Exploring Europe – I Went To London To See Daniels and Harrison

I am not a football fan. My reason for wanting to go to London has nothing to do with sports or admiration of luxury cars. Furthermore, I am no longer a full-blown anglophile. English is my second language. I started to learn it from an early age by watching Cartoon Network and Mr. Bean. However, the language could not be a reason to want to go to London since there are quite a few sunnier countries with English as its native tongue (Malta being one of them).

Probably the match that lit the fire of the need to go to London was a movie called “The Mummy Returns”. You would think Egypt would be the country to see after watching a 3000-year-old corpse come back to life, but for me it is different. In that movie, there is a sequence that takes place in London showing some of its iconic places and objects – the British Museum, the double-decker bus, and the Tower Bridge. For a reason hard to explain it made an impact on a 10-year-old boy and created an itch that needed to be scratched in the future. It finally happened 23 years later when I began my second life at the heart of Europe which has a high-speed train connection with the capital of Great Britain. 

London did not disappoint. The food was good, and the beer was refreshing but the trip was a success mostly because of two great men – George Daniels and John Harrison. Both of them were great British watchmakers.

When we went to Paris we did not book any museum tickets in advance. Our goal was to simply see Paris, eat croissants, and see why Paris was such a tourist attraction (please read my Paris blog if you haven’t already). With London it was different. I booked two museums. The Science Museum to see the exhibition of the Clockmakers of London (the oldest watch museum in the world) and the Royal Observatory with Cutty Sark as a delightful bonus. I did contemplate booking tickets for Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London, but after seeing their prices and taking into account our available time I discarded that idea. In the end, the Science Museum and the Royal Observatory were more than enough for the first London visit.

We stayed at a relatively comfy hotel in the Kensington neighborhood. After arriving at the King Cross St. Pancras station we took the metro (Piccadilly line) to Kensington. It was interesting to compare Brussels and London’s metro. Brussels is spacious whereas London’s felt tight. Now I understand why some call it the tube. Anyway, we easily found our hotel, we left our bags and went to get second and third impressions. What was the first impression? While standing in the tube a wannabe rapper came in and started dropping rhymes with the n-word at the end of almost every line. He finished his verse and left at the next station leaving everyone on the metro with a smile. Our London trip had begun. 

During our brief visit, we mostly wandered around the well-off neighborhoods. We saw houses with white, red, and brown facades that you usually associate with people who have a collection of green Harrod’s bags in their garbage cans. We saw almost every luxury car from Porsche to McLaren. The only brand that we did not manage to see was Bugatti. I understood why YouTube has many London car spotting channels, not to mention the flood of Instagram accounts with London sports cars as its main content. Yes, these houses and streets, and gardens in front of these houses looked nice. However, I can honestly say that I like Brussels and Luxembourg (Paris, of course) more. Something about French-style city architecture speaks to me more. As you can see in my photos the well-off part of London looks clean and attractive. However, one evening on our way to our hotel a guy from the backseat of a Porsche shouted profanity at us. I saw it and it was indeed directed at us because his car had to wait due to our crossing. He looked high as a kite so no drama. But that goes to show you that even in those neighborhoods you would encounter unpleasantries. Makes you wonder how it would be in New York.

The Hyde Park is beautiful and large. The first meaningful building we saw was the Royal Albert Hall. I immediately remembered that Albert Einstein had his last speech there before heading to the USA and never setting foot in Europe ever again. Why this fact? I recently re-watched Oppenheimer on Netflix. After the Royal Albert Hall, we were en route to see Buckingham Palace. A huge gated building with a lot of people outside trying to take a decent selfie. Underwhelming. Then it started to rain and it did not stop for the rest of the day. Nevertheless, after the Palace, we went to get a first eye on Westminster and the giant clock. Once I saw the statue of Churchill, rain or no rain, I had to stop and take a picture. Don’t be surprised but during our trip, we came to Westminster three times (we were in London for four days, the last being the shortest). After taking a picture of Sir Winston we looked for our first bite to eat. Unwilling to use mobile internet in London we completely trusted our intuition. Thus our first stop was a nice bar that served good burgers and tasty beer close to the Westminster Abby.  

When did most of London switch to “only cards” and “no cash”? Probably should have done more research. This is not to say that my bank card did not work, but I intentionally took cash with me in the expectation that I would use it more than my card. The opposite happened. 

