New York

Following our cruise we spent a busy four days in New York.

Upon arrival we checked our bags at the Waldorf Astoria Towers and headed south to the World Trade Center and the 9/11 Memorial. The memorial is very well done, just a somber pair of holes in the ground, with water flowing endlessly down into them. The new building is very beautiful.

WTC

 

There were long lines for the museum, and we didn’t have time before meeting our friends for lunch, so we wandered around Battery Park and the Irish Hunger Memorial, which was an impressive sloped garden featuring indigenous plants and recreating some of the conditions that forced so many to immigrate.

BatteryPark

If you enlarge this view from Battery Park you can see the Statue of Liberty that greeted those immigrants.

Bouley

We met our friends Ron, Bev, Keith and Parlo at Bouley for a four hour lunch. The four of them are in New York for a Champagne extravaganza, but we’re on a different mission. (Most of the links in this post take you to my food blog for more information about the restaurants.)

IMG_5293

We attended a late dinner and show at 54 Below, a nice cabaret. The performer was Sarah Boggess, who played Ariel in the Little Mermaid and Christine in Phantom on Broadway.

IMG_5295

For lunch Saturday we went to one of Linda’s favorites, Benoit, for their fabulous chicken.

IMG_5298

We attended a matinee of If/Then, a new Broadway show starring Idina Menzell. The cast was fantastic, and made some fairly flawed material quite enjoyable.

IMG_5299

Dinner took us back downtown to Gotham Bar and Grill. Despite its name, the food was far from bar and grill stuff, and we really liked it, although it was very noisy.

IMG_5305

Sunday at noon found us up by Central Park, for lunch at our favorite, Jean Georges.

IMG_5307

This is such a wonderful restaurant! The service is friendly, the room is spacious and quiet, there are great wines available by the half glass so you can assemble your own pairing, and at lunch the prices are amazing.

After lunch we saw a matinee of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, which won the Tony this year. While it might not be up to the level of some past Tony winners, it was very funny and entertaining. Jefferson Mays plays nine different roles, and was really quite amazing.

The weather dropped into the 30s for one night and we decided not to make the trek to Chez Josephine, and on the spur of the moment walked a couple blocks to a small storefront and had a lovely pan-Asian meal at Wild Ginger.

Monday was our last day in New York, and we made it count, at two spectacular restaurants.

IMG_5319

Most notable was Caviar Russe, which is about far more than caviar. We’ll definitely be returning here. IMG_5320

And for dinner we went down to Chelsea to experience Morimoto.

IMG_5323

It was interesting in that the omakase was much more about cooked food than sushi.

IMG_5324Tuesday morning we turned back into pumpkins and headed to the airport for the flight to Orlando. It will be a shock after almost a month of traveling, but it will also be nice to be home.

 

Boston

IMG_5252

Linda got to celebrate her birthday in Boston, our last stop before New York City. We were last here (on separate trips) when Dani was looking at colleges, so it had been a while. For lunch, we decided to check out one of the city’s nicest restaurants, l’Espalier. We had a delightful multi-course chef’s tasting menu and matching wine pairings.

IMG_5254
It’s butter.

IMG_5262

 

Afterwards we walked down Boylston Street, and recognized the building used for exterior shots in Boston Legal.

IMG_5266

 

At boston common we fed some squirrels, then continued on to Faneuil Hall and the Quincy Market, but didn’t stay long, and called an Uber (our first experience with this, and a good one) to take us back to the ship.

St. John, New Brunswick (Bay of Fundy)

StJohn1

 

As we arrived in Saint John New Brunswick we were greeted by a tug spraying water jets and turning pirouettes, which produced a continually animated rainbow.

StJohn5

 

Our ship looked pretty tiny as it nuzzled the rear end of a humongous Carnival cruise ship. It was easy to tell which passengers came from the two ships, by age alone.

StJohn4

 

The major attraction of the Bay of Fundy is Reversing Falls, a section of river that changes direction with the tide, creating swirling eddies. The riverfront path took us on a five mile walk that was mostly scenic.

StJohn6

At least it was scenic until we actually got to Reversing Falls. Here’s a picture of Reversing Falls from Reversing Falls Park. Yes, that’s it. Apparently the place was named by someone who had never actually seen a waterfall.

