Amsterdam, Holland, Belgium and London Day 9: The War Rooms and Other Underground Surprises

We have 9am museum tickets, so we’re out early.  London is a later town, so the streets are quiet on this cool sunny morning.  We get to the mall, the long, wide boulevard that runs from Buckingham Palace to Trafalgar Square and it’s eerily empty.  The palace, so packed with people for yesterday’s Changing of the Guards, rests, exposing the beauty of the manicured gardens.  We slip into St. James Park, the huge green space bisected longways by a quiet lake.  At the eastern edge of the park we come across the exotic birds, gifts to the royals over the centuries.  Today, the park’s famous pelicans are sunning themselves on the rock formations in the middle of the water, posing for our pictures and making me wish we had carried our longer lens.

Out of the serene park and into rush of the morning commuters streaming out of the tube.  We only fight the crowds long enough to score some coffee, then double back out of the fray.  Promptly at 9, we are let into the Churchill War Rooms, the underground bunker where Winston Churchill and his staff ran Britain’s war effort.  Because the government’s defense buildings were such obvious Nazi targets, Churchill had a maze-like work and living complex built deep below Whitehall (now Her Majesty’s Treasury) and fortified beneath with several feet of reinforced concrete.  He and his staff would spend weeks at a time in the space, planning, strategizing and executing their war plan.  The tight working/living quarters made for some very unusual moments between the proper secretarial staff and hard-charging military men, most of those moments involving attempts at modesty around bed and shower times.  The radio room, perhaps the most important space in this important space, was crucial to communicating the leadership’s commands to the field.  Churchill also used this equipment to deliver some of the most important speeches of the war over the BBC airwaves.  The Cabinet War Rooms became operational in August of 1939 and were occupied 24 hours per day until August 16^th, 1945.  On that day, the lights were turned off and doors were simply padlocked.  Decades later, someone finally realized the historical significance of the labyrinth, the doors unsealed, and a careful inventory of the contents was performed.  In 1984, the War Rooms were opened to the public as a museum.  It’s a place so complete and authentic that the sense of history is tangible.  It’s easy to imagine yourself stationed in this claustrophobic space, cut off from family and friends and sunlight, immersed in the most important work of a generation.  We are moved by our visit, and we find ourselves strangely relieved when we emerge into the daylight after only 90 minutes or so.

We’re only in town for a few days and we know it’s a fool errand to try to see the whole of London in such a short period of time.  It was our plan to just stick to the neighborhoods close to the hotel and see other parts on future trips.  Walking after the museum, we change courses.  London’s double decker busses are the stuff of legend, so we think that if we’re ever going to do a hop-on/hop-off tour bus around a city, this is probably the place.  We buy our tickets and regret our decision as soon as we board.  The bus is very crowded and there are no seats on the upper deck.  After a few stops, we do secure seats upstairs.  The seats are too small, the kids too loud and the tour guide inaudible.  Traffic is awful, more stop then go, which would be OK except that the stop is dictated by the traffic, not by the location.  That means that our bus zipped by points of interest and made long stops at random places with none.  The trip did take us by the Tower of London and over the London Bridge, but overall this type of sightseeing has been removed from our playbook. 

We get off the bus by Big Ben, currently being held prisoner in a shroud of scaffolding, only his big face visible.  It’s afternoon in London, time again for tea.  Mandy has researched tea services and on the top her list is Fortnum and Mason, a luxe gift and gourmet food shop cleverly disguised as a 5-story department store.  We head to the top floor Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon.  This is more indulgent then yesterday at the Orangery, more swank.  Our waiter was top notch, doting on us, explaining the menu and making suggestions with an easy sense of humor.  We order two different services, a traditional sweet and a savory, so we can try more things.  Of course, the optional Champaign is mandatory for us.  Two of the traditional three-tier trays appear, finger sandwiches, scones and desserts from bottom to top, and our waiter explains each item on each plate.  These are more modern, more refined and foodie, then the classic dishes we had yesterday.  More tapas than snack, served on their famous robin’s egg blue china.  Our favorites are the Crab Salad, topped with cheese mousse and served in a perfectly sheared eggshell and the Coronation Chicken, a curried chicken salad finger sandwich with a slightly sweet finish.  Our waiter offers us “refills” and we pick a few faves even though we’re near bursting.  The people watching is great and we enjoy the scene as much as the food. 

