I recently had the pleasure of visiting the United Kingdom for the first time in my life. I've always wanted to go to the U.K. and the opportunity arose earlier this year after my company was named the new importer/distributor of Naim Audio in the United States. We knew that a factory visit to Salisbury, U.K. would be coming and it happened toward the end of June.
If you remember my earlier entry on why I wasn't in Paris when I should have been a month ago (click here to see that entry), United Airlines did their best to try and screw up this trip. Whereas I will be going to Paris at some point later this summer, this trip to the U.K. was a one-off and I couldn't miss my flight out of Moline. I had a 1:10 p.m. flight out of Moline to go to Chicago for a 3:40 p.m. flight to London. I had finished a sandwich just before noon and went into my home office to get my cellphone. About 10 minutes earlier, United had sent me a text message telling me that my 1:10 p.m. flight had been delayed - once again to a late arriving plane - to 2:20 with a 3:10 arrival in Chicago. I knew that I wouldn't make my Chicago to London flight and I began to panic.
I sat and figured the time it would take to get to O'Hare - usually about a 2 hour and 40 minute drive from my home to the airport. I needed to be there at 2:40 for the latest chance to check in. I figured that I could push the speed somewhat going into Chicago, so if I left right then at 11:55 I could possibly shave 10 to 15 minutes off the normal time and get in around 2:20 to 2:25 p.m. My bags were packed and in the car already, I had enough gas. I got in the car and took off. Surprisingly, I pulled into the parking garage at O'Hare at 2:10 p.m. - it took me 2 hours and 15 minutes to drive from my house to O'Hare. I got checked in quickly and for some reason I'm a TSA Precheck passenger (I never signed up for it, they just must have decided that I fly enough and have given them little problems) and I went right by the long lines and through security in no time. I made it to my gate on the C concourse 15 minutes before we began to board.
I never sleep on flights and when we got into Heathrow at 5:45 in the morning I was pretty tired. It was 11:45 p.m. body time and I didn't know if I'd have the chance to get some sleep during the day or if I would just stay up as long as I could. I chose the latter. Or I should say that it was chosen for me.
The new Terminal 2 at Heathrow - the Queen's Terminal as the signs said - had just recently opened. Getting through customs was a breeze, unlike the horror stories I'd heard about the old Terminal 2 that opened in 1955. I had colleagues flying in from New York and Canada, so I took a seat outside the customs area and waited for everyone to show up. After everyone arrived and we all got together, we met up with a couple drivers who took us to Salisbury, an hour and 10 minute drive from Heathrow.
Salisbury is the home of Naim Audio. It's most significant structure in the city is the Salisbury Cathedral, a medieval, gothic-style church that was primarily built in the 13th century. The spire on the cathedral is 404 feet high and was finished in 1320. It was - and still is - the tallest church spire in the United Kingdom. You could see the spire just about anywhere you were in Salisbury as long as there were no obstructions. It was a great point of reference if you were lost.
After a factory tour and quick meeting at Naim, we were ferried to our hotel, the Lazy Cow. It turned out that the Lazy Cow was just across the street from the cathedral's St. Ann's gate. In fact, we were told that in the room directly above the gates, baroque composer George Frideric Handel stayed there in the 18th century when visiting Salisbury.
We actually got to the cathedral a little late - it closes at 4:30 p.m. to tourists - but the thing we most wanted to see was one of the only four known existing copies of the original Magna Carta. The one at the Salisbury Cathedral is said to be in the best shape of the four existing copies. It was in a glass-housed display case in a room in the cathedral and no pictures were permitted. We found that out when one of my co-workers took a picture of the stained glass in the room. An elderly gentleman sternly admonished my colleague for taking a picture in the room. We all kind of looked at one another, smiled and shrugged our shoulders. We couldn't quite understand why pictures weren't allowed, but we went with the old guy's wishes. About five minutes after we entered the room, we were shepherded out as they were closing.
Salisbury is also just 8 miles away from Stonehenge. We had planned on going out to Stonehenge, but we were told that it was at least a two-hour visit and we didn't really have that kind of time. It used to be that there was a narrow road that led to a small parking area that overlooked Stonehenge on its west side where you could see a good portion of it without having to pay a fee to get up closer to it. However, not long ago they built a new visitor's center further away from Stonehenge and now you have to go through a lengthy program before you get on a bus and it takes you out to the stone monument. And it costs £15 pounds (a little over $25 bucks) per person to get in. So this picture was taken from a van going by Stonehenge on the motorway at about 50 miles per hour. (We had also planned on going to see the Roman baths and ruins at Bath, about an hour away from Salisbury. But time constraints - mainly in the form of trainings - didn't allow us to do that.)