I mentioned good burgers. What did I eat in London? More or less the classics. For dinner on our first day fish and chips. A large portion that was truly delicious. The second day I started with a full English breakfast. We had a couple of snacks during the day and after a long day of walking ended up without dinner. On the third day, I started with a full Aussie breakfast. Everything apart from spinach was brilliant. For dinner, we went to a nearby pub to have a steak and ale pie with mash. It was good, not great, and not terrible. I would be willing to try other British pies. On the fourth day for breakfast, I had something that I couldn’t even properly pronounce. All in all food-wise this trip was a pleasant change from our other adventures being without any Italian plates. During our willingness to walk almost anywhere, we only had breakfast and dinner. With all the walking and sightseeing you don’t want to have a full lunch, maybe a snack (beer in every case) here and there.

George Daniels. The greatest watchmaker of the 20th century. Currently, my favorite book (and biography) is “All In Good Time” by George Daniels. To be honest, when I booked tickets for the Science Museum to see the watch exhibition (entrance is free) I did not know there would be these watches. So when my wife pointed out that it has George Daniels to say I was surprised would be an understatement. I was thrilled. Even though these watches were behind glass I finally saw them with my own eyes in 3D (as funny as it may sound). The mesmerizing “Space Traveler’s Watch”, the “Millennium” watch, the first Omega watch with co-axial escapement, and even the Patek Philippe watch the co-axial escapement. When now I look at these pictures I still hardly believe that I finally saw them in person. I am happy that I saw them but I am sad that I can’t look at them whenever I feel like I need to. Furthermore, the exhibition has watches of Roger W. Smith, the watchmaker who makes all his watches entirely by hand and who was the only true apprentice of the late George Daniels. Hats off to those lucky rich bastards who can and want to acquire them.

Abraham-Louis Breguet. The exhibition had watches on display from arguably the greatest watchmaker of all time (the GOAT to you sports fans) – Mr. Abraham-Louis Breguet. Even though the collection did not have the most famous of Mr. Breguet’s watches – the Marie Antoinette aka the Queen aka The Breguet No. 160 – it did have a significant amount of others. When you see them in person you understand why George Daniels liked his style – so pure, so clean, so refined and so elegant. 

The exhibition has a lot of other interesting watches and collections on display. It is a go-to place for everyone interested in timekeepers and their history. Thus this pilgrimage was completely worth it. Below are a couple of beautiful Breguet watches and other stunning timepieces I managed to capture with my iPhone in low lighting and behind reinforced glass.

After the Science Museum, we went to Westminster again to see the clock from the other side of the Thames. Worth it? Not really, but at least we walked across the bridge while passing by a ton of people. Also, the sun was behind the Parliament building thus forbidding me to take good photos for my blog. As the day before and the day after, we went to our hotel through a British pub to try a new British beer (my wife wanted a Swedish cider, it is more refreshing apparently). At the hotel, we had a TV and the British TV channels have quite a selection of both good and junk television. We fell asleep watching “Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them”.

Our main attraction on the third day was thirteen kilometers away from our hotel. Thus walking was out of the question. Metro was the solution. An entrance here, an exit there, a short drive here and walk there, and we arrived at our first stop. The Cutty Sark. It is a British cargo ship. A beautiful one. As per its website: “Cutty Sark was built for the China tea trade but would carry a vast array of cargoes during its career. Cutty Sark carried almost 10 million lbs of tea between 1870 and 1877. Cutty Sark represents the pinnacle of clipper ship design and was one of the fastest ships of its day.” For just a couple of pounds, you can see the ship from the inside, walk below it (literally), and see what’s the view like from its deck. Unexpected interesting experience. To be fair I bought tickets for the Cutty Sark visit only because they came as an additional to the Royal Observatory. Worth it.

John Harrison. The father of longitude. For those not familiar with longitude and latitude. Longitude measures the distance east or west of the prime meridian, whereas latitude is the measurement of the distance north or south of the Equator. I highly recommend reading both “Latitude: The Astonishing Journey to Discover the Shape of the Earth” by Nicholas Crane and “Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time” by Dava Sobel. You might ask what does this have to do with a man named John Harrison. He is the lone genius (a carpenter by trade without any significant education) who solved the longitude problem. Namely, he invented a marine chronometer that was able to keep precise time while at sea. The Royal Observatory in London has on its display the marine chronometers made by the legendary Mr. John Harrison. I can already tell you that those machines are real works of mechanical art. The way they work, how their springs are stretching and their gears are spinning, it is just beautiful to see. Yes, maybe not to everyone but for someone who cried when he received his Tudor Black Bay 54, it is magical. Look at these pictures yourself and tell me if you see art.