We need to walk.  What better place to start then the four floors below us.  I head to men’s accessories and choose a fantastic pair of socks at an embarrassing price.  I don’t find Mandy until the first floor, where she’s tea shopping.  About half the first floor is dedicated to the leaf and we spend half an hour picking just the right blends.  Out into Piccadilly we have fun admiring the architecture, window shopping and generally being in London.  I don’t remember a trip where we have walked, and enjoyed it, this much.  A well-earned nap ensues.

Our last night in London we have three goals: a proper pint in a proper pub, traditional English food in a (different) proper pub, and one more bar we have heard about.  Finding a good pub in London is a pretty easy task, se we just pick one with good energy and where we can get a seat near the bar.  It’s different then the American bar scene, but you can see how one evolved from the other.  We’re sampling tonight so we wander to find our next stop.  It’s a busy Tuesday, the weather is nice, and it seems that every pub and restaurant spills out onto the street, guests through open doors and windows and onto café tables.  We get a table at restaurant on the edge of Piccadilly and Soho and order a couple of pints and the fish and chips.  The classic, deeply fried, piping hot and very satisfying in that crispy sorta way.  After dinner, we walk to the end of Greek Street and into Milroy’s, a whiskey bottle shop selling fine brown liquor from around the globe.  Walk past the tasting bar, hang a right at the back wall and give the bookcase a mighty shove.  Aided by a big weight on a pully system, the bookcase swings away giving access to a flight of stairs.  Walk down and we’re greeted into The Vault, a basement speakeasy with an unpretentious staff serving finely crafted cocktails.  Dark walls, dim lighting and cool jazz set the scene and we let the friendly bartender mix at his pleasure.  His drinks are complex and delicious, his conversation engaging, and we feel right at home.  We linger a bit longer after our drinks, enjoying our final night here.

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Amsterdam, Holland, Belgium and London Day 8 - Cars and Tea (and London)

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Stephan drives us back into Bruges to make the early train to London.  We stop for coffee and finally get our elusive Belgian waffle.  We figure the train station is a fine place to get an authentic example, where the average Belgian would have one.  Like the beer and the chocolate, who knew waffles were a thing here?  Besides the airport like security scramble at our transfer in Brussels, the train is very civilized like all our other European train experiences.  Nice breakfast service with fresh croissants and good coffee.  I’ve always wanted to go through the Chunnel.  We do.  It’s pretty much like every other subway tunnel. 

Arriving at Waterloo station (now called St. Pancras International because the mention of Waterloo hurt the French feelings) we get into one of London’s iconic Hackney Carriages, the odd little black taxi cabs seen in so many movies.  Traffic is pretty much always brutal in London, but our hack (slang for taxi driver, derived from Hackney) demonstrates a level of patience that only a combination of zen-like peace and decaf can provide.  On the way to our hotel in Mayfair, I notice the insane car show that is London.  In the last few blocks, we lose count of how many Bentleys and Rolls Royces we see.  Exotics abound, including the Audi R8 5.2 Plus curb parked half a block from our Hotel St. James that remains there for our entire stay.  The St. James is a grande dame of a hotel adjoining Green and St. James Parks and a just a short walk to Buckingham Palace.  The hotel is elegant, the location is terrific, and our room is very clean, but the place is in obvious need of maintenance.  We waste an hour changing rooms to get into one where the air conditioning works.  We very much like the doorman who has a very British formality to his duties, and he greets us warmly as we head out.

The park has the early-spring-in-the-city energy, plenty of activity, dogs off leash following their owners loyally.  Mandy realizes it’s almost 11am and somehow she knows that Monday at 11 is the Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace.  She hustles me along and I lift her onto a high stone railing for a view of the ceremony.  The palace grounds are packed with people from all over the world who are as excited to see the royal spectacle as Mandy is.  The columns of marching guards and columns of horses looping around the massive fountain mark the end of the ceremony.    

