Destination: London

It’s beautiful to think of how much history Westminster Abbey has seen — both good times and bad. And through it all, Britain’s top church offers solace to its people.

Even if we’ve had to postpone trips to Europe, I believe a daily dose of travel dreaming can actually be good medicine. Here’s another one of my favorite travel memories — a reminder of what’s waiting for you in Europe at the other end of this crisis.

Wearing a red robe and a warm smile, Eddie works as a verger at London’s Westminster Abbey. As a church official, he keeps order in this space — which is both very touristy and very sacred.

I tell him I’m working on a Rick Steves guidebook, and he says, “I’d like a word with that Rick Steves. He implies in his guidebook that you can pop in to worship or pay respects to the Unknown Soldier in order to get a free visit to the abbey.”

Showing him my photo on the back cover, I say, “Well, I am Rick Steves.”

I’m really charmed by Eddie, who explains that it’s his responsibility to sort out believers (who get in free to pray), tourists (who must pay the entrance fee), and scammers who fold their hands reverently, hoping to avoid paying. Together, we agree on a new tactic: Rather than promote deception for the sake of free entry, I’ll encourage my readers to attend a free worship service. The musical evensong service is a glorious experience that occurs several times a week. Everyone is welcome, free of charge.

Proving it helps to have friends in holy places, Eddie takes me into a room where no tourist goes: the Jerusalem Chamber, where scholars met from 1604 to 1611 to oversee the translation of the Bible from ancient Greek and Hebrew into English, creating the King James Version.

Appreciating the danger of translating the word of God from dead ancient languages into the people’s language and the importance of these heroic efforts in the 16th and 17th centuries, I get goose bumps. When visiting Germany’s Wartburg Castle, I felt goose bumps when stepping into the room where Martin Luther translated the Bible for the German-speaking world. And I enjoyed a little goose-bump déjà vu here when Eddie let me slip into the Jerusalem Chamber.

Eddie then escorts me to the abbey and I quickly become immersed in the history that permeates it. This is where every English coronation since 1066 has taken place. At a coronation, the Archbishop of Canterbury stands at the high altar. The coronation chair is placed before the altar on the round, brown pavement stone, which represents the Earth. After a church service, the new king or queen sits in the chair, is anointed with holy oil, and then receives a ceremonial sword, ring, and cup. The royal scepter is placed in the new ruler’s hands, and — dut-dutta-dah — the archbishop lowers the crown onto the royal head.

As I walk, I listen to the audio tour narrated by actor Jeremy Irons. With his soothing voice in my ear, I enjoy some private time with remarkable artifacts. The marble effigy of Queen Elizabeth I was made from her death mask in 1603 and is considered her most realistic likeness. The graves of literary greats of England are gathered, as if for a post­humous storytelling session, around the tomb of Geoffrey Chaucer (Mr. Canterbury Tales). Poppies line the tomb of Britain’s Unknown Soldier, with the US Medal of Honor (presented by General John J. Pershing in 1921) hanging from a neighboring column. More recently, the statue of Martin Luther King, Jr. has been added as an honorary member of this heavenly English host.

My favorite stained-glass window features saints in robes and halos mingling with pilots in parachutes and bomber jackets. It’s in the Royal Air Force Chapel, a tribute to WWII flyers who “earned their angel wings” in the 1940 Battle of Britain. Hitler’s air force seemed to rule the skies in the early days of the war, bombing at will and threatening to snuff Britain out. While determined Londoners hunkered down, British pilots in their Spitfires and Hurricanes took advantage of newly invented radar systems to get the jump on the more powerful Luftwaffe. These were the fighters about whom Churchill said, “Never…was so much owed by so many to so few.” The book of remembrances lists the names of each of the 1,497 pilots and crew members who died.

Grabbing a pew to ponder this grand space, I look down the long and narrow center aisle of the church. It’s lined with Gothic arches, providing a parade of praying hands and glowing with colored light from the windows. It’s clear that this is more than a museum. With saints in stained glass overhead, heroes in carved stone all around, and the bodies of England’s greatest citizens under the floor, Westminster Abbey is more than the religious heart of England — it’s the national soul as well.

