202509 Travels

Last spring we left the trikes in the storage shed of the Salentein restaurant, just outside of Amersfoort, Netherlands. Our great friend Ben, whose company owns the business, made the space available for us. John has known Ben since the first day of Engineering Science at University of Toronto in 1973.

We’re in London England to attend the wedding of Jacqueline Knapp, the daughter of another great friend, Brian. Patti has known Brian since kindergarten in Scarborough. We are here in London for three nights, then take the train under the Channel to Amersfoort, just south of Amsterdam, to start our trike adventure.

This time, we will be cycling about 1,300 kms, through the Netherlands and Belgium, then to Dunkirk, France to catch the ferry to Dover. From there we’ll circle Kent, and then make our way to St. Ives in Cornwall on the southwest coast of England. Definite highlights will be six Cathedrals – Canterbury, Arundel, Chichester, Salisbury, Winchester, and Exeter. We hope to attend as many Anglican Choral Evensongs as possible. Even atheists can somehow be mysteriously enchanted.

We are in a hotel in the Holborn area of London, slightly away from the well-beaten touristy areas. Holborn is east of Trafalgar, a bit north-east of St Paul’s Cathedral and south-east of King’s Cross station. The streets are quiet and leafy, a bit hilly, with handsome shops, restaurants of many nationalities, and beautiful parks. We stopped in at ‘Novelty-Automation‘, a small quirky shop full of very unique and amusing interactive machines. We played the Divorce game, the Radioactive Fuel Cell game, watched a Bedbug/AirB&B display, and lost at a crazy pedalling game. Each play costs two one-pound tokens. Just good old-fashioned silliness.

John’s zero-alcohol life is being put to the test. The pubs are lovely, and so is their real ale.

Patti had a wee afternoon nap, and then we dressed (“smart casual”) for the wedding-rehearsal cocktail party at Kettner’s, a champagne bar. We met the groom’s family – lovely, warm folk – and most of the guests, a mix of Jacqueline’s friends from Brian and Rosie’s old neighbourhoods, and Trinity College School and McGill, and Jack’s friends from London and beyond. Afterward, we cabbed it back to the hotel with Brian, changed (“denim casual”) and walked ’round the corner for a really wonderful Italian meal on a patio, in the quiet London night.

Saturday morning: we strolled down to the Thames past St Paul’s Cathedral. The walk passed through two blocks of diamond merchants’ shops all with sales people standing on the sidewalk, vying for our attention. The Cathedral now charges almost 30 quid each to visit, so we elected to walk the perimeter. A foursome was playing pickleball inside a plexiglass enclosure, and people were quietly enjoying the gardens and sculptures. We walked halfway across the Millenium Bridge then returned to the hotel to get dressed for the wedding.

The service was at St Columba’s Scotland Church near Chelsea, on the other side of London from our hotel. This required a fairly long cab ride which unfortunately turned into a very long cab ride because of a huge Palestinian demonstration beside the Parliament Buildings. Our driver wisely chose the south side of the Thames in order to avoid traffic, but we still ran right into road blockages. He apologetically let us out near Big Ben, where we walked through the demonstration and alongside St James Park looking for another cab. There were no vehicles in sight because of the closures. (Mild panic…) Eventually we found our way to a deserted Victoria Street and hailed a lone taxi driver. He got us to the church only one minute late – !!! – but luckily the service had been delayed to accommodate similar stragglers.

The wedding service was warm, personal and loving, with excellent music including the Widor as a recessional! It was followed by a chartered red double-decker bus ride back across town, again crossing to the south side to avoid closures. The ride was long – traffic!!! – but offered great Chelsea streetscapes and views of the river along the west side of the Victoria Bridge.

The wedding reception was on the top floor and terrace of a refurbished venue – “Sessions” – near our Ruby Stella hotel. Good food, great speeches, especially by the father of the bride who made everyone cry, and much good cheer. We walked back to the hotel, changed again into “denim casual” and grabbed a bite at an Italian deli down the street. It was a fine London Saturday with extraordinarily good weather.

Sunday we see a matinee play, ‘Good Night Oscar’, about Oscar Levant, featuring Sean Hayes. The London Underground will be closed for a labour strike so no flitting about town. A local pub offers an enticing Sunday Roast with Yorkshire Pudding for after the show.

Monday morning we need to be at St Pancras Station at 5 am to catch the Eurostar to Amsterdam so we’ll use a black cab to get there. Next stop, the continent, and a reunion with our trikes.