London is the “greenest” city in the world, with over 47% of Greater London being parks, gardens and other greenspace.  It is a beautiful day so we decide on the long walk through Green Park and Hyde Park to check out London’s legendary gardens.  We stumble across the Diana Princess Wales Memorial Walk, which happens to be right on our way.  Spring is a good time to be here as it is sunny and warm and in bloom.  We make our way to the far end of Hyde, and continue on into Kensington to the Churchill Arms for a well deserved pint (ain’t they all?)  Churchill arms is a traditional British pub, but one of the most beautiful.  It’s said that the extensive flower boxes covering the exterior are in bloom all year long and certainly they are today.  At the bar, the lovely Irish barmaid pumps us a few Fullers and gives us the lowdown on the place.  We sit taking in the scene.  It’s just as we hoped, mostly locals with a few of us tourists mixed in.  It’s not like an American bar scene.  Here the intimate tables with stuffed chairs are the place to be, to talk work and politics and life with your mates. 

Finishing our beer, we head back into Hyde Park.  We’re having tea at the Palace. Specifically, high tea at the Orangery at Kensington Palace, the most traditional tea service in the most traditional place to have such a meal.  Apparently, in the early 1800s dinner was becoming later and later, 8pm or 9pm being the fashionable hour for the nobles to dine.  Anna, the 7^th Duchess of Bedford, wasn’t digging the late dining so she started having tea and snacks snuck up to her room.  Soon friends were asked to indulge with her, and quickly this became a coveted invite among the court.  Today, we’re invited.  Or at least we have reservations.  The Orangery is a dining room set in a glass fronted garden pavilion built for Queen Anne in 1704, and today Princess Mandy makes her debut.  We pick a nice tea, a good Champaign and the standard three tier tray.  You eat up, finger sandwiches on the first floor, scones on the second and finish with the cakes on the penthouse.  Our table looks out over the sunken garden in all it’s spring splendor.  A very proper afternoon.  Followed by a very proper nap.

Our hotel on St. James Place really is a great location.  The walk to Soho takes under 15 minutes.  

Soho is significantly more funky then Kensington, but funky in that English sorta way.  The atmosphere is relaxed, the pub goers lifting pints leaning on the outside walls of every pub we pass.  The pubs show football matches on a single screen near the windows, and the pubs are segregated by club fans.  Like wearing a Dallas colors to an Eagles game, I just wouldn’t wear an Arsenal jersey into a Manchester United pub and expect to live.  The fans are stacked deep looking through the open windows at the match and it looks like a scene from a 1950s movie where the townsfolk are all watching coverage of an alien attack through the window of the television shop.  We slip into Yauatcha, the sleek dim sum house.  To the bar for an expertly crafted cocktail in some ultra mod digs.  Then it’s downstairs to the swank dining room to sample some shui mai, har gau, cheung fun and other beautiful offerings I can’t pronounce.  We walk back by a different route, holding hands, window shopping along the row of fine tailors slipping in and out of the yellow pools of light on this cool London evening.

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Amsterdam, Holland, Belgium and London Day 7 - Cars and Coffee (and Bruges)

Isabelle has an employee cover the bookstore today, so we’re lucky that both Stephan and Isabelle can spend the entire day with us.  We’re treated to another delicious breakfast and head out.  Our first night in Sluis we heard that Stephan’s sister and brother-in-law, Karin and JP, have a repair shop and a significant car collection, too, so that’s our first stop this morning.   The shop is amazing, vintage cars, sports cars, race cars, motorcycles.  JP shows us the cars and tells what makes each one special.  He races and shows us his current track car and the BMW racer he is currently building.  There is more to the collection which is in a warehouse across town and of course I want to see it.  When JP fires up the Aston Martin, his daily driver, I jump into the passenger seat like an excited puppy.  It is after all one of my bucket list cars.  It sounds as good as it looks as we motor along the tight roads through town.  The other half of the collection is just as amazing and includes an Auto Union, a massive Graham Paige V8 Touring Car, a cool Mercedes Limo and even a restored Model T.  This totally unexpected part of our trip is a real treat.  Hugs and kisses and we’re off to Belgium.