After chatting with other disgruntled tourists who’d been tricked into the walk, we headed back to the pier. Not far from the ship we had an excellent Canadian Thanksgiving afternoon meal of seafood chowder and lobster poutine at Grannan’s Seafood Restaurant.

tide

 

We planned ahead on our walk and took before and after pictures of the ship. The tides in the Bay of Fundy can run 54 feet, although 28 is typical. Here is the difference 3 hours made.

Portland, Maine

Portland2

The ship arrived fairly early in Portland Maine and we cleared immigration on board and went out for a morning walk. Not too many shops were open yet, but we made out way around most of the visitor’s section along the wharf and up a couple of streets.

After lunch we met a guide for a walking tour of the lobster docks. She was quite informative. About 95% of the country’s lobster comes through here, so it’s a great place to be for seafood. Maine is also second only to Vermont in number of microbreweries, so a great place for beer, too.

We had a lobster boat excursion also scheduled. I did this a few years ago with Pamela, and it was interesting, but we decided to skip it, do a little shopping at Leroux kitchen and gourmet store and return to the ship to do a bit of laundry and relax.

Portland is a very cute town, and one of the most highly regarded small towns in the US, according to a variety of authorities.

Portland1

Halifax

After a week at sea it was nice to stretch our legs in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

We were greeted by a bagpiper and drummer, who filled the space between the ship and the terminal building with a rather impressive amount of sound.

Halifax1
The shadow of the Oceania Insignia against the terminal building.

Halifax is an attractive city. We walked along the waterfront for a mile or so, visiting the various tourist shops and reading the pub menus. Then we headed up through downtown to the top of the hill that overlooks the harbor.

Halifax2

It was Canada’s Thanksgiving Weekend, so most places were closed, although there were lots of people about, mostly college students.

We stopped for brunch at Le Bistro by Liz, which was a pleasant place, then made our way back down to the wharf.

Halifax3

 

On the way we passed the old cemetery where some of the Titanic casualties were buried.

Halifax4

 

Back at the waterfront we had some delicious lobster dip at Murphy’s Cable Wharf, and fed the birds on the open air patio, then made our way back to the ship.

Sea Daze

Seaday1

Repositioning cruises are semi-annual events for many cruise ships, as they move from their summer European itineraries to their winter Caribbean ones. Unlike most schedules, they feature a fair number of consecutive sea days, when the ship is simply trying to get from one place to another. As a result, they tend to appeal to more seasoned travelers with plenty of time, and no pressing bucket list of islands to visit.

Because they are motivated by deteriorating weather, repositioning cruises’ advertised itineraries tend to be more hopeful than actual. That was the case on our last trip, on Princess, when storms kept us out of Belfast and Reykjavik harbors, and has been the case on this trip as well.

The shortest hop between Europe and America is far North in the Atlantic (think of it as the Titanic route). It’s just three days between Ireland and Newfoundland. But a storm blocked our path, forcing a southerly detour, so we skipped Cork at the Irish end, and Newfoundland altogether, instead heading for our next port, Halifax, Nova Scotia. This detour turned three sea days into nearly a week.

We didn’t mind the detour much this time, though, because we’d been to both of the skipped ports before, and given the challenging sailing for the first few days (when we never got closer than 400 miles from the the storm’s center) we certainly wouldn’t have wanted it to be any rougher.

Seaday2

It’s a bit deceptive on a good sized ship. The Oceania Insignia is no 5000 passenger mega-liner, but with a rated capacity of something like 670 (and an actual load of 500 for this trip) she’s not a tiny ship. So it’s a bit surprising to learn that those little white caps out there are 20 feet high.

Wind is as big a factor in the sailing conditions. Our forward speed of about 20mph combined with the head wind of the storm created an effective wind speed of close to 60mph at times. Needless to say, the outer decks weren’t open.

Walking around the ship was an interesting challenge for the first three days, requiring every handhold one could find. Because this line attracts seasoned passengers, there was surprisingly little complaining, although the reception desk was kept busy handing out seasickness pills. Linda never needed them, but I confess to taking one for each of the first three days. They work great.

The mega-liners have lots of entertainment venues and things to do, but a smaller ship like this one, where the emphasis is on fine dining and a homey atmosphere, offers less variety. You need lots of reading material or other media under such conditions, and fortunately we were well-equipped.

Still, when we arrive in Halifax, it will be nice to set foot on land again, if only for a few hours.

