Saturday, March 26, 2016

Back to London, Part I: First stop, Kew Gardens



We just got back from a week in London. We decided it had been far too long since we visited London. After the dollar tanked in relation to the Euro in the early 2,000’s, we started going to Latin America and had some great trips to Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, and Puerto Rico for a fraction of the cost of a European vacation.

But when we retired, we came face to face with the reality that there was no longer a seemingly infinite expanse of trips ahead of us. Some hard choices had to be made. We decided we were too old to put off going where we really wanted to go and so we started going back to Europe –-several trips to Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Poland, Germany, Czechoslovakia. But for some inexplicable reason we hadn’t been back to the British Isles. It was time.

London is crazily expensive which is why we were there for only a week. We had the misfortune to have horrible colds, but we were determined not to let our colds get in the way of enjoying London. We had already bought tickets to 4 plays and that was a powerful incentive to keep going. And we did.

Our first day was a brilliant sunny day—a rare and wonderful occurrence in London and we headed straight for Kew Gardens. We had never been in England in early spring and this was a very different Kew Gardens from the profusion of high summer, but heart-breakingly beautiful as only an early spring garden can be.

Kew was awash in daffodils hellebores, crocus, chionodoxa and some of the most beautiful camellias I have ever seen.



Fortunately, there was a garden railway as we weren’t in shape to walk very much.

The spectacular weather lasted only one day and then the usual gray London weather descended—but at least no rain and we had one mostly sunny day at the end of our trip. We are determined that this will not be our last trip to London.

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