Bruges specifically.  It’s only 20 minutes away thanks to the new highway.  Bruges is as beautiful as you’ve heard, and we’re here early enough that the town is just waking up.  The streets leading into the center of the village are lined with shops on the ground floor of three and four story buildings, many from as early as the 14^th century.  It’s raining on and off and Isabelle’s bright orange umbrella adds a nice splash of color to our photos.  We pass the Golden Arches set inside a very old building.  The juxtaposition is fun, and we poke our heads inside to see if the line from Pulp Fiction, our favorite movie, is accurate.  There is it on the menu board – Royal with Cheese.  “Do you know why they call it ROY-AL with Cheese?”

Isabelle and Stephan want to take us on a boat ride through the city’s canals as a way to get familiar with the place, see some highlights and catch a bit of the history.  We enter the boat just off the main square, the square with the clocktower from the 2008 movie.  The boat captain is right out of central casting, with animated facial features and wearing a comically cliché captain’s hat for what is essentially a theme park choo-choo train on water.  He’s a real character who’s done this tour thousands of times, telling the same anecdotes at the same spots on each voyage, adding his own laugh track through the mic after each joke.  The journey lasts about a half hour and really is lovely.

American’s generally know Belgium for two things, and departing the boat launch, we head for the most important of the two.  Beer garden dead ahead.  The selection at the 2be Beer Wall and Bar is staggering, but we skip the myriad of bottles and head back to the 16 taps.  The beer menus with today’s offerings are printed in different languages and hung from bungees from the ceiling.  We each pick a different brew and find a table to settle in to enjoy.  The beers are very different from each other, each good in its own right.  Mandy, who rarely drinks beer, is loving the Kriek Boon, a lambic beer aged in oak barrels with 25% black cherries added after 6 months.  It’s complex and fruity without being sweet, a serious beer with a nice flavor. 

Continuing on theme, we’re off to De Halve Maan, the oldest working brewery in Bruges.  Brewing on this sight has been going on since 1564 and the current family has owned the place since 1856.  They recently made the news around the globe for putting in an underground beer pipeline.  By the time the story got to America, it sounded like the pipe would provide for free-flowing taps in homes and businesses.  The real story is more practical… when the company expanded brewing operations, they ran out of space in the tight center of town, so now the beer is piped to the new bottling facility two miles away.  The multi-million euro investment was made because it was important to the family to keep the brewing operating in the original location.  It’s a nice story and we celebrated it with a few more fresh beers, Stephan trying to order me the strongest things on tap.  (You’ll have to try harder next time buddy, I’ve been practicing since I was 15…)

Well lubricated, it’s time for lunch.  Adorable restaurant-bakery with a big communal table running down the center.  I over order as the menu is nice and my beer brain is chanting “nom-nom-nom”.  By the time we leave, it’s like another day.  The sky is blue, the sun is shining and the wind has died down.  We wander and I retake some pictures now that we have a better backdrop.  No trip to Bruges would be complete without some of Belgium’s second most important product, so our hosts take us to Dominique Persoone, purportedly the country’s finest chocolate.  It is unbelievable.  We buy waaaaay too much to bring home as gifts so the shopkeeper give us a zippered cooler bag to transport our carry-on bounty across the pond.  On the way to the car, stop at one more chocolate shop, Chocoladehuisje, for Mandy to pick up the perfect mothers day gift for her dad. 

Dinner is a special event that Stephan and Isabelle have been planning for us for weeks.  They tell us their friends Bart and Yori own Restaurant de Vijverhoeve we know we’re in for a treat, but it’s not every day that a Michelin starred chef picks you up at the house in his SUV in the middle of dinner service.  The resturant is situated in a restored farmhouse with a warm, sleek interior and finely manicured grounds.  Once seated, Yuri, a seasoned sommelier, guides us through the wine list and explains the menu.  We get the tasting menu which features fresh local provisions, prepared elegantly, and served as some of the prettiest dishes (and on some of the prettiest dishes) we have ever seen.  

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