Dublin

Dublin1

I’ve never developed much of an affinity for Dublin. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with it, it’s just that there’s nothing to draw me here. It’s a city of writers: Joyce, Wilde, Shaw, and so on. But frankly they’re writers I don’t read, and certainly don’t reread.

It’s a city of pubs, but those aren’t high on my list of places to eat or drink. And it’s a city of tourist shops—well, you get the idea.

It’s also where about a third of the country’s population lives, a million and a half of them. But it lacks the natural beauty of the rest of the Green Isle.

So we tried something different this time, a Jameson distillery tour (the actual distillery isn’t really here anymore, it’s in Cork).

We began with a tour of the city. Our guide was rather boring, and had gone to the William Shatner School of Bizarre Dramatic… Pauses.

Dublin2

Once we reached the Jameson “Distillery” which is really a visitor center we had a short tour and then I was lucky and got chosen to be one of the people to taste comparative samples of Jameson, Scotch and Jack Daniels, which was interesting. The Jameson is much smoother, the scotch is peaty/smokey and a bit harsh, and the Jack very perfumey and rough. But regular Jameson is also pretty rough after having only had the 12 and 18 before.

We had much too long a time there, so Linda and I went for a walk to the river, but since it was Sunday, that part of town was closed up. We did see some good street art:

Dublin3

 

After another ride around town we were dropped off back at the ship.

The last time we were in Dublin there was bad weather so we stayed in port overnight and skipped the next port, which was Belfast. It must be something about Dublin, as tomorrow we’re skipping Cork, due to predicted gale force winds. At least we saw Belfast this time. And the weather has been really nice so far. I guess there are 25 foot waves forecast tonight, so I’m just as glad to be in port.

So next stop is Newfoundland, in four days.

Titanic Belfast

Titanic Belfast is a visitor center opened in 2012 adjacent to the Belfast docks where Titanic was constructed. It is, without doubt, the best visitor center I’ve been to.

Our day began with a short tour of downtown Belfast, a small city that is enjoying an economic renaissance since peace came in 1998. We soon arrived at the dry dock where Titanic was outfitted after the hull was completed in the nearby gantry.

DryDockTop

After a bit of history we descended into the dry dock where we could inspect the rusted gate that was moved to seal up the dock.

DryDockRust

Along the bottom of the dock are stacks of the supports used to brace the ship. To give you an idea of the scale, each little support weighs more than a ton.

DryDockBottom

After a stop for coffee we arrived at the nearby Titanic Belfast, an absolutely breathtaking building with five floors of exhibits.

Titanic

You begin by traveling from the ground floor up to the first floor, where a gallery details what Belfast was like during the years leading up to the time of Titanic. Unlike other Irish cities, it was quite industrial, with half a million linen looms in the city, and a major boat building business.

Throughout the facility we found excellent displays, interactives and use of projections. Nearly every other museum I’ve been to should visit here to see how to properly design displays to engage and inform.

I particularly loved the floor projections of drawings and other information in this first area. Sourced from four overhead projectors, they were constantly changing, easy to read, and amazingly resistant to shadows as we walked over them.

TitanicFloor

This brought us to the base of a re-creation (at 1/3 scale) of the Arrol Gantry used to construct the Titanic’s hull. We ascended in a lift to the fourth floor and boarded a dark ride that took us on a tour of the shipyard, through sets and projections. The ride vehicles were smaller versions of the King Kong ride from Universal Studios Florida in the 90’s. Each six passenger vehicle was suspended from a scissor lift, permitting two stories of vertical travel. Ride audio was excellent.

TitanicRide

After the ride we stopped at a large window that looks out onto where the gantry stood. The window changes from opaque to transparent, in sync with a film of the launch. This shot captures it in transition, with the titanic in the gantry visible as a rendering over the view of the port:

TitanicReveal

Other displays contained whole staterooms, including first, second and third class accommodations. A particularly effect 180 degree theater provided a tour of the ship, moving upward from engine room to bridge on three walls surrounding the audience:

Titanic180

The displays on this floor concluded with the sinking, and on the third floor a two story high theater described the aftermath, including discovery and exploration.  In a unique bit of design, the lowest floor of this theater was glass, and below it you could watch high resolution images as cameras moved over the wreck.

With limited time we couldn’t explore further, but the museum certainly deserves at least a half day, perhaps more. It is a truly great facility.

