Jun 28 - the crown jewels

Gotta be flexible.  We'd been notified by the Eurostar that there was an "industrial action" planned by some union in Belgium in the timeframe of our train trip so we headed up to the station to talk to someone live.  The St. Pancras / Kings Cross station is HUGE.  Heathrow on wheels.

To get there, of course, we had to take the District Line to the Piccadilly Line and then it's a goodly trip to Kings Cross.  We stood in the wrong ticket line first and then were directed to the Eurostar ticket line.  We were then informed that we could not change our destination (simply changing to Paris had seemed like a good idea) and that we should register the bicycle.  That was a long way away.  Sheesh.  We went to the baggage area and stood in that queue and then were told that we had to go somewhere else for the Eurostar (is this well organized ?).

Out by the parking lot in a nondescript place, we found that place and I paid the 30 GBP for the bicycle.  It's 25 GBP if you don't want the bike to ride on a specific train (like my train).  I could see a bunch of bikes there, mostly on wheels as opposed to in boxes.

We headed back to the Underground and Piccadilly Circus, intending to take the hop-on, hop-off.  When we came aboveground it was raining so a vote was taken (I abstained) and decided to defer the sight seeing tour.  Back on the tube, we headed for the Tower of London, which is a goodly train ride away on the Piccadilly and District lines.

What a mob scene.  I don't remember it being like this before.  There's been a ton of new construction, glass skyscrapers all around.  The queue for tickets; the queue for the Tower; the queue for the Jewels; all very well organized but, as I said, lots of queueing.  It was about 12:30 when we entered the building with the jewels.

It's completely changed since the last time.  Mind you, that was 14 years ago.  Time does fly.  While there is a moving sidewalk by the major jewelry, you can take it more than once and there's a viewing area above that where you can stand.  It's much better.

After the jewels, we had lunch in the cafe.  Very good.  Salads, fresh cooked food stands, this is not North America.  From there we spend a couple more hours browsing areas of the Tower grounds and buildings.  It rained most of the time so our umbrellas got some use when we were outside.

Back on the tube, we were "home" by 5pm.  I opted to get to Mass that day so I trotted out around 5:45 for the 6pm Mass.  I was back about 1.5 hours later and we went to the nearby Argentinian place for dinner.  Sandy had fish; I had soup and salad; Jim had Fajitas; Sheryl had something ... drawing a blank  !  We did reasonably well.

Another day was done.  Today, perhaps the hop-on, hop-off ... we'll see.  We have arranged a car to take us to the train station tomorrow and to the airport in Paris.  Loose ends are being tidied up as day after day becomes "Days of Future Passed" (sorry, that's the title of a Moody Blues Album.

Onward !