英国一游 - UK holidays 25 June to 17 July 2012

很久已前英国也叫大不列颠。不知还有没有人记得？
我，贤内助和千金三人从六月二十五日至七月十二日（十七天）到英国一游。为了避开人潮，我们在伦敦奥运会 (27 July 2012) 之前离开.  这是我和太太第一次到英国。这次英国 一游也是自由行。所有的一切都是由我女儿她一手包办。从定机票，预定旅店，火车票，租车，行程表都是她上网找资料和定购。一切的安排她都做得天衣无缝，一切完美。
英国的铁路网络相当完善。它分佈了整个英国。我们的整个旅程都是靠铁路完成。铁路比陆路更加快捷和舒适。
我们乘搭新航A380 - SQ308  班机。从早上九点开始飞。在机上吃了一次午餐，一次早餐和小吃。一共坐了十二个小时的飞机直飞伦敦。到了伦敦已经是当地时间下午两点（新加坡晚上九点）。伦敦时间比新加坡迟了七个小时。我们拿着行李从机场乘搭快铁到了High Street Kensington 站下车，住进了Kensington Close 旅馆。第一天非常累，在旅店附近走走，吃了晚餐就回旅店睡覚。在伦敦除了购物， 我们还去了白金汉宫 Buckingham Palace 看守卫换班。我们又去了泰吾士河 The River Thames  乘船和遊玩伦敦城堡 Tower of London。我们走马看花到过Hyde Park, Trafalgar Square, London Bridge。我在伦敦住了五天然后乘搭火车去Bath.
英国的建筑风格全是受了前罗马帝国的影响。所有的教堂，住屋和办公楼都和新加坡的聖安德烈教堂，政府大厦，维多利亚记念堂一模一样。

                                                                      伦敦的建筑物  

                                    伦敦德士

                                                                         伦敦UNIQLO

                                                                            白金汉宫

                                                                             英国教堂

                            

新加坡的金沙酒店（Marina Bay Sands Hotel) 的外形又很像英国的石堆的造形Stonehenge near Salisbury. 真是无巧不成书。

                                                                  新加坡金沙酒店

                                                                英国 Stonehenge near Salisbury



UK Holidays
Our UK trip was a free and easy holidays. This type of  arrangement is suitable for  senior citizen like me. Time is under our control. There is no rush. The journey is more relax and easy going. My daughter planned the UK holidays single handed.  She carried out  information search on the Internet before deciding on the places to visit. She then followed up with the on line booking of the airline tickets, hotels accommodations, train tickets and car rental. Every thing was done in advance before we left Singapore.
We left Singapore on 25 June 2012 via Singapore Airlines A380-800, SQ308 flight and returned on 12 July 2012 (17 days) . The plane took off at 9.00 am and reached London Heathrow airport on the same day 12 hours later at 2.00 pm (London time). London is 7 hours behind Singapore. We came back before the London 2012 Olympic games ( 27 July 2012) to avoid over crowding.
Some one asked why we did not cover Europe since we were in UK. My reply was that we have not been to UK before and we wish to see more of UK. And also we did not want to over stress ourselves. The holidays should be free and easy. It was not our intention to visit more countries in a short time span. We therefore only planned to visit about 10 towns in UK within 17 days.
The first thing I came into contact when I arriving UK was the tube system (MRT). UK tube system is very old but still running efficiently. The tube system had been expanded progressively over the years. Those stations that built earlier had no escalator or elevator. Passengers had to drag their luggage using the stairs to the platform. Lifts were installed  to those newer stations. Due to ageing, the tube broke down once in a while. But the British took it easy and did not get annoy over the break down. They took it as a common thing that happen in their daily life. We Singaporean are very lucky. The Singapore MRT system is considered fairly new with escalators and elevators installed in every MRT stations. The trains design is modern and run much faster than the trains in UK. I experienced UK train stopping intermittently due to some technical fault yet no one was complaining. For the same reason, We Singaporean should learn to be more sympathetic and behave the same manner as the British towards the MRT operators.