 

London

After Linda’s push to get “Tree” (AKA “A Bug’s Life”) open at Animal Kingdom, we were able to slip away for a transatlantic cruise. On Friday we picked up a rental car at Disney and on Saturday we packed it and headed for Orlando International airport. (This trick saves us cab fare, and is much less rushed.) We had lunch at our frequent travel stop, McCoy’s and then boarded a Delta jet for Detroit.

Since we live in Orlando we’re used to a really nice airport, but this one might even be better than Orlando’s. It’s spacious and airy, easy to get around, and the Westin hotel is even more convenient than the Hyatt in Orlando.

At the moment there is a shortage of nice places to eat in the terminal, but new ones are coming. For now, the solution is to dine at Dema in the lobby of the Westin, which is just on the other side of a private TSA entrance to the hotel’s lobby.

Dema

The Zen-like setting of this lobby restaurant makes it a welcome retreat from the hustle of the airport, and it’s literally feet away from the gates.

Service is friendly and there is an extensive selection of wines by the glass. The pepperoni and bacon pizza and the hummus and tapenade appetizer were both good.

Note that the TSA portal closes in the evening and you have to go back around through the terminal, but it’s still not that far.

Our flight departed at about11pm, the last one out of the airport. I skipped dinner and took advantage of the “pod” in Delta’s business elite class (thank you frequent flyer miles) to get an almost full night’s sleep before our 11 am arrival in London.

On the approach to Heathrow we passed over Windsor Castle, the weekend home of the Queen, and our destination for the following day.

WindsorAerial

This time our luggage arrived with us (unlike two years ago, on our trip with Martin, Audrey and Emilio) and we were met by our favorite driver, Eddie Manning. It wasn’t much after noon when we arrived at The Ritz Hotel and were able to settle into our lovely room.

RitzExterior

I found this room on Hotels.com for about half price, and what a deal it was.

RitzRoom

If the the founder of the Ritz could see his hotel a hundred years later I think he would be very pleased. Its maintenance and refurbishment are tip top, and its staff still cleaves to old-time standards of service. While the strict enforcement of the no jeans or sneakers rule may irk some, and the requirement of a jacket and tie in the restaurants may seem old fashioned, they work to enforce the tone attempted here, which some may find a bit snooty. So be it; if that’s not your thing, there are plenty of alternatives. But if you’d like to step back to the glamour of a past age, this is the place to do it.

RitzInterior

After a nap we headed out for a snack, and after wandering around a bit ended up at our old standby, Bentley’s. Dani and I first found this play quite a few years ago, up an alley called Swallow Street (lots of bars there?) off of Piccadilly. The place seems to have been the only thing around that survived the bombing in WWII, and has been operating since 1916.

Bentleys

Bentley’s specializes in fresh seafood and shellfish.  It has a cozy, pub-like interior, but on this day it was great to dine in the covered area out front, basically the middle of the street.

The wine selection is particularly well-suited to fish and especially the shellfish selections. You can’t go wrong with the Albarino, and it went great with my prepared crab appetizer.

PreparedCrab

Back to the hotel and a bit of journalling, and then it was time for dinner at the very dressy Ritz Restaurant, right in our hotel.

RitzRestaurant

Regarded by many as the world’s most beautiful dining room, the Restaurant at the Ritz offers a rarefied experience, at rarefied prices. But actually the tasting menu, which included eight courses for 95 pounds, was a good deal. While the food is not likely to garner Michelin stars, several courses were quite good. The matching wine pairings were generous, but few actually matched the food. Service was, of course, impeccable.

Monday morning the alarm got us out of bed, but we were pretty much on time zone for our trip to Windsor Castle. This involved navigating the tube to Paddington Station and catching two trains. This sounds harder than it turned out to be, and we arrived in about 60 minutes (although it must be said that the tickets we bought failed to work in almost every single turnstile and we had to be let through manually, a difficulty that seemed to be a matter of course).

Windsor has a nice mall attached to the train station (and in retrospect this is where we should have eaten), but the castle itself is surrounded by tacky tourist shops. We had a lunch reservation at what turned out to be a chain Thai restaurant, and we were early, so Linda had time for a bit of shopping.

ThaiSquareExterior

The Thai restaurant, Thai Square, was conveniently located adjacent to Windsor Castle. It features attractive decor in its various interconnected dining rooms.