(This story is excerpted from my upcoming book, For the Love of Europe — collecting 100 of my favorite memories from a lifetime of European travel. It’s coming out in July, and available for pre-order. And you can also watch a video clip related to this story: Just visit  Rick Steves Classroom Europe  and search for Westminster.)

I’ve spent more time in London than in any other European city. And in a dynamic city like London, learning history doesn’t require going through a museum turnstile. Sometimes it’s just…picking up garbage from a riverbank.

Because of the coronavirus, Europe is effectively off-limits to American travelers for the next few weeks (and likely longer). But travel dreams are immune to any virus. During these challenging times, I believe a daily dose of travel dreaming can actually be good medicine. Here’s another one of my very favorite travel dreams-come-true…a reminder of what’s waiting for you in Europe on the other end of this crisis.

Strolling with a good local guide is like beachcombing. I pick up obscure shards of a neighborhood’s distant past, unlocking unexpected stories. On a bright, brisk January morning, I join David Tucker, who runs a tour company called London Walks.

From London Bridge, David points downriver past the Tower of London and says, “During the Second World War, Nazi bombers used the Thames as a guide on their nightly raids. When moonlit, they called it a ‘silver ribbon of tin foil.’ It led from the English Channel right to our mighty dockyards. Even with all the city lights carefully blacked out, those bombers easily found their targets. Neighborhoods on both banks of the river went up in flames. After the war, the business district on the North Bank was rebuilt, but the South Bank… it was long neglected.”

Turning his back to St. Paul’s Cathedral, David points to a vast complex of new buildings showing off the restored, trendy South Bank, and continues, “Only recently has the bombed-out South Bank been properly rebuilt. There’s a real buzz in London about our South Bank.”

Then we walk down to the beach and do some actual beachcombing. The Thames is a tidal river. At low tide, it’s literally littered with history. Even today, London’s beaches are red with clay tiles from 500-year-old roofs. Picking up a chunky piece of tile worn oval by the centuries, with its telltale peg hole still clearly visible, David explains that these tiles were heavy, requiring large timbers for support. In the 16th century, when large timbers were required for shipbuilding for the Royal Navy, lighter slate tiles became the preferred roofing material. Over time, the heavy, red-clay tiles migrated from the rooftops to the riverbank…and into the pockets of beachcombers like us.

Like kids on a scavenger hunt, we study the pebbles. David picks up a chalky white tube. It’s the fragile stem of an 18th-century clay pipe. Back then, tobacco was sold with disposable one-use pipes, so used pipes were routinely tossed into the river. David lets it fall from his fingers.

Thinking, “King George may have sucked on this,” I pick it up.

Climbing back to street level, we prowl through some fascinating relics of the South Bank neighborhood that survived both German bombs and urban renewal. Scaling steep stairs, we visit the Operating Theatre Museum, a crude surgical theater where amputations were performed in the early 1800s as medical students watched and learned. Down the street, we wander through the still-bustling Borough Market to see farmers doing business with city shopkeepers.

Walking through this area puts us in a time warp. David leads us into a quiet courtyard, where we look up at three sets of balconies climbing the front of an inn. He explains, “Coaching-inn courtyards like this provided struggling theater troupes — like young William Shakespeare’s — with a captive audience.”

A typical day in London can be spent at the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, or the British Museum. But it can also be spent sifting through the tides of history.

(This story is excerpted from my upcoming book, For the Love of Europe — collecting 100 of my favorite memories from a lifetime of European travel, coming out in July. It’s available for pre-order. And you can also watch a video clip related to this story: Just visit Rick Steves Classroom Europe and search for London).

I love London’s Heathrow Airport, and I was happy to spend a couple of hours there as my spring trip wrapped up, just getting a bit of work done before my flight home to Seattle.

Stay tuned — because soon enough, I’ll be heading out again. Next up: guidebook research in England and three new TV episodes, high in the Alps.