6-15-26 Blenheim Palace

​Today we visited the Blenheim Palace, which has been the home of the Churchill family for 300 years, and is the birthplace of Winston Churchill.  

We had a nice lunch at a restaurant on the Palace grounds in an elegant room:

6-13-26 London

​On our 1st night in London, we both slept well, and got up for a full English breakfast buffet at the hotel. 

After breakfast we took a tour on a van to see London’s major landmarks, including the Houses of Parliament and some different areas of London.

For lunch, Marge and I ate at a pub called Hung Dried & Quartered (which references a terrible punishment) that had good reviews.  We shared a fish & chips, with sides of broccoli & Mac & Cheese, along with a couple of drinks. This was our 1st good meal in London

We walked back to the hotel to rest and fell asleep.  After my nap, I walked a couple of blocks to an atm machine to get some cash.  I got a surprise when the machine told me I didn’t have enough in my account for a 50 gbp withdrawal.  I had  forgotten to load $ into it before my trip. It took me a few minutes to transfer $ into it and get what I needed.

Dinner was with the group at a  nearby    local restaurant. I had a very good English beef pie and for dessert, a brownie and ice cream.

This part of the trip is an optional 5 day pre trip with 9 people composed of 2 men and  7 women.  About 5 of us are retired attorneys   I think the other attorneys were public defenders in Tucson, Az.

 

6-13-26 London day 2

​This morning we went on a tour of the most popular sites in London.

Here are some photos:

St Paul’s Cathedral:

Hearts near St Paul’s:

Angel Wings Sculpture over a ventilation shaft:

6-12-26 Friday - London

​  In terms of flight time, our 9 hr 40 min flight was shorter than other flights, but we still arrived at Heathrow at 7 am feeling like zombies.  During the flight, Marge found out that United has a lounge that has showers!  We both took showers at the lounge as soon as we arrived. Unfortunately Marge discovered that she had dropped her raincoat and scarf  between the plane and the lounge.  She told the attendants, and to our great surprise they asked the airport people and informed Marge that the coat had been found and would be brought to us at the lounge!  We were happy when the lounge attendant brought us the coat.  Marge had been thinking that she would have to buy a new coat.

As we were leaving the terminal for the train to central London, e saw this nice piece of public art:

We bought tickets to a train into central London, but inadvertently got on the wrong train, The Paddington Express. We talked to a train agent and he said that if we exited the area where we got off the train to take a train to where we wanted to go it would cost it’s over $50, so we took another train back to the terminal and got on the right train. 

We had difficulty finding the right connection of trains to take us close to our hotel so we ended up walking about 4/10 of a mile with our suitcases to the hotel.

We got to the hotel at about noon, and had something to drink while we waited for our room.  Our wait for our room was rewarded by the fact that they upgraded us to a two room suite with a kitchenette!

After we got settled in to our room and took another shower, we decided to walk over to a market that I had read about called the Leadenhall Market, a historic Victorian covered market.  After a 10 minute walk, we found the market.  Unfortunately, it was a disappointment because it was full of tourists.  We were hungry and tired of walking so we ate at an Italian place called Pizza Express and had a bowl of ravioli Bolognese.

We managed to stay awake until 8 PM, and had a good nights sleep.

6-14-26 Cambridge Excursion

Today we did a day trip to Cambridge.  

On the way, we stopped at the Cambridge American cemetery, where Americans killed in WW2 are buried.  We have been to the American cemetery in Normandy where all deaths were within days of each other at Normandy. This cemetery has American military members who died over a period of years and locations so long as they died door to the war.

In Cambridge, we were treated to a ride on small 6 person boats called punts, each propelled by a person using a pole, I think called a poleman.  It was a good way to see buildings on the Cambridge University.  Our poleman  provided a running commentary about the buildings we passed and the bridges we went under.

UK 2026

6-11-26 Thursday 

​We left the house at 9:40 am for our flight to London to start a 3 week trip with Overseas Adventure Travel.  

We like OAT because they specialize in small group Travel. This group will have 14 people, which is a typical group size for them.  This will be about our fifth trip with OAT. This trip is titled “Idyllic Great Britain”.   The tour starts in London and winds through England, Wales and Scotland.

It took us about 60 minutes from home to get to a table at the United Polaris Lounge restaurant at SFO,  about the same time as our trip to So Korea & Japan earlier this year.    At security, they pulled my suitcase for inspection because  they thought my travel cpap machine was suspicious.  This is about the 4th time I’ve been through SFO with it and this was the 1st time it caused an inspection.

Home at Last 4-9-26

​Our flight yesterday was just short of 9 hours on ANA.  

Their business class seats are different from any that I have ever used. Half the seats in business class are facing towards the rear of the plane and the other half are facing towards the front of the plane we happen to be sitting in seats out or facing towards the rear, and I thought that was weird, but being out not if they’re more a crash, facing towards the rear might be better. 

The other thing about the seats where that each seat was like a cubicle, which could be closed off from the aisle with a sliding door. The stewardess could see over the top of the sliding door, but it provided some sense of privacy and perhaps a slight noise dampening.

The food on the flight was very good.  You could choose either a continental menu or a Japanese menu, and we chose the Japanese menu. As I said before, the food was good, probably better than the food on any other flight we’ve been on.

We weighed ourselves this morning, and I was pleased that I only gained 2 pounds. I had been concerned that because of all of the good food on the cruise, that I would gain 5 pounds.  If we had weighed ourselves when we got off the ship, we probably would have showed a higher weight gain.  When we were in Tokyo, we walked a lot and ate more reasonably.

We decided that we are not ocean cruise material because the food at all 3 meals are good, but after a while, we seem to not be hungry when it's mealtime, which is uncomfortable. I think this is because there is something about desiring something when you don't have it all the time.

Thoughts about Japan:

We always end up buying clothes when we go to Japan because they have materials and styles that we prefer over US made clothing. On this trip, I found a long sleeve shirt that feels nice to wear, looks good, is stretchy, stays cool, easy to dry, and UV resistant.  Best of all the price was $15!

We seem to gravitate to Uniqlo, where I bought a couple of Airism T-shirts that feature odor control, stretchy, and keeps you cool.

I also bought a stainless steel toenail clipper that is very sharp and looks nice, as well as a little nose trimmer, also made out of stainless steel.