Two Peas in a European Pod: One Week in Ireland & England — Day 5
Buckingham Palace, symbol and home of the British monarchy, j. chilling in the heart of Westminster
9:35am, Thursday — We sit down at Hatch 77, a cute little breakfast spot down the street from the Airbnb, dressed to the nines (okay, maybe the eights or sevens…) in our Shakespearean theater-going attire. These fake glasses will not last long.
Waking up in London had been an item on my travel bucket list for years — years! — and finally the day had arrived. When my alarm went off at about 8:30 a.m. Thursday, I opened my eyes and found myself in a flat — a flat! — on Longmoore Street in Westminster, with one of the most iconic cities in the world waiting just outside the door. Yes, we had done the Ghost, Ghouls & Gallows walking tour the night before; yes, we had already laid eyes on Big Ben and the London Eye and the Tower of London; and yes, we had already experienced riding the tube (“mind the gap!”) following a nightcap at a low-key cocktail bar. All of that is true, but this would be a full, entire, complete day in the capital of the U.K., and I could not have been more stoked.
True to form, we had a couple of items on our makeshift itinerary, but before museum-ing and taking in a militarized, modern-dress iteration of Shakespeare’s Othello at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse theater, we carved out a little time for the most important meal of the day at a charming café right down the street from our Airbnb. With a Shakespeare play on the docket, I thought it only fitting that we get dressed up a little bit — at least for the first part of the day. Thus, I walked out the door in the outfit you see in the photo below, complete with a pipe that I had packed for this express purpose (I’ve never actually smoked out of the thing).
10:49am — The Tate Britain comes into sight as we round the corner. An art museum for $FREE.99? That’s an immediate yes.
Hatch 77, which feels like one big breakfast nook, was just about the perfect place to get Day 5 rolling. A cup of coffee and a Hatch Benedict sandwich (poached eggs on sourdough with bacon and burnt butter hollandaise) nourished my tummy, while the café’s cozy interior, sporting an array of plants, checkered tile flooring, and a healthy amount of natural light, nourished my soul. And if you want to punch me after reading that, I understand.
Following breakfast, a brisk 15-minute walk delivered us to the steps of the Tate Britain, an art museum along the River Thames that houses British artwork from the 16th century up to present day. Named after its founder, Sir Henry Tate, it is one of the largest museums in England and draws hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
It’s got all your standard art museum trappings — lots of paintings of very serious-looking Victorian-era children in stuffy clothes; statues and relics and audio displays; a permanent collection featuring some prominent names, such as Francis Bacon, J.M.W. Turner, and everyone’s favorite: Unknown 17th-Century Artist — but also of note is the fact that the museum sits on the site of the former Millbank Prison, which was allegedly quite a dreadful place to be incarcerated.
What’s more, the Tate Britain is but one piece of the Tate system of museums, if you will, which also includes the Tate Modern in Bankside (which we’ll get to a little later), the Tate Liverpool + RIBA North up in Liverpool, and the Tate St Ives over in Cornwall. Together, of course, they form what’s known as Optimus Tate*, a super museum life form bent on world domina… err, infusing the U.K. with arts and culture up to the wazoo.
(*I totally just made this up, to be clear.)
1:58pm — We take our seats at the intimate Sam Wanamaker Playhouse theater for a modern-ish telling of Othello. It’s not long into the performance that I realize I might need back surgery after sitting here for 2.5+ hours.
While it is a penchant — even a trademark, you might say — of mine to be late for anything and everything on god's (gods’?) green earth, the fine print on our e-tickets for Shakespeare’s Othello basically said, “Don’t be late, or else!”, and I took that to heart. So after spending a couple hours soaking up all of that art and culture at the Tate Britain, we summoned Kuldeep and his Tesla on the good ole Uber app machine and made our way over to the Bankside area with plenty of time to spare before the 2 p.m. showtime.
Enough time to spare, in fact, that we popped in at Swan for a little pre-show snack-ety snack. It was a good thing we were dressed fancy, too, because this was the kind of place — modern, elegant, sophisticated — that called for such decorum. Still holding fairly steady from breakfast, we set aside any notion of a two- or three-course meal and went straight for a mid-afternoon dessert. Two panna cotta. Two Irish coffees. Two happy customers.
Then came Othello, a Shakespearean tale of love, jealousy, and murder most foul. This telling, though, was at the particularly small and intimate Sam Wanamaker Playhouse theater, which is modeled on the candlelit theatre-going experiences of Shakespeare’s London. The place can hold up to 340 guests, but feels much smaller. And, if you happen to snag one of the few dozen seats in the pit, you will get the distinct sensation that the actors are practically in your lap as they scream and shout and let it all out.
