Easter Trip 2008 - Part 1

Easter weekend is a sought after holiday period in Europe. Given that you have a long weekend stretching to almost 5 days and that normally spring is around the corner during this period, Easter vacations are looked forward to. Last year I had flown down to Antwerp and explored Antwerp, Brussels, Gent, Rotterdam and Amsterdam. This time, the general consensus from the Junta was that Easter 2008 was to be spent in UK. All of us Maersk expatriates by now had been told that we were going to head back home during summer and we felt that it would be a shame to have spent close to 2 years in Europe and not visit UK. I had already covered London a few months back, but one visit doesn’t do justice to the great city. So a plan was chalked out covering London, Bath (Thank you, Jane Austen) and Oxford.

Day 1: Me, Kiran, Jigna and Shubhada reached London by 7 in the evening and checked into our hostels. Given that I and Kiran were dying for south Indian food the first plan was to visit the Saravana Bhavan restaurant at Rayners Lane. We were at Stamford Brook and we left around 8ish in the evening in search of Saravana Bhavan. But due a mistake in reading the underground map, we found ourself on a tube to Heathrow. By the time we got down and changed trains it was already quite late and trains were also not too regular. With a heavy heart we had to postpone the plan and returned to Stamford Brook for a sedate dinner.

Day 2: Kirti and Kamal joined us overnight. Their flight from CPH was delayed; they missed the Stansted express and managed to somehow reach the hostel by a combination of buses, taxis and walking in the biting cold. After breakfast, we headed out towards the most iconic symbol of London- the Big Ben. After the customary photo sessions with the Big Ben and the Parliament house in the background and on the Thames Bridge, we walked towards London s newest big attraction- The Millennium wheel. I had been on this earlier, back in cold January and the ride had been uneventful as the rain and clouds hampered any decent views. This time thankfully the sun was out and we could look out of the space capsules and spot various London landmarks on all four directions. A definite must visit.

The waiting time for the tickets / the q for the ride and ride itself took close to two hours, after which we decided to walk down along the Thames walk for a while looking at the street performers and mingling with seemingly endless tourists. On my visit I had been to the Wagamama restaurant at Piccadilly and found the food to be very good, and so suggested that we have our lunch at the Wagamama on the Thames Walk. We were not disappointed; the place is value for money.

We retraced our steps back to the Big Ben and further down towards Westminster Abbey. The scene of various coronations and famous burials ( think Da Vinci code- “The Knight A pope interred” ), Westminster is a UNESCO World heritage site and rightly so. From here we made our way to the Tower of London. With a history of more than a thousand years and having enough stories about it to fill a library of books, the place radiates history all around. It has been a fortress, a castle, a prison, a torture chamber and much more. Now it is a historical monument with a royal armory and most famously the seat of the crown Jewels including India s own Kohinoor. We walked around the Tower listening to stories of the Kings and Queens gone by, of betrayal and savagery, of ghost sightings and famous prisoners. We watched in awe at the crown jewels on display and spent time at the chapel inside. Next stop was the Tower Bridge, which almost everyone unfamiliar with London, mistakes to be the London Bridge. A suspension and bascule bridge which allows for small vessels to pass through it, the tower bridge is a widely recognized London symbol.

With the visits for the day being done, we turned our attention again towards Saravana Bhavan. From Tower hill we made our way all the way to Rayners lane. By the time we got there it was already dark and the cold was biting, the strong winds not helping us either. We had to walk a small distance in the cold to locate the place, only to find that it was full and we would have to wait. But the moment we entered, the familiar aroma of the place came back to me in a torrent, and Id have gladly waited all night to have a seat. We did get our corner and were ready to order everything on the menu. Among the 6 of us we ordered enough food to feed a village. Blame it on a year of Scandinavian food. After having devoured idly , dosas and uttapas of various size and shapes, there was still place left for the ubiquitous thayir-sadam ( curd rice), that must eat dish for any self respecting Tamil.