Monday, 5/8/2017. Cloudy, clearing late.   46F/55F

We took a day for needed rest and catch-up the day after we arrived in London. Typically we had a day like this at about once a week to catch up on journals, back up and label photos, work on these postcards for home, make detailed plans for the coming days, and catch up on rest. The Premier Inn breakfast buffet was a bit bland after the absolutely fabulous buffets that we had elsewhere on this trip, such as the Nuo in Beijing, the Trader’s Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, and the Taj Dubai in the UAE.

The headline from this morning’s Washington Post online: “Le Pen defeat brings Europe’s far-right wave crashing to a halt”. Maybe the world isn’t coming to an end after all.

Spent the day figuring out everything from the ways to get to Gatwick Airport on the coming Saturday, how to get to St. Paul’s Cathedral, how to ride the buses and subways, how to get the Hampton Court and whether you need to go on a tour (you don’t), how to get to Windsor Castle, and good places to eat nearby. A taxi from our hotel in Central London to Gatwick would cost $110 to $170 (yikes!), or by train: $21. Well, that’s a no-brainer. Just have to figure out the train transfers, but traveling as light as we are it should be pretty easy.

Around 6:30 we went out for some exploration of Waterloo Rail Station just a block away (the biggest in the UK — it’s huge!), and got tickets for the next day’s train trip to Hampton Court.

Photo 6308, at Waterloo Station to get our train tickets for Hampton Court

Went to dinner at a Lebanese restaurant called Troia just a block toward the Thames on Belvedere Road, which is not much more than an alley one block from the river. I had lamb kebab which was fantastic – perhaps the best lamb I ever had; Cheryl had vegetarian moussaka. No dessert tonight. I had thoughts of an evening walk by the river to the Jubilee Bridge but when we got out there, it was so windy and cold that we bagged that plan.

It cleared off in the evening, and we got a lovely sunset from our 10th floor room. The Premier Inn turned out to be a very good value: reasonable rates in an outstanding location in the heart of London. Once in a while things work out.

Photo 2862, came back to a lovely sunset from our room

Next stop: Hampton Court.