Luckily for me, the Royal Observatory is a home not only for Mr. John Harrison’s timepieces but for many others as well. Even though the Clockmakers of London exhibition is called the oldest clock and watch museum in the world (probably the Swiss would have something to say about that), the Royal Observatory is not far behind. Their selection of marine chronometers is astounding. Not to mention their collection of clocks and various other devices for time measurement. It is safe to say that my decision to book tickets for this place was a bullseye. A little side note, at the Cutty Sark shop I bought a brass hourglass. When I arrived back home in Brussels I measured the hourglass and it “ticked” at three minutes and three seconds. Thus it is perfect for a “Sally up” challenge.

Completely by chance, we came to the Royal Observatory before one o’clock. You may ask why it is important. At the top of the house of the Royal Observatory is a semi-large red ball. For most of the day, it is static. But every day ten minutes to one at midday it goes up and then down thus signaling to everyone that the time currently is 13:00. The experience of the ball coming down is a bit underwhelming since you would expect to hear bang or gong. It just simply goes up and then down. Nothing more. At least we saw it.

We did not expect to go back to Westminster by boat. When we arrived at the Cutty Sark we saw that passenger ferries were stopping near it. We went to see how much it cost and where is it going. Twelve pounds to go to Westminster and along the journey you get to experience the Thames for a whole hour (it was a sunny day), and you get to see a lot of interesting sights, for example, the London Eye, the Tower Bridge, the Tower of London and more. Is it worth it? Yes. While we stopped at the Tower of London to pick up more passengers heading to Westminster we observed how a family was running towards the boat. A young boy was running at the front and shouting something to his father to which the father replied: “Keep running and shut up!” It was so British, it was beautiful. Anyway, see the pictures below and decide if you would also like to take the boat ride from the Royal Observatory to Westminster.

When we arrived in Westminster we looked for a pub to have a beer for a day well spent. Afterwards we went for dinner and in the evening in our hotel room, we opened a bottle of champagne. You would be forgiven to ask was there something to celebrate? Yes, there was. Our trip is that simple. We got an impression of London, we saw some of the most iconic British buildings, we visited two wonderful museums and saw some of the most magnificent watches and clocks, and we got a boat trip on the Thames. If that is not a reason to open a bottle of champagne then I don’t know what is.

I bought three card decks and three books. Even though after our trip to Lisbon I said that I would arrive from London with more new decks than from Lisbon, I managed to find only three good decks. However, I did find three interesting books. One is from Kara Swisher’s “Burn Book”. I had pre-ordered this book already in February, and when it was supposed to arrive in March, Amazon informed me that I’d had to wait until June. Thus you will understand my joy of finding this gem at a London bookstore. The two other books are time-related (of course) that I found at the shop of the Royal Observatory. A successful trip by any measurable metric!

If you read everything until this point then you are a legend, and I thank you! 

The last day was unsurprising. We slept late. We packed. We checked out and headed not to the train station but to the Notting Hill neighborhood. You see, my wonderful wife wanted to have breakfast there. We had our breakfast, did a little walkaround, and decided that it was time to head to the King Cross station. Maybe to go to the Harry Potter store. Unfortunately, before heading to the Potter store we headed towards the Eurostar desk to see whether we could change our tickets to an earlier train. To our surprise we could and without any extra cost. Thus the Harry Potter store had to wait because we had to run to the security check. Next time.

What did I mean in the beginning when I said that I am no longer a full-blown anglophile? You see, after seeing a 3000-year-old corpse running around London on the big screen I lived and breathed everything (British) English. I studied extensively the language, and I almost exclusively lived the English-speaking culture; even though I was the only one in my family who spoke proper English. But now I like French more. I like their culture, their way of life, their taste in architecture and clothes. The language is a love-hate relationship, but hopefully, in due time, there will be more love and less hate. Thank you, London. Chances are that a trip to the United States will change my current stance toward the English-speaking world.

Paris, prepare the champagne this upcoming May.

Kind regards,

Olaaf