At the end of the last blog I left you with a cliffhanger. We were in London and our luggage was still in Newark and had not been sent on a midnight flight to Heathrow as promised. Another call to the United baggage department resulted in them giving us an actual flight number and departure and arrival time for our luggage. We were encouraged to have real information. We had breakfast and left on a bus tour of London. Throughout the tour Bill kept an eye on our luggage trackers and we were encouraged to see the trackers move and disappear which meant they were on a flight.

The London tour was mainly a bus tour with few stops. We have been to London before and had better tours, but I was content to sit on the bus and not have to go up and down the bus steps. Here are some old and new pictures of London.

They Call This Building The Cheese Grater

London Subway

Parliament Building and Big Ben.

Back at the hotel we saw our trackers showed our luggage at a warehouse in north London. We called the company United hired to deliver our luggage and were promised a delivery between 5 and 7 P.M. in the evening. We notified the hotel concierge to be on the lookout for two pieces of luggage. We watched throughout the afternoon as our luggage toured London. It was getting a better tour of London than we did! These photos are interesting statues in London.

President Lincoln

The George Washington statue in London’s Trafalgar Square has American soil, imported from his home at Mount Vernon, Virginia. This was done to honor his legendary wish that he would “never set foot on British soil again”.

Our travel agent had arranged a bon voyage dinner for the 320 of us in our group. We went to dinner at 7:00 P.M. with Bill keeping an eye on the trackers. Finally at 8:30 the trackers notified Bill they had arrived at the hotel. He left the dinner long enough to check to be sure both bags were there and were the correct two bags. We were immensely relieved!!

The next morning after breakfast, all 320 of us boarded buses for the two hour drive to the cruise port in Southampton, England. We noticed the drivers and guides huddled together in deep discussion. Turns out a bad accident on the M3 had closed the major highway and they were discussing alternate routes. Ultimately by the time we reached the scene of the accident, everything had been cleaned up except for sand spread across the road. We safely reached Southampton and boarded the ship for a 28 day cruise.

By the way, my back is doing okay. I am wearing the back brace and trying to be very careful not to fall. My physical therapy is walking and I am doing plenty of that!