After an excellent holiday abroad in Paris the previous year, my family booked a trip to England & Ireland at the end of 2022. By then, international travel had largely opened up and we all felt comfortable taking the trip during the school break (3/4 of us are in education of some sort).
The year before, we had an unfortunate uncomfortable delayed layover in the Frankfurt airport (which was a bit scaring for us all), so I initially avoided multi-legged journeys when looking for flights. But, tickets were a bit cheaper if we flew through Denver (very weird because that required going West before flying East), so we took the layover. Unfortunately, the Midwest experienced a massive winter storm two days before our departure, so we were delayed leaving Chicago and got stuck on the landing tarmac in Denver, so we very nearly missed our plane (literally had to sprint through the terminal). But the flight was held for us and we were soon on our Transatlantic trip.
We arrived to the Queen’s Terminal at Heathrow Airport very early on Christmas Day and we were pleased to find the convenience stores open at the airport. My sister and I giddily munched on out of the ordinary flavors of crisps (chips) to go along with our prepackaged sandwiches as we tried to stay awake waiting for a coach bus to take us the final leg of the journey.
In Southampton we were picked up by my dad’s cousin’s husband (who is more like an uncle to me than a distant relative) and we made it to their home just in time for a Christmas feast. Fun fact, when I lived in Paris for a year during my master’s program, I would visit Southampton on school holidays, so going to Dawn & Mike’s house feels like a home away from home.
During our few days in the south, we leisurely hung out with family, went on dog walks, ate delicious meals and tried to overcome jetlag (my sister was particularly sickly and took lots of Lemsip and Day Nurse to overcome it). We also we to see a Pantomime show of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. These shows are parodies of classic tales told very irreverently with silly schticks and gags during the holiday season and are always lots of fun.
We eventually booked train tickets (very cheap & very convenient with Trainline) back to the city for more touristic activities. I had insisted that we all pack in carry-on-sized luggage for this trip, which made navigating city transports extremely smooth (though it also required some strategic packing for winter weather). We stayed at a very unimpressive but affordable Holiday Inn in the South Kensington neighborhood. What the hotel lacked in, the area made up for as we were super close to a Tube stop and the High Street (main shopping/dining area). We enjoyed shopping and meals within a short walk and very easily connected to other stops for two visits to countryside destinations.
On our first night, we visited the Sherlock Holmes Museum on Baker Street. This was a very fun guided tour to do, particularly if you’re a fan of the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The narrow three-story home is set up as described in the detective stories (not like the BBC modern miniseries), and I had to keep reminding myself that we weren’t touring a real person’s home, but that of a fictional character. Sherlock has always been a source of creative inspiration for me, and I loved the experience.
Originally on this trip, I wanted to go to Chatsworth House for a Pride & Prejudice moment (I even had a perfect Hill House Home dress for the occasion), but logistically we didn’t have time to go that far north. Our British family suggested that Blenheim Palace (near Oxford) was a lovely alternative for a grand estate tour so we switched gears. Getting to Blenheim using public transport was not hard, but did require multiple legs of travel, which was at times a bit confusing. We also had some inter-family miscommunications, so the day-trip started a bit tense. However, our time at the Palace was amazing.
This grand country home was the birth place of Sir Winston Churchill and had a great mini-museum of his life and legacy. As it was the holiday season, the main rooms were decked out in awesome Christmas displays. Apparently during the rest of the year, visitors can do Upstairs/Downstairs tours to get a feeling for life in the Palace à la Downton Abbey, but the Christmas tour was the only one available to us at that time. All four of us loved walking through the Palace (we’re suckers for history, art, architecture and general European panache). We had a great lunch in one of the on-site cafés and my sister and I still got our Jane Austen-vibe photos out in one of the gardens. We ended the day (which happened to be my birthday) back in London at The Champion.
The next day, we took another day trip to Buckinghamshire to visit Bletchley Park, which was the setting for the novel I had started writing the previous summer. I was ecstatic to do some in-person research as we toured the very extensive estate, which was a major intelligence operation during World War II. I could have spent multiple days going through all of the buildings which were extremely comprehensive in telling the stories of the mathematicians, strategists and codebreakers who contributed to major Allied victories.
On our last full day in London we went to the Victoria & Albert Museum, attended an Evensong service, walked around the city and contemplated staying out for New Year’s Eve fireworks, but ultimately decided to return to the hotel to play Whist and watch the celebrations on TV. The next morning my sister and I toured the Churchill War Rooms (again very helpful for research for my novel) and then met my parents to watch the London New Year’s Day Parade. The marching band from my sister’s university/our alma mater was playing in the parade and it was fun to see some familiar faces on the other side of the world. From there we caught a train back to Heathrow for an evening flight to Dublin.
The Highlights – Things I loved in England
Bletchley Park. Cream tea (particularly the scones with clotted cream & jam). Sherlock Holmes Museum. The Champion Restaurant (where members of Queen allegedly wrote their famous song). Victoria & Albert Museum (I cannot love this museum of decorative arts (and its gorgeous café) any more!). Evensong service at St. Paul’s Cathedral. Paris Baguette (you just can’t keep us away from croissants, chouquettes and jambon & fromage sandwiches). Beaulieu Estate. Dog walks. Pantomime. Blenheim Palace. London Tube. Churchill War Rooms. Digestives biscuits.
SDG
L.M.Beatty 