                                                              UK tube interior, tight leg room
                                                              between the seats

                                                            UK tube platform without barrier

The next thing that caught my attention was the unique building architecture in UK. The building designs were influenced by the Roman Empire. Most if not all building designs were similar to the Singapore  St Andrew Cathedral, Parliament House, Victoria Concert Hall which were designed by the British Architects when Singapore was a British colony.

                                                       Building at High Street Kensington

                                                    Church design similar to
                                                    Singapore St Andrew Cathedral

London 伦敦 (5 days）25 June 2012 to 29 June 2012
We took the tube from London Heathrow airport terminal 3 to High Street Kensington station which was within walking distance to Kensington Close Hotel. After checking in, (it was 4.00 pm local time) we walked around the hotel vicinity and had pasta for dinner at Mark & Spenser departmental store food court next to High Street Kensington station. We slept early due to exhaustion.
We took the city bus ride on the second day to have an over view of the London city. We visited the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Trafalgar Square and the London Bridge. We also cruised along river Thames. We had roast duck for dinner at the Four Season Chinese restaurant. On the third day, we went to the Covent Garden and watched a musical show at the Ambassadors Theatre in the evening (the show tickets were booked on line and collected at the theatre before the show). Dinner was spaghetti at Kitchen Italia (also booked on line together with the show tickets as a package). We took the tube to the Marble Arch station for shopping on the 4th day. The place is similar to Singapore Orchard Road, a popular tourist shopping belt. We visited the Harrods, Marks and Spenser, Primark, Lacose, Fred Perry, Monsoon, Clark etc. We checked out of Kensington Close Hotel on the 5th day at 10.00 am and took the train at Paddington station to BATH.

                                           
                                                                      Corpthorne Rara Hotel next to
                                                                      Kensingston Close Hotel

                                                                     UK tube platform without barrier

                                                                         High Street Kensington station

                                                Queen Mary statue at Buckingham Palace

                                                                            Buckingham Palace

                                                                                 Buckingham Palace

                                                 Tube station that leads to Buckingham Palace

 

                                                                     Public toilet operates by coins

                                                                             Pret sandwich cafe

                                        

                                                                                   Trafalgar Square

                                                                  Tower of London

                                                                       London Bridge

                                                       London Flyer                                            

                                                                   London Big Ben

                                            Dinner at Four Seasons near Bayswater station

                                                  Lunch at Corpthorne Tara Hotel Bugis Street

                                                                     Harrods -  London

                                                                            Covent Garden Market

                                              Dinner before musical show

                                                          Musical show at Ambassadors Theatre

                                                                      Station exit to shopping belt

                                                                           Regent Street

                                                                     China man in UK

                                                                   London Paddington train station

                                                                                    Train to BATH  

BATH (2 days）30 June 2012 to 1 July 2012
BATH is 1 1/2 hours away from London by train.
We spent a day exploring BATH after checking in the hotel which was 10 minutes walk from the BATH SPA train station .  We spent a day visiting The Circles, Pultenay bridge, Sally Lunn's house, Roman baths, Bath Abbey and the Royal Crescent.
On the next morning, we took a train from BATH to Salisbury. We visited a very old cathedral under restoration. At Salisbury, we took a bus to visit the Stonehenge and Old Sarum. Old Sarum was a town that left behind when the population shifted to the new town at Salisbury.
We had Japanese food for dinner (Wagamama) at Salisbury before taking the train back to BATH.

                                                                              Bath Spa train station

                                                 Bath

                                                                                   Bath

                                                                   Tower of Norman Cathedral

                                                                       Pultenay bridge

                                                                          Royal Crescent

                                                                         Royal Crescent

                                              A steam train arriving at Bath Spa train station

                                                                   Salisbury Cathedral

                                                     Salisbury Cathedral under restoration

                                           Singapore Marina Bay Sands in the back ground

                                         Stonehenge in back ground - see the similarity?   

                                                             passing through the Old Sarum

                                                                Japanese restaurant at Salisbury

Bristol (2 days）2nd July 2012 to 3rd July 2012
We left BATH for Bristol on 1st July 2012. We alighted at the Bristol Temple Meads train station. It was raining, we took a taxi to the hotel. After checking in the Mecure Brigstow Hotel , we had lunch at a near by Chinese fast food outlet, HotCha. There after we went for shopping at the Cabot Circus Shopping Mall.

