What would your fantasy week in London include? Please post comments!

I have a friend who is heading to London in two weeks with her best friend.  This is her first time in London and I have made a few suggestions, but I would love input from readers and friends.  She is already planning to see Buckingham Palace, The Tower of London, a show-Billy Elliot, and they are going to go to Jamie Oliver's restaurant Fifteen.

I suggested either the Victoria and Albert Museum above, which looks so cool (or the British Museum or Museum of London), and possibly either the National Gallery or the Portrait Gallery-(but maybe only briefly to get a taste).

I think hopping on the train at Waterloo Station and going to Hampton Court Palace is definitely worth the time.  And a trip down the Thames to Greenwich on one of the tour boats is a great way to spend an afternoon if they have the time.

And because she and her friend are way thinner and cooler than I am, I suggested a shopping trip to Stella McCartney's store on Bruton St. in Mayfair which is just north of Berkeley Square and then continue shopping up New Bond St. and via Grosvener Square to Oxford Street.  If they hit a Monsoon store, a French Connection and a Top Shop, with a stop at Selfridges and Debenham's on Oxford street, that would be fun.  She already has Harrod's on her list, so she may also want to stop in at Harvey Nichols in Knightsbridge.  She is a big shopper (see the cool/thin comment), so this number of stores may actually be possible for her especially if she skips some of the museums.

Anyhow, if you have any other suggestions please post below and I will pass them on.  I might also suggest that hitting a pub in the Shepherd Market would be great, as would tea or a drink at The Ritz (photo above).  A stroll down Piccadilly after said tea or drink at the Ritz, with a poke into the Burlington Arcade, Fortnum & Mason's and then possibly Hatchard's, -see below-(the oldest bookshop in London) would round things out nicely.

OK, if she sees even a fraction of those things, she won't have time to sleep, but it's always better to have a long list and see which ones fit into your plans.  You never know where you might find yourself.

Well, you can tell what I will be dreaming about tonight. Yes, actually fitting into a Stella McCartney creation.  Oh, well...a girl can dream can't she?  The rest of the trip is a real possibility!

The Pride and Prejudice Tour of Scotland and Northern England 2009 Part 1

My ideal job, at this point in my life, would be to travel in England (hitting as many of the filming locations of my favorite British Period Dramas as possible) and then write about it.  I was able to do some of this last summer when my husband (hereafter known as the Squire) and I had a glorious 2 weeks in Scotland and England to celebrate our 20th anniversary.  The Squire wanted to see the British Open Golf at Turnberry, on the southwest coast of Scotland, and I wanted to see the North of England, specifically the Lakes district, the Peaks district and the medieval walled city of York.

We started in historic Edinburgh, used often for filming historical drama such as Elizabeth Gaskell's North & South, where it stood in for Victorian Manchester.

This is the view from on top of Calton Hill, which was used for all of the "walking in the park" scenes in North & South and only required minor computer graphic alteration of the skyline to make it historically correct.

This part of the trip was mostly for the Squire, as one day in Edinburgh was spent toddling up to St. Andrew's on the train to see the famous golf course.  St. Andrews is a lovely little town (where Prince William and Kate Middleton met at school) and there was a ruined cathedral over a cliff at the far end of town which was much more interesting than the golf course, for me.

We next drove to Glasgow, where we promptly got lost and discovered that the main street in Glasgow is called Sauchiehall Street (pronounced Suckyhall).  Some very friendly locals helped us find our way, however I had to ask for the spelling of the aforementioned street!  I spent one day happily shopping alone in Glasgow while the Squire was at Turnberry taking in as much golf as he possibly could.  I also popped into the Glasgow School of Art, which was designed by Charles Rennie MacIntosh.

I missed the tour of the school (below) but I was able to poke around a bit and picked up some lovely swag at the gift shop.  I also was able to fit in lunch at the Willow Tearooms (also Mackintosh designed).  I love the high backed chairs which are right from that transition period between the Arts and Crafts period and the Art Nouveau.

I did go to one day of the Open golf and the view of the Ailsa Craig rock just off the coast was amazing.  I'm sure the golf was good too, but I was mostly there for the view.  This is the place where they quarry for the granite they use for curling rocks (called Ailsite).  I got to see Tom Watson up close, who almost won the tournament, but alas, no Tiger Woods.  He didn't make the cut, possibly due to exhaustion from juggling all of those mistresses.

I have to say that the drive down the Ayrshire coast, towards England was gorgeous.  We left the golf just as the sun was getting low in the sky, to head for our B&B in Dumfries.  The road was winding and the view was breathtaking.  Well, I am going to leave off here, at the break between HIS part of the trip and HERS.  My goofy idea, other than generally to see the beauties of the North, was to try to see where Elizabeth Bennett wanted to go on her trip with the Gardiners (The Lakes District) and where they actually travelled to in the book (Derbyshire and the Peaks District).  Stay tuned to see how this plan actually panned out.

