FUN AND LEARNING IN LONDON BY ROD SHUTTLEWORTH
T
elling teachers you’re planning to take your children out of school for a vacation in London can produce reactions ranging from nods of approval to grim smiles of acceptance. But it’s educational Miss, it really is!
Blessed as we are to live in the Thompson Okanagan, the European history our kids learn in class is remote and theoretical. In England it’s all still right there, both as planned attractions and in random reminders of past centuries. London is packed with living history disguising education as fun – and what better way to stimulate the mind of even the most school-weary 8th grader?
Getting to London from YLW has never been easier. Air Canada offers a choice of daily connecting flights from Kelowna via Calgary, Toronto, or Vancouver, the schedule allowing for an internal hop and quick connection followed by a leisurely overnight flight to London’s Heathrow Airport. Return journeys can be completed in the same day thanks to the 8-hour time difference. Air Canada offers touch-screen televisions at every seat throughout the aircraft, as well as fully flat beds in Executive First, its international business-class cabin. Air Canada offers Executive First, Super Elite and Elite fliers use of its arrivals
lounge at Heathrow’s Terminal 3, complete with showers and a light breakfast. The Heathrow Express train departs from beneath the terminal and whisks travellers into central London in a mere 15 minutes, with tickets
available from machines, a real human, or on the train itself – though there’s a premium payable for buying on the train.
Accommodation options include the usual big-name hotels with big-city prices, but private renting is simple and safe. For our next family trip we have arranged a private apartment just off Oxford Street (London’s premier up-market shopping venue as my Beloved gleefully pointed out) for considerably less than the cost of a hotel room. The Gumtree website is an excellent place to search for private or commercial vacation-rental apartments. Getting around in London is also easier than ever thanks to the “Oyster Card” system. You buy a pre-paid card - the card costs £3 (about $5) and you can top it up
as many times as you like - and swipe it at the turnstiles for the “Tube” (underground trains) or on the public busses. But the most fun way to travel between attractions, and see and learn about London at the same time, is aboard one of the many “hop-on-hop-off” open- topped double-decker busses operated by private tour companies. Tickets can be purchased in advance or on the day, and the departure points are well signed.
Once in London the choice of fun/ educational attractions is endless. Here are some must-do’s for families:
THE TOWER OF LONDON.
A highlight for all ages, a tour of the Tower by an habitually eccentric Yeoman Guard (aka a real Beefeater) is an excellent introduction to the “pain and passion, treachery and torture” of English history from the time of William the Conqueror. Kids will love the
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