 
 

                                                Building opposite the Mecure Brigstow hotel

                                                 Customer's name appeared on TV home page

Cheltenham
We left for Cheltenham by train on the next day. We rented a car at Cheltenham (it was pre-booked on line). The car rental company provided good service to their customers. They even send some one to pick us up from the Cheltenham train station to their car rental office. We drove to the small towns at Cotswolds, Winch Combe, Broadway, Chipping Campden, Stow-on-the-wold, Upper Slaughter and Lower Slaughter, Bourton-on-the-water. The scenery of these small towns is beautiful and is totally different from the big cities. We had dinner at Cheltenham before taking the train back to Bristol.

                                                            Train from Bristol to Cheltenham

                                                                           Rental car Vaxhall 1.2

                                                                     Afternoon tea

                                                                 Dinner at Cheltenham

                                                                       Nando's chicken

                                 
                              

Keswick (3 days）4th July 2012 to 6th July 2012
Checked out of Mecure Brigstow Hotel on 4th July morning and took the train to Penrith. At Penrith train station, a pre-arranged taxi was waiting for us. We checked in to the Hedgehog Hill bed and breakfast rest house at Keswick. The Hedgehog Hill rest house was run by an English couple. We had sandwiches at the Costa cafe for lunch and follow up by shopping in the Keswick town (Lake District).
We bought the boat tour tickets for the lake cruise on the next day.  On the 3rd day, we took a bus to Buttermere and hiked at Lake Circular.

                                                                                Penrith train station

                                                 Keswick (pronounce as K Sick)- Lake district

                                                                        Hedgehog Hill rest house

                                                             Lunch at COSTA Cafe - Keswick

                                                                      Keswick town

                                               Post box that had disappeared from Singapore

                                                                        Dinner at Keswick

                                                                           Lake cruise

                                                                  Fish & Chips for lunch

                                                                      Dinner - Chinese food

                                                                         Chinese tea

                                                                  English breakfast at Hedgehog Hill

                                                                           Buttermere

                                            

                                                                    Lunch at Croft House Farm
                                                                   Cafe - Buttermere

                                                                        Keswick Motor

                                                                     Pre-owned car at S$ 22,600

                                                                         Pre-owned car at S$10,590

                                                                Pre-owned car at S$ 4,890 

Edinburgh 爱丁宝（3 days）7th July 2012 to 9th July 2012
We left Keswick on 7th July morning and reached Scotland - Edinburgh by train on the same day. Our stay was at Fountain Court Service Apartment.
On 8th July morning, we visited the Edinburgh Castle and spent half a day shopping in the afternoon. On the last day, we visited the National Museum Scotland in the morning and did last minutes shopping in the afternoon.

                                                                Haymarket train station - Edinburgh

                                                                  Fountain Court apartment

                                               Houses opposite the Fountain Court

                                                                   Breakfast in apartment

                                                                     Edinburgh Castle

                                                                      Beautiful stained glass

                                   War Monument

                                                              Hillman car was made in Scotchland

York (1 day）10th July 2012 to 11th July 2012
York was our last stop before heading back to London. We visited the York Minster Church which was the land mark building in York. Our lunch was at the famous Bettys Cafe Tea Rooms. We had PUB food for dinner before we went back to Crescent Guest House for a good night sleep.

                                                                   York train station

           

                                  York Minster Cathearal

                                         

                                                   Our one night stay

                                                                            Standard English Breakfast

                                                                     Lunch at Betty Cafe Tea Rooms

                                                                               Salmon

                                                                                     Tea

                              chocolate cake

                                                                             PUB food

                                                                York city castle wall

                 

   

                          
伦敦/新加坡 11th July 2012 to 12 July 2012
Home Sweet Home. Another 12 hours direct flight. Started on 11 July 2012 8.00 pm (London time ) and touched down at Singapore Changi Airport on 12 July 2012. 3.00pm (Singapore time). My back side had been flatten by the airplane seat. Again my body was lethargic. I went to bed at 9.30 pm to quick charge my body battery.

                                                                   Flight SQ 319 before boarding

                                                       Flight SQ319 landed at Changi Airport