpool Street Station.

We had booked our hotels in advance, and so we knew where to go: Leisure Inn at Leinster Gardens in Bayswater/Paddington. This is a very good 2-star hotel - it seemed that it was all newly renovated, clean and with a decent service. I recommend it, if you're on a budget (ignore the tariffs listed on their homepage - you can often get it much cheaper by booking through a booking service such as HRS).

Having settled in, and having had a cup of Ty-phoo tea in the room, we began our tour of west-central London. Hans knew much of the area, having lived there for a year or so a couple of years ago, while studying at Imperial. We went down Leinster Gardens towards Bayswater Road (going from Marble Arch/Oxford Street to Notting Hill Gate), and down the Board Walk going in a north-south direction through the western part of Hyde Park. We passed Kensington Palace on the way, known for being the birthplace of Queen Victoria as well as the former home of Princesses Diana and Margaret (not simultaneously). From the palace we followed the Princess Diana Memorial Walk, which is really just a part of the ordinary path system with small memorial plagues laid down in the ground along the route.

Next stop: The Albert Memorial and the Royal Albert Hall - having been a fan of the annual Last Night of the Proms for as long as I can remember I naturally had to see the place - and it does look quite impressive. I'll go there for the Last Night next year (only, I hear that you have to have been to at least 5 of the "ordinary" promenade concerts during the season in order to be considered for a ticket for the last one - well, that's just another excuse for staying in London for a little longer the next time).

Now we were near Hans' old turf - he once lived near Earl's Court and Imperial College, so at this point he replaced Lonely Planet as a guide for a few hours. We walked down Exhibition Road, and then passed right through the campus area via the Imperial College Road. Then we took a south turn down Queen's Gate towards Old Brompton Road, on which a great pub with a Dracula theme (I think) was supposedly situated. Well, Hans was probably right, that such a pub had in fact existed when he had lived in London 3-4 years ago - it doesn't exist anymore, however, so the only thrill of Old Brompton Road was the classy Danish restaurant Lundum's, whose menu I photographed.. Well, we didn't come to London to eat food that we're used to making ourselves, so...

I kinda lost track here, but a few hours later we found ourselves at a pub on the corner of King's Road and ??, just a few hundred meters north of the Thames in the heart of Chelsea. The pub was nothing out of the ordinary - their menu resembled quite a lot of other pub menus that we saw durign the next few days - long live chain pubs - but we had a small snack, a few beers, and then continued down to the Thames. I had never been in this area of the city before, so despite the relative lack of sights, I quite enjoyed this walk. We hit the Thames in the middle of Cheyne Walk (between Battersea Bridge and Albert Bridge), had our pictures taken with Sir Thomas More, and continued east along the Thames.

On our way back towards the center of the city we passed the Royal Chelsea Hospital (absolutely beautifully lit in the dark, as it was now) and the old Battersea Power Station (resembling a gigantic pool table turned upside down) before we went north through the quiet residential areas of Pimlico. We ended up at The Constitution (pub) on Churton St. where one of Hans' friends came to meet us an hour later. We then had a late dinner at "O Sole Mio", a surprisingly good Italian restaurant (very recommendable, actually) on the corner of Churton St. and Belgrave Road, before we found Victoria Station and a tube to take us back home to Bayswater.

[Continued on the next page]

London-Dublin-Galway (Marts, 2004) Danmark - London (del 1) - London - Dublin (del 2) - Dublin - Galway (del 3) - Galway - Danmark (del 4)