Destinations

AMERICANS LOVE London for a lot of reasons, aside from what we laughingly say about Londoners speaking almost understandable English. It’s a city with endless diversified pleasures for all tastes.

In the summertime it’s a great place to join with people from all over the world. I spent a week there last summer savoring the scene, before taking a Princess cruise around the British Isles.

Dining, drinking or walking the summer streets in London is almost like being everywhere else at the same time. The joyful chatter coming from visiting tourists is a cacophony of up to 80 different languages and it’s mostly happy talk. The attraction of London is universal.

Being in London is an immersion in culture, entertainment, shopping, dining or simply pub crawling. The London pubs are so crowded on weekend evenings, it’s standing room only extending out on the sidewalks. Soho is the place to see and be seen. Londoners are beer drinkers and the suds flow freely from taps not bottles. Any pub will have an assortment of up to a dozen or more different beers and ales to pull.

Daytime in London is a totally different scene, whether it’s upscale shopping at the world’s greatest department store, Harrods, or mixing with the lower end at Camden Lock. There are thousands of stalls at Camden Lock selling everything from far-out clothing and jewelry to trendy and more traditional things. For people watching it’s hard to beat this outdoor circus atmosphere.

Not to be missed is the London theater scene, better than New York’s Broadway for a number of reasons. London theaters are many, and mostly on the small side. No matter where you sit to watch a performance you feel more intimately involved because you are closer to the stage. And the cost of admission usually is less.

Except for the few truly hit shows, which are sold out well in advance, half-price tickets are the rule rather than the exception. In Leicester Square the city operates a booth selling tickets for many of that day’s matinee and evening performances at half price. Private ticket agents with stalls and offices in the surrounding streets also offer bargain-priced tickets for shows that may not be available at the city booth, and you can get tickets there for future performances.

One way for an economical theater evening is to purchase a package deal, dinner and the theater at cut-rate price for both. Numerous ads for this are available by looking for “London theater-dinner package” on Google.

London is a shopper’s paradise. If its toys you’re after, London has the greatest toy store in the world, Hamley’s. This store on Regent Street, near Oxford Street, is 249 years old with five floors of extensive displays of things to amuse and delight youngsters. It’s more than just displaying toys. It includes demonstrations. Hamley’s employs 50 young people to show you what you can’t live without once you see what it can do.

For a unique dining experience my favorite is an off-beat crypt in St. Martin in the Fields Church, at Trafalgar Square. The crypt floor consists of well-trodden tombstones of historic church figures. It’s a huge room with open seating tables. There is a self-service, cafeteria-style section serving both hot and cold dishes, all delightfully prepared. But the piece de resistance is a superb bread pudding, the like of which is unmatched even in the city’s high-priced restaurants.

London can be expensive for a visitor. The exchange rate with the pound hasn’t been good for the dollar lately. Hotel rooms do run high. But, there’s a good way to lower that cost. If you plan to stay at least a week, rent a furnished apartment. You get all the comforts of home in a prime area at maybe half the price of what a hotel would cost. Search for these apartments by Googling “London furnished flat.”

The song may say, “I love Paris in the springtime.” But summers in London are cooler in temperature and warmer in almost every other way.

Ed Arnow can be reached at BrentwoodBuzz@aol.com.

Spend 12 days aboard the luxurious Crown Princess as it shuttles you to a wide range of dream ports in England, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland. I’ve just returned from the last of its 2009 British cruises, but there are four more scheduled for the Crown Princess in 2010, beginning in June.

The trip is a blend of the present and the past. For Titanic buffs, it’s history relived. The Crown Princess sails out of Southampton, England, where the Titanic set sail with a shipload of passengers and crew for a fateful encounter with an iceberg. The Titanic’s second and what turned out to be her last port of call was at Cobh, Ireland, where Titanic memorabilia now abounds. It also was our port call but hardly our last. We docked at the same pier where the Titanic docked so many years before. Later in our voyage, we called at Belfast, in Northern Ireland, where the Titanic was built. Side trips from the Crown Princess took us to the Titanic’s shipyard and dry dock, still standing frozen in time. To top it off, there’s a Thai restaurant in Belfast, where you can dine and toast the ship. It’s called The Thaitanic.