One of the days we were in Salisbury, we took a full day to go up to a dealer event in Moreton-in-Marsh, a small hamlet in Gloucestershire. On the way, we took a side trip to see another similar henge monument - Avebury. The rock formations and outer henge (or ditch) date back to 2600 B.C. and were most likely used for some sort of ceremonial ritual. I've seen a couple different diagrams as to how archaeologists depicted the stone pillar circles at Avebury - one had three concentric rings starting with a small one in the middle, a larger one further out and the largest circle of stones on the perimeter just inside the henge. Another showed two smaller circles side by side within the center of the large circle of stones. (Most archaeologists believe this formation to be the correct one.) Either way, most of the stones were torn down and removed in the late Middle Ages to Early Modern Period for whatever reason. The rest of the stones were dismantled in the 17th century after the site was mapped by a couple of historians.
The Avebury site was "rediscovered" in the 1930's and archeologists undertook the task of trying to recreate the ritual circles with the remaining stones available. Like Stonehenge, Avebury is owned by the National Trust, a government run organization that oversees historical sites back to prehistoric days. It doesn't matter that a number of houses - including a great little pub - and farm land are in the middle of the Avebury site.
Much of the stone structures are in the middle of a sheep field. A very smelly sheep field. You had to watch where you stepped in the pasture as there were dozens of sheep grazing - and crapping - around the Avebury stones. A winding limestone path along the henge kept you clean most of the time, but it didn't matter where you walked. The smell of sheep shit was burned into my olfactory system the rest of the day.
Venturing on to Moreton-in-Marsh, we found ourselves at a dealer event hosted by Ultimate Home Entertainment Systems, one of the largest Naim Audio dealers in the U.K. Dr. Norman Soloman, one of the partners in UHES, greeted us to his English country manor that also served as their retail outlet. The dealer event was being held in conjunction with Bentley Motors, the high-end British automaker. A number of Bentley cars were displayed on the front lawn of the manor, along with cars of UHES clients who have bought systems in the past from Dr. Soloman and his partner Ian Rocchi. Naim Audio provides the sound systems for Bentleys. I did get to sit in the front seat of a Bentley Mulsanne to listen to the system. Then I found out later that the dealer on-site gave some of my colleagues a ride in the same car. That's one car ride I'm sorry I missed out on.
The house featured a rock garden in the back and a gourmet kitchen along with four showrooms within the house. We were able to listen briefly to the new Naim Statement amplifier along with a pair of the Focal Grande Utopia III's. The system was a little too big for the room and the sound suffered, in my opinion.
Here is the view past the stone wall in the back yard over the green and pleasant land of England. Dr. Soloman told us that the previous house they had they their business in an old castle about 30 miles away. However, it cost them something like £10,000 pounds (about $17,000 bucks) a month in the winter to heat the place. They found this modern English manor on the Great Wolford area a year or so ago. I wish I could say it was your typical English country home, but it was far from that.
After our time with Naim Audio was over, we spent an extra day in the U.K. and traveled up to London as a group to go and do and see on Saturday. If we had flown home on Saturday morning after the week long training it would have cost us each about a $1000 bucks more than what it ended up costing us by staying over on Saturday night. Even with the cost of 8 hotel rooms at the equivalent of $150 to $200 each at the modern and stylish Holiday Inn Commercial Road in the east end of London - along with a nice lunch and a wonderful dinner - we ended up saving the company thousands of dollars by spending a day and a night in London.
It was about a five minute walk from our hotel to the Whitechapel station on the London Underground. We took the "Tube" along the District Line to the Tower Hill to take a look at the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. (Tower Bridge is in the photo above this one.)
Just west of the London Tower is this somewhat "walkie-talkie" shaped building became famous last year for melting part of a Jaguar as the sun's rays hit the parabolic-shaped windows and directed the heat down to the parked car on the street below. They were in the process of putting up some sort of sheath on the outside of the building to block the rays of the sun from hitting the windows.
