6-25-26 Weather

​We’ve been in Edinburgh, Scotland for the past 3 days.  During our stay here, the afternoons have been hot, about 75-78 degrees, but I hear that London, where we were for several days when we started our trip, has been much hotter. Public transit & some hotels here don’t have AC, so the heat has a greater impact.

 This morning, as we leave for Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands in the northern part of Scotland, the weather is cool and rainy, which I prefer to warm weather.

Yesterday morning we visited the Roselyn Chapel, a small, ornate chapel made famous as the setting for the final scenes in The DaVinci Code movie.

In the afternoon, some of us visited the Royal Botanical Gardens:

This big hedge was interesting:

Here are photos of the kitchen garden area:

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.