Tuesday, October 25 we went to the Churchill War Rooms in the morning. It has been interesting on this trip to see so many different aspects of the war efforts during WWII and how they all came together to defeat the Nazi’s.

We had a Westminster walking tour in the afternoon. It was somewhat disrupted because of hovering helicopters and news cameras, etc. The new Prime Minister was now official. The second one on our trip!

Monday, October 24 we took the took the train north to visit Nigel and Carol. I met Nigel on a travel forum many years ago. We were planning our trip to England in 2014 and I asked questions about the Cotswolds. Nigel grew up there and not only was he full of advice, he offered to come one day to show us around. They arrived on the Saturday morning, and by the afternoon they were already talking about returning the next day. They live about 1.5 hours away from where we were staying in Chipping Campden. They were so generous with their time and fun to be with. In 2018 I went to Paris after a visit to Germany and they came to see me there. In 2019 I was back in Germany with Uncle Jack and they came to see me there as well. I spent a day with them, and when we returned to the house where the family was staying we all had dinner together. Now it was our turn to go to them. Jim hadn’t seen them since 2014. They picked us up from the train station and they showed us around their beautiful area and we went on a short canal boat ride. We ended up at their house for tea/coffee and cake. Before we knew it the day had turned into evening and it was time to return to London. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day with two very kind people.

Sunday, October 23 we went to Bletchley Park, where the code breakers were based during WWII. We became interested in going there after seeing the movie The Imitation Game. We were able to go into the rooms they used and learned a lot about how things were done in order to win the war.

After we returned to London and had some dinner we went back to the apartment to beat the incoming storm. The skies opened up and the rain was coming down fast. Then the thunder and lightning began and it was very close to us. I enjoyed it since we were safe and dry inside. After the storm ended I took this picture from our living room window.

Saturday, October 22 the forecast was for a dry day, so we took advantage of that. We started with the Portobello Market in Nodding Hill. We bought a little something for our unborn grandson. I can’t wait to meet him!

Then we went to the meeting point for our walking tour, titled In My Life and it included places with Beatles history. It helped make up for missing the Beatles sites in Liverpool.

After the tour we took the tube to Waterloo Station to walk around the Southbank area.

We continued on over the river, past the newly renovated Elizabeth Tower and Big Ben, past the Horse Parade grounds, through St. James Park and more. We saw multiple protests including people wanting to rejoin the EU, more support for Ukraine and a couple I wasn’t able to figure out. Possibly one was against Iran.

We ended up at Old Spitalfields Market and after walking through there, then walked to Brick Lane. We were told it was the place to go for Indian food. Was it ever! There were so many places to choose from. After a very tasty dinner it was time to make it back to our area. We really worked our way around different areas of London. It was a very long day using the tube trains, buses and we still managed to walk 10 miles.

Friday, October 21, a month after our anniversary and we finally celebrated it. We checked out of our hotel and had them hold our luggage since we couldn’t check into our apartment until 2:30. We walked to the apartment to check out the location, then walked to the Museum of Natural History. They hadn’t been open long and the place was swarming with kids. Really noisy kids. Why weren’t they in school? It’s Half Term? School break? Next week too? We will have to keep that in mind when choosing what to do. We stayed at the museum for awhile, but when we couldn’t take it anymore we left and walked a block to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Ah…so quiet. And so much to see. We will definitely need to return.

We stayed until we had to go back to our hotel to pick up the luggage and took it to the apartment. We then went to the store for supplies and unpacked. It was time to change for dinner. I had found a restaurant very close to the theatre where we would be finishing the evening and they had a special pre-theatre menu. Perfect. We had reservations and we enjoyed our 3 course dinners that included Prosecco. We ordered the same things except different desserts. Jim ordered beer and I got his Prosecco and mine.

Now for the highlight of our anniversary celebration, we went to the Victoria Palace Theatre to see Hamilton. We had excellent seats and the play was phenomenal!

It was a truly memorable day and even though it was a month delayed and not what we had originally planned it was very special.

Thursday, October 20 is the last day in France. I will miss it, but I look forward to seeing more of London. With rain in the forecast, there was nothing much to see since it was too late to book the tour bus to show us the sights, and we had to check out of the hotel (they stored our luggage) we strolled around the Westfield Mall that was next to the hotel. We had a light lunch, then went to pick up our luggage and walk the few minutes to the Lille Europe train station. The Eurostar whisked us away to London, where we chose to take an iconic London Taxi to our apartment. It was commute time and we didn’t wanted to have to be on a crowded tube train with our luggage. St. Pancras station is about 5 miles from the apartment and it cost less than our 2 mile taxi ride from our hotel near the Bordeaux airport to the airport to pick up our rental car there. We dropped our stuff off and went to a pub for dinner.

Wednesday, October 19 we went to the tourist information office hoping to find a walking tour, or at least a self guided walking tour. No such luck. We ended up walking around the Grand Place and the old area of town. I think that after almost 9 weeks of deciding what to do every day I’m getting burned out. Without the guidance of a walking tour we did the best we could.

After we had dinner I took some nighttime photos as we walked back to the hotel.

Today was our last in France and it has been a great 3 weeks here. Tomorrow we return to London to finish off the trip.

Tuesday, October 18 we left Bayeux and started the drive to Lille. We stopped in Honfleur on the way. It’s a beautiful harbor town, and like Bayeux did not get bombed during the war. The town has been inspiring painters for years. When we arrived and walked by the harbor a fishing boat had just come in with their large haul of scallops. We stopped to watch the process of getting them from the boat to the refrigerated truck.

We walked around the harbor and some side streets. This is a great town and I wish we had more time for it.

One big challenge we have been facing is that gas for the car is in short supply due to refinery strikes. The French love to strike. We haven’t had too much trouble finding gas, though we have seen stations that don’t have any. It got worse as we traveled north. Our luck was about to change. We filled up at about 3/4 tank to stay as full as possible. We weren’t too far from Lille and stopped to top off the tank before returning the rental car. The station had gas, but declined both of our credit cards. I don’t know why because we have used them since. We couldn’t find another station with gas, so we had to return it with only 3/4 tank of gas. There no telling how much they will charge us for it. I took a picture to verify the fuel gauge. Bye bye Fiat 500.

Monday, October 17 we did a self- guided walking tour of Bayeux. Midway through it we stopped at a restaurant we had been to in 2014 with our friends, Sarah & Dave, for lunch. It was as good as we remembered. When we went into the cathedral we ran into the Canadian couple who we spoke to for quite a while at Mont-Saint-Michel. It’s a small world.

After we finished our walking tour we went to the British/Commonwealth cemetery in Bayeux. It’s not nearly as big as the American cemetery, but it is just as moving.

Sunday, October 16 we drove to the Pegasus Memorial. The bridge was built in 1934 and was a major objective of the British in the opening minutes of the D-Day invasion. We toured the museum, where we learned all about the operation, and outside they had the bridge and other machinery, etc. used during the invasion.

We later went to a German cemetery in La Cambe. Under the large mound in the center are the remains of unidentified solders.