It was mediocre at best. The curry was the best thing we tried. The “Golden Sack” and rib appetizers were unremarkable, as was the duck entree. Service was pleasant but not particularly attentive.

Then it was on to Windsor Castle. Unfortunately no pictures allowed, but here are some.

A drizzly Monday proved to be the perfect time to visit, as crowds were very light. We had repurchased tickets which were mailed to us by Royal Post, and that allowed us to skip the short line that was there, but on a busy day this would be essential.

The castle offers a self-guided audio tour that is excellent. I was surprised at the amount of access afforded, as we toured nearly every public room, including where state visitors are entertained. At 3:15 we rendezvoused with our pre-booked Kitchen tour, and with a group of only a half dozen were taken on a very informative private tour of the kitchen used to cater dinners for more than 170 dignitaries. I highly recommend this, as there were many insights beyond the kitchen itself, and the tour was provided by a member of the Queen’s staff.

One of the more interesting aspect of both tours was to hear about the restoration following a catastrophic fire in 1992. This afforded the opportunity to restore some things just as they were, improve a few others, and to uncover a considerable amount of previously unknown history. All in all, quite an interesting day, and perhaps the top activity I’ve done in London.

For dinner we originally had reservations at a particularly difficult to ge tot restaurant, Trinity, but decided to change, and I was able to book us a late dinner at a nearby Indian restaurant I’d heard a lot about. This proved to be a great move. And it turned out to be right beyond Bentley’s in Swallow Street.

It’s hardly surprising that all of the best Indian meals I’ve had have been in London, even include some Michelin starred meals. But Veeraswamy may well be the best of the best.

I was actually not expecting it to be quite that good, because the opentable listing emphasizes their corporate connections, plus a recommendation by National Geographic(?!)

Veeraswamy

Yet everything we tried was one of the best Indian dishes I’ve tasted, and we tried quite a few items, sampling four appetizers and a vegetarian main that included four separate dishes. Particular highlights were the Raj Kachori, a fancy version of Indian street food consisting of a crisp wheat puri filled with goodies, and Scallop Moilee, which came in a stunning coconut and ginger sauce. My wife is a Chicken Tikka aficionado, and proclaimed this one the best Indian dish she ever tasted.

There is also an excellent wine list, highlighted by some very well-described white and red Burgundies.

This will definitely be the Indian restaurant we return to on our next visit to London.

I was not ready to get up when the alarm went off Tuesday! It’s not that I wasn’t on schedule, just that dinner was very LATE.

A quick taxi ride brought us to The Royal Albert Hall, for our tour. We were again fortunate to have a small group of ten, and an excellent guide. It was so much a behind the scenes tour (since there really isn’t a “backstage” in a round auditorium) as a tour that gave us a look at the installation process for a new show (although we did also get to tour the Queen’s private rooms).

We watched the seating installation, sound check and lighting tests for the night’s Spandau Ballet movie and live performance, and learned many interesting things about the 150 year old facility built to fulfill a vision of Prince Albert, who didn’t live to see it completed.

In 1851 Albert organized the first World’s Fair, housed inside the enormous Crystal Palace in Hyde Park (it was later moved to South London, and burned in 1936). With the profits of the fair he bought a huge parcel of Kensington with the intent of creating a collection of science and art museums, which has indeed come to pass. He began with plans to construct a great performing hall, but died before construction began. A devastated Queen Victoria spent the money instead on the incredibly elaborate Albert Memorial. I suspect Albert would not have been pleased. Anyway, the Royal Albert Hall was eventually constructed through the financing device of selling one third of the seats on a 999 year lease.

After our tour we caught the tube across London to see the installation of red poppies at The Tower of London.

Poppies1

The poppies were installed this summer to commemorate the 100th anniversary of WWI. There is one poppy for each casualty, which really makes the pointlessness of that (and every) conflict quite apparent.

Poppies2

 

After our brief stop at the Tower, we caught a boat back to Westminster. Cruising the Thames is something we hadn’t done before, and it was interesting to see Tower Bridge, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Shakespeare’s Globe, The London Eye, Big Ben and Parliament from that vantage point.

 

Thames

In Westminster we decided to see if we could get into Roux at Parliament Square on the spur of the moment, since it was nearly 2pm and lunch hour was winding down. Luck! We did.