After a nice lunch, we walked to Trafalgar Square and Lord Nelson's column. We wanted to go up and touch the column - as I understand you're supposed to do - but they were having a Gay Pride program going on that day and there was a stage set up with performers and thousands of people milling about. It continued to rain off and on, but that didn't seem to faze the people listening to the music.
The stately Victorian buildings around Trafalgar Square and Charing Cross were wonderful to look at. Unfortunately, thanks to the large crowd in the square, we couldn't see the fountains or the four plinths holding statues. But it was still somewhat of a thrill to finally see Trafalgar Square.
We took off down Whitehall and came across Old Scotland Yard, the Cabinet Office, the Old War Office building that was in use from the 18th Century to the mid-1900's, and also the entry to Downing Street (above right), which, of course, is home to the Prime Minister's residence. You really couldn't see much of anything other than the big gate and a bunch of guards.
At the corner of where Whitehall, Bridge and Birdcage Walk meet up, we found Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. The iconic clock tower with the adjoining buildings were something that I've seen for years, but finally I had the perspective of where everything was in my mind. It was pretty cool to stand across the way in Parliament Square and get some pictures of the place.
From there, we went down Victoria St. and came across Westminster Abbey. This is a horrible attempt at a panoramic shot of the cathedral, but it was starting to rain pretty heavily at this point and my "give-a-shit" factor was getting kind of low. Parts of the building date back to the 10th century and nearly every royal coronation has taken place in Westminster Abbey since 1066 and a number of royal weddings have taken place here, as well. British monarchs from the 11th century up to 1760 are buried in Westminster Abbey. Other notables buried in Westminster Abbey include Sir Issac Newton, Charles Darwin and author Geoffrey Chaucer as well a number of politicians, generals, and artists.
After stopping in a wonderful little pub to get out of the rain and have a beer or two near Westminster Abbey, we ventured on to Birdwalk Cage and walked along St. James Park which took us to Buckingham Palace. Coming around the corner, there was the palace. The Union Jack flag was flying on the flag pole in the front and that signified that Queen Elizabeth II was, indeed, there at that time. It was at this time that I lost most of the guys in my group as I was taking pictures of the palace from different angles. I was able to catch up to them in front of the front gates of the palace.
I walked across the roundabout to the Victoria Memorial to get a better look of the palace and back up toward the Mall. The Victoria Memorial was dedicated in 1910 to Queen Victoria, the longest reigning British Monarch at 63 years, 216 days when she passed away in 1901. However, if Queen Elizabeth II makes it to September 10, 2015, she would not only pass Queen Victoria as the longest reigning British monarch, but the longest reigning female monarch in the world. I'm not betting against the ol' gal.
Here is the panoramic view of the front of Buckingham palace from the Victoria Memorial. The steady rain was making it very muggy, but it wasn't a cold rain. Even with an umbrella, my clothes were pretty moist.
And here's a panoramic view of The Mall. This faces northeast from Buckingham Palace toward Trafalgar Square and Charing Cross. The Queen's Garden is on either side of the Mall, which is one of the most famous parade routes in the world.
We went over through Green Park just to the north of the palace and had to stop off at the Canada Memorial just past the Canada Gate that allows you to enter into the park. The memorial was dedicated by Queen Elizabeth II in 1994. The memorial was especially significant for my Canadian colleague, Todd. He was telling us that his grandfather was a twice decorated member of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in World War I and a mustard gas survivor.
After getting out of Green Park, there was some discussion of shopping and we ended up going over to Piccadilly Circus and Regent Street. High end retail shops and boutiques, restaurants, hotels and other services lined both Piccadilly and Regent Streets. The prices were, well, exorbitant. I looked for a simple silk scarf for Cindy and the cheapest thing I found was £89 pounds ($150 bucks). Uh, I love my wife, but even $150 bucks for a scarf was out of my league.
And that was it. We took the tube back to the hotel, enjoyed a nice warm shower, a little nap and then a great dinner that evening. We all flew home the next day. I don't know how many times I'll get to go to the U.K. for business - (we have Cambridge Audio that's based in London, but they've never had us over for meetings - they always come to North America, probably because the food is better!) - but for my first visit I liked what I saw. There were times that I wished I wasn't with a group and had time to linger for a bit, but from what I experienced I was happy with what I saw. And, quite actually, the food we had was pretty good - a lot better than I anticipated considering the stories I've heard about British food and restaurants. I'll have some of the places we went to in upcoming entries.
Comments