Down in the pit, right in the heart of it, is precisely where we chose to sit (largely because those seats were some of the only ones left when we bought the tickets at the last minute (AKA the day before)). Thus, as the actors playing Othello and Iago and Cassio and Desdemona whisked about the stage, portraying their tale as old as time, the action and drama were so close, we could have practically reached out and touched it. Of course, we kept our hands to ourselves — primarily out of an abundance of caution, lest we induce Iago to whip Othello into a frothy frenzy aimed not at his beloved Desdemona, but at us (!).
Patty & Bun, a nifty burger joint with several locations across London, is the perfect spot to pick up a little protein
Once the tragedy had played out in full on stage, we stepped outside and were greeted by an overcast London afternoon. Apparently not museum-ed out, we decided to pop in at the Tate Modern, which sits right next door to the theater. It was nearly closing time, but we had about a half hour to soak up several displays of contemporary and modern art, including some trippy light displays. Much like the Tate Britain, access to most of the museum is free, but there are also revolving paid exhibitions which feature certain artists or creators.
7:30pm — The area around Buckingham Palace is abuzz on a slightly dreary evening — only, the stone-faced soldiers of the King’s Guard are MIA. Perhaps they were caught painting the roses red?
All right, quick: hop in the virtual time machine with me and let’s fast forward a couple hours to Thursday evening. The Tate Modern has melted away — as have our fancy outfits, which were shed during a brief stop back at the Airbnb — and given way to the gate of Buckingham Palace, the official residence of His Majesty, King Charles III (although, as we established back on Day 4, he is not staying there right now). Had we planned ahead, perhaps we could have done a private tour of the royal residence; alas, we had done no such thing, and the place is generally only open to the public otherwise during the summer months.
So we joined the flock outside the gates instead, snapping a few photos as the uniformed police officers stood sentry within, welcoming us to the grounds with a smile and a wave of their assault rifles. Also there to greet us was the Victoria Memorial, a monument to Queen Victoria that sits between Buckingham and a stretch of road called The Mall, a ceremonial route lined with enormous flags representing countries from across the globe that runs from the palace to nearby Trafalgar Square. I tried cracking a joke, but ole Vicky sat stiff as a rock; not even the faintest smirk, if you can believe that. Honestly, she’s probably just pissed that Queen Elizabeth II beat her out for longest-serving British monarch by seven years.
Escaping from Vicky’s stone-cold gaze, we ventured back over to St. James’s Park, hoping to perhaps catch a glimpse of the headless ghost of the Red Lady that tour guide John had told us about the previous night. She was, unsurprisingly, a no-show, leaving us to be entertained only by the turf war being carried out by a pair of swans floating on St. James’s Park Lake near the Blue Bridge. No matter, as moments later we made way for the BoTree Hotel — a British GQ recommendation — over in Marylebone to get the evening started in earnest with a couple of wallet-gouging adult beverages.
8:41pm — Our bartender, who is actually dressed to the nines, suspenders and all, discards a drink-in-progress and gets into a spat with his compatriot behind the bar. He then disappears into the recesses of the place, forcing us to wonder if he has potentially lost his head (these Alice in Wonderland references doing anything for you?).
Being the bold little travelers that we were, we walked all the way over to the BoTree, which is a solid 30-minute trek on foot from where we were in St. James’s Park. And just to spice things up a little, raindrops began to fall as we strode by all the fancy shops — Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Hermés, and the like — on New Bond Street in the upscale Mayfair district. It was only a teaser, thankfully, as the clouds let up and spared us (that is, until a couple hours later on the walk back to our place in Westminster).
The BoTree, which describes itself as a luxury boutique hotel, opened in September 2023 and is basically positioned where Marylebone, Mayfair, and Soho (in other words, three snazzy neighborhoods) come together. It’s a place to stay, first and foremost, sporting 199 rooms (because the 200th would have just been overkill, I guess?), but also features a restaurant and bar, and seems to be the kind of place “people in the know” would go. Of course, in typing that out, I probably just murdered the vibe, so if you ever end up grabbing a drink here and the experience is lame, you can go ahead and blame it on me. I’ll take that bullet for you.
9:45pm — After a couple of fruitless attempts at finding a late dinner, we land at Patty & Bun on the alley-like Kingly Street. Their Cherry Bomb cocktail — essentially a grenadine-infused Old-Fashioned — provides the second “immediate yes” of the day.
Finding a spot to grab a bite to eat following our little cocktail hour was another adventure unto itself. Twice we entered establishments that, were their kitchens not already closed, would have been mighty fine joints to close out the night. But that whole rule-of-three, third-time’s-the-charm thing came roaring right back as we finally landed at Patty & Bun, which mercifully slings burgers and fries until 10:30 p.m. on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights.
With a little healthy grease lining our tummies, that walk back to Longmoore Street in the rain wasn’t all that bad.
-LTH