The cruise offered a great deal more than Titanic memories. In Liverpool, we were overwhelmed with present-day tributes to the Beatles. The shadows of John, Paul, George and Ringo are everywhere. Liverpool reeks with Fab Four Beatlemania. You travel around this city to an ever-increasing Beatle beat. Songs of the Beatles enjoy a huge following, but it’s a matter of taste. My taste in music leans more toward the unforgettable words and music of Cole Porter. The ship gave us a gourmet musical treat on this score. A Cole Porter Review featuring a nonstop medley of Porter’s music was nothing short of fabulous. It was a super production in the ship’s theater featuring the ship’s orchestra and 17 singers and dancers multi-costumed in front of elaborate stage sets on a nonstop visit to Porterville.

This cruise has a different kind of taste to savor for lovers of fine Irish and Scotch liquor. During our port visit at Cobh-Cork, we toured Ireland’s famed Jameson’s Distillery for an educational introduction to the intricate process in making Irish whiskey. In Glasgow, Scotland, we had a parallel experience at a distillery for Scotch.

Back aboard the Crown Princess, it’s the plush life at whatever speed you want to travel. Passengers do it at their own pace, gambling in the casino, relaxing on deck or in one of the many bars and lounges. Some of them are with entertainment and some without. The ship’s theater has nightly shows on a grander scale. A Princess cruise specializes in catering to many different passenger tastes. Dining can be at a scheduled time or at your own pace with “Anytime Dining.” Two of the four large dining rooms are for those who desire elastic dining times.  It’s true on all 18 Princess cruise ships, making numerous fans of the Princess approach to freestyle dining. Around the world, there are 7½ million passengers in the Princess Captain’s Circle, indicating they have done multiple cruises on the line.

All told, we stopped at four ports in Britain, two in Ireland and three in Scotland. Our final port was supposed to have been at Le Havre, France, but it didn’t happen. Gale winds in the North Sea and English Channel made that leg of the trip impossible. It was a disappointment for passengers who had booked tours to Paris, or to the Normandy D-Day beaches.  The English captain of the Crown Princess, Nick Nash, put it succinctly. “The safety of our passengers and crew is our top priority, and we have found it necessary to cancel our call at Le Havre. We regret any passenger disappointment. But I have no other choice. The weather simply has beaten me.”

The last word in elegance and luxury in a classical setting, the DeVere Slaley Hall Hotel stands proudly as a monument to the past.  It began as a stately mansion built by Charles Samuel Hunting, in 1912, for his family home.  They employed a housekeeper, five maids, butler, footman, cook, two kitchen staff, seven gardeners, three chauffeurs, game keeper, forester and family of six who ran the home farm.  In 1984, Slaley was sold and transformed into a 139 bedroom luxury hotel and golf complex.  Unchanged throughout the years, the building’s embattled wall and architecture resembles a castle.      

Everything is orchestrated for the guest’s enjoyment and comfort.  The staff are totally committed to source the best produce and livestock from small, local Northumberland farms which do not use pesticides; some are organic and have the highest standards in quality.  They visit the farm to see how the animals are reared and treated.  Everything is fresh from a 30 mile radius.  Slaley Hall’s philosophy, ‘This is the life,’ is what we want guests to feel when they are here.  This is what they are worth.  

Duke’s Grill, in a classic Edwardian drawing room, uses a special Josper charcoal grill with a very intense heat to seal in the flavor.  Steaks quickly retain all of their moisture and tenderness.”  I especially enjoyed their Sunday roast with a fantastically melt-in-your-mouth tender, aged roast sirloin of beef.  The waiter wheeled the antique silver trolley to our table and carved the roast.  In contrast, the Claret Jug Restaurant is rustic with serving chopping boards, platters, share plates and cast iron dishes.

With 1,000 acres of forest and moorland, Slaley offers many settings for weddings, parties and business conferences.  They can arrange a Casino Night, Viking Night, Bedouin Tents, and Medieval themes!  The bride can arrive by helicopter or she and the groom can be whisked away by helicopter after the wedding.  For anniversaries or special occasions, they prepare a candlelight dinner outside at the Japanese Gardens as a surprise.  The invitation is presented to them in their room.  The lawn becomes a stage for summer outdoor performances of the “Merchant of Venice,” “Wizard of Oz,” “Peter Pan” and other shows.

Amenities:  Driving range, two championship golf courses, 4X4 adventures, indoor pool, archery, clay pigeon shooting, paint balls, mountain biking, hot air ballooning,self-guided tour. 

You may not have heard of the DeVere Slaley Hall Hotel and Northumberland but if you visit, you will never forget them!!!  DeVere Slaley Hall Hotel, Slaley, Hexam, Northumberland, England.   www.devereonline.co.uk