A Girl in Bath

I have been to Bath, the gorgeous city in England, twice in my lifetime. The first time was with my husband before we had kids.  I had begged him to take me to England as I was pregnant with my first child and wanted to do something exciting before I got tied down with a baby.  Good plan.  Unfortunately, we were a bit naive in the trip planning department and only booked 8 days in London through a travel agent.

Fortunately, the agent booked us into a hotel on Curzon Street in Mayfair, London.  Oh, had I only known at that time the literary history of that address.  I now know that Curzon Street is where the social climber Becky Sharpe from Thackery’s novel Vanity Fair went to live after her marriage to the dashing Rawdon Crawley. That tony address where they could not afford the rent, but where Becky wanted to live and be seen giving all of her fabulous parties.  It was also the address of Lord Henry Wotton of The Picture of Dorion Gray and the address of Jeeves' club The Junior Ganymede Club for gentleman’s gentleman (valets).  After my husband (the Squire) and I stumbled into a cab after the red-eye flight from Toronto and were taken to our lovely (and amazingly affordable) hotel on fairly swanky Curzon Street, we had no real idea where we were.  After a well needed nap, we stumbled out on the street again, looking for a place to have supper.  Thinking we should walk around first, we walked for about ten minutes through a beautiful  park (Green Park) and then looked up to find (holy crap!), Buckingham Palace.  Good travel agent.

Anyhow, we ended up on the next day doing what most travelers do in a strange city, and that was to book a few bus tours.  OK, that is what clueless travelers in 1991 did in a strange city.  These are the kind of crazy tours where they take you to as many places possible in one day.  One of these took us from London to Oxford, Stratford and Warwick Castle all in one day, and on another day we did Bath, Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral. Whew!  At that point in my life, Bath was only a beautiful city with graceful Georgian architecture and a well preserved Roman bath.  But even then, I felt ripped off with the mere 2 hours before we were piled back on the bus.

My second visit to Bath was much more satisfactory.  This was in 2005 with my husband and 2 boys (then 13 and 10).  We had all chosen something special to do on this trip (planned entirely by me this time) and my choice was to have 2 days in Bath. This was after I had spent the previous decade reading 19th century literature and watching many adaptations of said novels on screen.  So Bath was a different and more familiar place to me.  It was where Anne Elliot finally hooked up with Captain Wentworth.  It was where Catherine Morland got her first taste of the delights and disappointments of society.  And it was where Jane Austen spent many unhappy years not writing, but storing up many studies of various characters for future reference.

So, of course, I dragged my family around the Royal Crescent, through Royal Victoria Park, around the Roman Baths (well worth seeing a second time) and into the Abbey. We walked back to our hotel via Pulteney bridge, after tasting the disgusting sulfurous water at the Pump Room.  Basically, I wore the poor things out.  So after dropping the 3 of them back at the hotel for a late afternoon rest, I went back out alone, determined to squeeze the most enjoyment out of my time in Bath.  I trotted off to the Jane Austen Centre at 40 Gay St. to immerse myself in all things Austen.  I started to really regret not having my sister with me, when I saw a poor young dude dressed like Mr. Darcy outside the museum, meant to pull the lady tourists in.  She and I would have laughed our posteriors off at that, but I only managed a smirk before I ducked into the building.  (Apparently there is now a mannequin dressed as Miss Austen out front.)

After soaking up as much as I could there, I headed off to the Assembly Rooms.  Not much time left, as the sun was getting low in the sky, but I had to see them.  I had to picture the crush of beautifully dressed dancers described in Northanger Abbey.  I had to imagine the parading of characters around the ballroom and the tea room.  Then down in the basement I went for a look around the Museum of Costume.  At this point, I was half in heaven (as they had real Georgian gowns as well as costumes from various Austen films on display) and half in hell (as I was inwardly screaming for my sister to be at my side).  In any case, after pressing my nose to the glass to study the antique gowns and then getting as close as I could to Jennifer Ehle’s red dress from Pride and Prejudice without drooling on it:

(yes, the one in which she teases, “A man without fault?”), I made my way slowly back to the hotel for dinner in a pub with the guys.  I think it was the Thursday night curry special at the local pub, which was delish, and I was full of the wonders of Bath for a few years more, at least.

Moral of the story?  I have now realized that if and when I return to the wondrous curved city, I will have my sister with me.  And no men.  My men are very relieved to hear this, as apparently I am a one woman bus tour!