London Calling!

[dutchfire]

To bring it back around to London. It's an easy way to spot tourists. Tourists wait at the corner for the light to change and only cross in proper crosswalks.

And they look the wrong way when seeing if it is save to cross, if they're from the continent.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

He's coming in June. September for me. My wife is threatening to not let me get drunk the entire week.

Probably best not to get drunk for the entire week. A couple days held in reserve are always a good idea.

 

[Farm Boy]

June's not too bad. As long as the weather's not too hot, beer does very nicely. Avoid July and August, though.

Well, you can't actually avoid July and August - they seem to come every year; once each. Just don't expect the beer to be at its best.

July and August here are good honest hot, usually. Though it's lovely outside on summer nights.

This is probably the nicest time of year. My random things are all in bloom due to the fact that I always first mow a month later than most people to let them flower out. The scattering of grape hyacinths and teeny tiny violets are up. The black raspberries are starting to leaf out in the fence rows we've managed to let stay untouched for ~100 years. Forsythias look pretty, lilacs are greening. The redbud will pop soon. Then it'll just get hot and grassy and the bugs'll come out.

Probably best not to get drunk for the entire week. A couple days held in reserve are always a good idea.

Well yea, I burn out on getting lit after once, usually. And I do want to wander through the museums. Possibly the Abbey. I don't know. I have a hard time coming up with things to see in cities that I'm super excited about other than museums, usually.

 

[Perfection]

 

[Birdjaguar]

Whats the expected weather in London in June? How hot is hot and is rain traditional?

 

[Flying Pig]

It's entirely possible to get a week or more without rain - hot would be about 18 to 25 degrees Celsius.

 

[Borachio]

This is probably the nicest time of year. My random things are all in bloom due to the fact that I always first mow a month later than most people to let them flower out. The scattering of grape hyacinths and teeny tiny violets are up. The black raspberries are starting to leaf out in the fence rows we've managed to let stay untouched for ~100 years. Forsythias look pretty, lilacs are greening. The redbud will pop soon. Then it'll just get hot and grassy and the bugs'll come out.

Yup. Same here. Everything's perking up nicely now. And I, too, delay mowing parts of my lawn rough pasture to let some of the wildflowers bloom properly. Then I have to keep cutting it weekly until it stops growing in the summer due to lack of water.

 

[Farm Boy]

Yea, I get annoyed when I have to start mowing every week. Though I suppose if I was doing it "properly" it'd probably get it a couple times a week for the first part of summer. It's just not a huge amount of fun to do it midday, though I suppose if it was 18 - 25C it wouldn't be quite so objectionable.

 

[sophie]

Whats the expected weather in London in June? How hot is hot and is rain traditional?

Always anticipate rain. Always.

 

[Birdjaguar]

18 to 25 hot?

That's 64-77 and sweater weather.

 

[Flying Pig]

In New Mexico, perhaps - but 28C would be going for the hottest day of the year, so we make do with what we can. There's a well-known phenomenon whereby British men will take their shirts off and have a barbecue the first day that it could even remotely be called 'warm'.

 

[Mise]

Great idea!

Yes, it is looking less feasible to make it a day trip. I guess i could stand a night in Paris...
Stonehenge? Dover? Highclere Castle? Glastonbury Tor? Maggie's Abby's Farm?

I think of GB as a pretty small place. In NM you have to drive 2-3 hours to reach the state line and 8 hours to reach Phoenix or Denver. It takes lots of driving to get anywhere beyond our desert and mountains. I kinda of imagine that 8 hours on a freeway from London would put me in Oslo or Madrid at least.

Yeah, you can easily get to any of those places for a day trip. Stonehenge is indeed disappointing (it's just a bunch of rocks) but you can always go there on your way to Bath or a castle or something.

I want to see the Tower of London, but wonder if any of the other "royal" places are worth a visit when I could be in the British Museum. Any opinions on whether HMS Victory is better than the Cutty Sark?

British Museum is HUGE, so you might want to either do a little bit at a time over a few trips (it's pretty central - I often pop in if I've got an hour to kill in central london, and you can even do this during your "business phase" after work is done), or you could easily spend an entire day just in one section of the museum. It's amazing how much stuff we've stolen from other countries...

Personally, I don't think any of the Palaces or "royal" bits are worth spending too much time in. See them from the outside, maybe wander around in the free bit if there is one, but generally they cater to old nationalists who just love the monarchy, and aren't particularly interesting to someone like me.

I've never been to HMS Victory (that's in Portsmouth, right?) but I would go to Cutty Sark anyway, as it's in Maritime Greenwich, which is one of my favourite parts of London. Not only is it a beautiful place with lovely buildings and a nice little hill with good views over the city, it also has the national observatory and maritime museums, which if you play Civ are probably things you want to see!

 

[sophie]

British Museum is great, but I prefer the National Gallery, which is also free and amazing. There's also the BL, which, while you need special permission to get access to the stacks, has some rotating exhibits that are pretty cool. While I was there they had the first draft of Jack Kerouac's On the Road (which was written in one feverish sitting on a single roll of typewritten paper) and a lengthy exhibit on 18th century classical music manuscripts.

St. Paul's and Westminster Cathedral are quite nice to visit, although expensive. Hyde Park is also rather obvious but for good reason. I didn't do Buckingham, finding it not really worth the price. If you're planning on going all the way out to Somerset, I'd recommend you stop by Wells and check out the cathedral there. It's quite impressive.

 

[Borachio]

Also Tate Modern.

And the Globe, which is worth a sight of, but probably not that worth it.

Then there's the new Wanamaker Playhouse, which I haven't been to.

Bugrit! I'd miss them all and spend the time more fruitfully down the pub.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

18 to 25 hot?

That's 64-77 and sweater weather.

I call BS on this! Every desert dweller knows that if you don a sweater for the brief chill you will have to carry it all day! No one in a real desert wears anything but a t shirt, no matter how chill the brief chill may be. I see kids in t shirts waiting for the school bus when there is frost on the ground, because they know that by recess it will be in the seventies.

 

[Borachio]

What very heaven it was to be young! (I paraphrase). The older you get the more likely you are to don a sweater when the temperature falls to 25 C. And in London it only exceeds 25 C on exceptional days.

edit: I've looked it up:

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It's a desert thing, Mr B. Temperature here swings 40 degrees, minimum (22C for you Europeans) every day. I'm certainly not young, but I'm still too lazy to carry a sweater all day just because there is a chill in the morning.

 

[Borachio]

I understand you.

But Mr Jaguar is even older. And if he feels the need for a sweater when the temperature is 25 C, he needs a sweater. And it's unlikely to get warmer than that in London.

I can (almost) understand his need. I'm simply no longer going to run around to keep warm.

 

[Flying Pig]

Things like wind-chill, sunlight and humidity also play a factor - 18 degrees in the sun on a still day feels warmer than 21 in the shade in a breeze.

 

[Camikaze]

And the Globe, which is worth a sight of, but probably not that worth it.

Seeing a play there is very worthwhile if you're at all a Shakespeare fan. If you're fine with standing for extended periods, being a groundling is interesting.