Roux is the sister restaurant to and old favorite, LeGavroche. There is a superb prix fixe lunch menu at a very affordable price (so affordable, we couldn’t resist spending several times as much on a wonderful Corton Charlemagne, the perfect accompaniment).

I selected a cassoulet of squid and smoked mussels as my starter. It was richly flavored without being excessively buttery, although there was certainly plenty of that on the wonderful toast served with it.

SquidMusseles

For my main I had the mackerel. This is a dish for true fish lovers, as it’s of course quite fishy, but was not at all oily, just moist, and with a perfectly crisped skin. The accompanying beets were luscious.

Mackerel

A wonderful cheese trolley capped off a delightful meal. Professional yet friendly service increased our enjoyment, making us feel particularly lucky to have been squeezed in without a booking.

Highly recommended as a dressy, sophisticated retreat from the tourist-choked streets outside!

We walked back to our hotel through St. James’ Park, past Buckingham Palace and through Green Park.

StJames

After an evening of journalling, we took the tube north and then walked to Pied a Terre, which has become one of our favorite London restaurants. The atmosphere is intimate, and perfectly suited to romance or business discussions.

The food–especially the tasting menus–is as good as any from London’s other top rated restaurants. But the real difference at Pied a Terre is the wine service.

Rather than simply selecting and pouring wines with each course, it is the restaurant’s practice to offer a blind tasting, where the wine is poured first so you can taste it alone, then the course is served so you can see how it matches, and then you are asked to comment on the wine and (if you wish) guess what it is.

We find this to be tremendous fun. It forges a camaraderie with the sommelier that sets the experience apart from all other fine dining experiences.

On our last visit we were fooled by most of the wines, but I have to say on this evening our performance was impressive.

Linda had by far the more challenging wine pairing, the “Discovery” series, which included very obscure wines and regions such as Croatia. Yet she managed to blind identify an  Assyrtiko from Santorini(!), a very unusual pinot noir blanc from Burgundy, and a Grenache from Australia—in each case not just the grape but the region. Wow!

I had a much easier time of it with the “Classic” pairing, and identified four out of eight wines by type and region, mostly by nose alone, including a French Sauvignon Blanc (although I thought it was from Sancerre, not Pouilly Fume), a German Riesling (always the easiest varietal), a red Bordeaux (I even identified that it was a 2009 Pomerol), a vintage port (easy). I was reasonably close but not exact on the others (Pinot Gris, an odd white Burgundy, late harvest botrytised Vouvray, and Vinsanto from Santorini [which we have in our cellar!]).

PiedaTerre

A very fun evening.

We got to bed late and slept in. At last, a vacation day!

Then is was off to the West End by to to see a show. Before hand we had lunch at The Salisbury, a very historical pub next to the theatre. It’s almost 300 years old.

Salisbury

It’s a good place for lunch before a matinee show at any of the nearby theatres. The food and beverage selections are what you’d expect, and there is a charming period decor. Service is friendly, and accommodating of foreign visitors, so the you can usually order at your table rather than the bar, as is more traditional.

The show we saw was a new Disney-produced stage version of the Tom Stoppard written Shakespeare In Love. This adaptation closely followed the movie, was well staged, brilliantly acted, and made extensive use of on-stage musical performers who created the score as they performed.

I really enjoyed this production, and it brought home to me how parallel the outer story is to the inner story of Romeo and Juliet (but without all that dying). I don’t know how well it will do in the States, but it has certainly been popular here.

After the show we walked a few short blocks to our other favorite London restaurant, L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon.

We’ve dined here both upstairs and down, and at the sister restaurants in Las Vegas and (now closed) New York. Of all of them, this is our favorite, because of the intimate size of the downstairs area. It offers arguably the best tasting menu in London, with wine pairings that superbly match each course.

lAtelierLondon2014

The artistry of the food arrangement is really unsurpassed, and it’s great fun to watch it being assembled before you, so be sure to ask for a seat at the counter. This makes it easy to chat with the servers and sommelier, making it a friendly, energizing experience. For parties of more than two a few tables are available downstairs, which I recommend over the less intimate upstairs dining room.

lAtelierLondonCaviar

After a wonderful dinner we headed back to the hotel to sleep, pack, and catch meet our driver for tomorrow’s cruise departure.

It was a great four days in London.