London

We are staying At The Rookery Hotel in the Smithfield area of the City of London. The Smithfield market, a giant meat market, is just around the corner. The signs say that it is open from 2am to 10 am. We walked through this morning just before they closed.

We ate breakfast at a shop near our hotel. Here is Duke’s full English breakfast.

We walked a lot today. We were going to go up to the Sky Garden at the top of a new building that is called The Walkie-Talkie. Unfortunately it turns out you need to book in advance so we were turned away. The information guy outside told us that we could probably get in if we were there when they open at ten in the morning so we will give it a try tomorrow.

A few weeks ago I booked a class about online parish records at the Society of Genealogists. I really enjoyed attending the class this afternoon. Genealogy is a passion of mine.

For dinner tonight we ate at a nearby pub, The Fox and Anchor. We shared a chicken and leek pie and a pork chop with potatoes and a duck egg.

On the Road again – Europe 2020 – San Francisco to London

Duke and I are on the road again. We just arrived in London from San Francisco. We will be in London for three nights as we adjust to the jet lag and then we fly to the Canary Islands. If you would like to see our full itinerary you can see it here.

We arrived at London Gatwick on an overnight flight then took the train into London. We had to wait a few minutes for our room to be ready the receptionist offered us a cup of tea while we waited.

After a nap we went for a walk. We are staying near St Paul’s Cathedral.

Before we went back to the hotel we had dinner at a at nearby pub. Bangers and mash for me and fish and chips for Duke.

From Huilo Huilo Biological Preserve, Chile to Home

When we changed our itinerary because of the unrest in Chile we decided to return our car to Puerto Montt where we had rented it and fly to Santiago from Puerto Montt. Our flight was at 1 am on Saturday so Friday we swam at the hotel in the morning and then drove south. We stopped, took a walk and had dinner (including a Pisco tasting) in Puerto Varas before turning in the car and catching our plane. There was an overnight stay in Santiago and the long flight back to San Francisco was uneventful.

It was a wonderful trip. It’s good to be home. We are beginning to plan our next trip. It will be to Europe probably leaving in February.

Huilo Huilo Biological Preserve – Exploring a bit of the Chilean Temperate Rain Forest and Thundering Waterfalls.

We are staying in the Huilo Huilo Biological Preseve. This is a picture of our hotel. When we look out the window of our room it feels like we are in a tree house.

Today was a busy day. This morning we visited the red deer enclosure, the wild boar enclosure and the Museum.

The museum had a mammoth tusk that had been carved.

It also had a really extensive mineral collection. This is a scorpion in amber.

This afternoon we hiked to two more waterfalls not far from the hotel. The first waterfall was Huilo Huilo Falls.

Next we hiked to Puma Falls. There is so much water in the river right now that we got wet from the spray. They have a tree tunnel to walk through but it didn’t help keep us dry at all.

Dinner was pizza and beer at the Peterman Brewery across from the hotel.