Regent Street, London, at Christmastime
Sunday, December 23, 2001
Near London
What a nice weekend – London for Christmas was a good choice. Yesterday we went to the city to see Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral. The weather was cold but sunny and beautiful, and we wandered around town until 7:00, when we went to St. Martins in the field to hear a performance of Handel’s Messiah.
We began at the abbey. We’ve gone there twice before, but both times on Saturdays, when they close at 1:30, so we’ve never gotten in. Yesterday it was quite crowded, with many tourists from all over, including many Americans. It is an incredible place, a wealth of so many historical artifacts. The remains of a number of Saxon kings are there, as well as the bodies of several early kings. The coronation chair, on which 38 heads of state have been crowned. The bodies of so many famous people, including great men of arts and sciences, as well as many soldiers and statesmen. There are a great many huge, ornate tombs from the 17th and 18th centuries. The abbey itself is huge – very high – and very ancient – 11th century – and gloriously decorated in the most majestic manner. Unfortunately, they don’t allow photographs, and the booklet we bought shows only a small number of the articles in the abbey.
From there we went to St. Paul’s Cathedral. Surely there must have been a struggle for “best” between these two amazing churches for hundreds of years. St. Paul’s was designed by Christopher Wren in the mid 1600s to replace an older cathedral which was destroyed in the great fire in the City of London. It is fabulously ornate and wonderful, but it does not have the ancient artifacts and tombs, etc. that the older cathedrals and Westminster have. We had fantastic luck, and arrived there just as a choir from Cambridge University was performing a Christmas concert along with a choir of younger people. The acoustics in that great church are perfect – this is the site of the famous “whispering gallery” I remember reading about as a school girl. We sat in the magnificent nave, listening and sometimes joining into the singing when the congregation was asked to sing along. It was a special Christmas happening I won’t soon forget.
We then took the tube to Oxford Circus and walked up Regent Street to Piccadilly Circus. Regent is the best shopping street in London, and the sidewalks were totally packed with people. It was fun to be among them. We wandered over a block to Carmody Street, which is something of a leftover from the days of my youth, known for the Beatles and “mod” old 60s England. It still appears to be very popular with the young.
We walked up to Piccadilly Circus, and through Lillywhite’s, the British L.L.Bean. We then went to Trafalgar Square, where the evening concert was held. It was fun to hear the Messiah, to sit in that famous old church on ancient pews. There was a good-sized choir singing, and a small orchestra accompanying them. We went afterward to a restaurant called The Texas Embassy, where we had Mexican food. It tasted vaguely like it should, but wasn’t very good. English Tex-Mex!
We took the train back to this hotel. It is another of those Innkeeper’s Lodges that we’ve been using off and on since Chester. They are nice and cheap – a sale this weekend means we are only spending £30 per night – within 30 minutes of London and a block from the train. Good deal.
Today we went to Windsor Castle, but the traffic was so bad on the motorway that we got there too late. The cost was £20 ($30) and we would have only had 2 hours there. So we wandered around outside the walls and in the town. What an enormous place! George says it could hold a golf course, and I’m sure that’s true – maybe two golf courses. It would be neat to go inside it, but I doubt I ever will. [Actually we did go inside in June.] It is important, and I should have realized that sooner and made sure we saw it. It is Disney-ized, but historically important.
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and we move to the hotel in Forest Row where we have expensive reservations. Having seen it once, I have my doubts about it. We’ll see. I hope it will be fun.
