Having two wonderful weeks in London has been absolutely fabulous!
We had a day here prior to our Europe tour, following which we came back for our focussed two week stay.
In that two weeks we have covered some incredible sights … from monuments to houses, from castles to museums, from gardens to towers, from churches to dungeons.
London has certainly kept us busy, and on our toes! Alertness is needed for tube travel, for city walking, for reading menus, for reading maps.
We have been stimulated by all that there is to do and see here. The history is mind-boggling, the architectural treats are amazing, and the people are friendly, quirky and fun.
The underground trains are bursting at the seams. It’s a fabulous system, but it’s definitely at its capacity. On each line, the trains come one after another continuously throughout the day, and still the huge crowds pour in and out. So many people packed in like sardines, you don’t need to hold on to anything as there’s nowhere to fall when you are pinned up against other people, with hair in your face, and bags, arms and suitcases pushing on various parts of your body. It’s a regular occurrence to literally not be able to fit on the first or second train that comes along, so you wait hopefully for the third and just push. If you’re agoraphobic or claustrophobic, then I wouldn’t recommend regularly commuting on the London underground. But we did it, day after day, morning and night for basically two weeks. Exploring, exploring, exploring.
We have used a 6-day London Pass which covers most of the great things to do for a lump sum price, then depending on how much you use it determines the value gained. I think it would be safe to say we’ve pretty much done the London Pass to death, and have certainly got our money’s worth. We squeezed in so much each day.
Here’s some of what we did or saw … Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, Regent’s Park, St James’ Park, Hampstead Heath, Greenwich, The Monument, Lambeth Palace, Windsor Castle, Kensington Palace, Harrods, Wellington Arch, Buckingham Palace, Houses of Parliament, Elizabeth Tower [‘Big Ben’], Household Cavalry Museum, British Museum, British Library, New Zealand War Memorial, Australian War Memorial, The Mall, Strand, Whitehall, Downing Street, Churchill War Museum, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, London Bridge, Lambeth Bridge, St James Square, Westminster Bridge, Piccadilly Circus, West End, Covent Garden, Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, Constitution Hill, Hampton Court Palace, Wimbledon Tennis Centre, Lords Cricket Ground, the Royal Mews, Banqueting Hall, Changing of the Guard, Royal Opera House.
We worshipped at Holy Trinity Brompton, Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral, St Martin in the Fields, All Souls Langham Place and St Helen’s Bishopsgate. And we also visited Southwark Cathedral, All Hallows at the Tower, and the Chapels Royal at Windsor and Hampton Court, and two Chapels at Lambeth Palace, the home of the Archbishop of Canterbury. We also did the guided tours of Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral.
We were so glad, as we worshipped, to see how churches here in the complex context of London are reaching out with a clear message of grace. We took on board some great ideas, noted our reactions to methods, presentation and the public face that was seen. There’s been plenty to stimulate and feed our leadership of North Pine Anglican.
As an extremely early birthday present for Chris, we saw Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre, which was a wonderful show with fantastic acting and singing, a great set, and an overall great experience. It was topped off with a meal included in our ticket price at a nice restaurant not far from Buckingham Palace.
For our entire two weeks we have had terrific weather. We only needed our umbrellas twice, and there have been days when one layer was all that was needed, in fact there were times we were hot. We have walked many kilometres, climbed many steps, as well as taking a couple of wrong turns!
Again we continued our Long Service Leave tradition of ‘where there’s a tower, we’ll climb it’! We climbed to the three galleries [527 steps in all] incredibly designed by Sir Christopher Wren at St Paul’s Cathedral where we got wonderful views across the city. We climbed Christopher Wren’s ‘Monument’ [311 steps], commemorating the Great Fire of London in 1666, again with great views. We went up Tower Bridge, up the Tower of London, and at Covent Garden Station we ended up climbing 197 steps to street level as the lifts and escalators were overcrowded.
In so many ways London is overwhelming. There is too much to do. But I have so enjoyed learning the confusing history, reflecting yet again on the human condition of sin, frailty, brokenness, corruption, power and pride. When kings or queens used their power for personal gain, holding up their ‘God-given right’ as a mandate to do whatever they wanted, the consequences were disastrous. It happened in the Old Testament, when the kings chose not to follow the law of God, and it has happened throughout history in so many nations. As we have passed through Europe and heard of the gradual or sudden demise of empires, and now have followed the generations of British royalty with the variety of corruption, adultery, paranoia and intrigue as well as those who have ruled with a little more integrity, we see that it is only through the grace of God working in a life that the true ‘common good’ can be accomplished. We give thanks that the current British monarch is a woman of faith, and we pray for the future generations to see that their ‘God-given right’ is dependent on their faithfulness to the one true King, our Lord Jesus Christ, on whom the whole world rests.
Chris and Lynda Johnson 
Thanks Chris and Lynda for your wonderful writings. I have enjoyed reading them so much,
love, di evans