WWII museums on London visit

After checking into our group’s London hotel in March ’03, my roommate and I caught the underground (the ticket seller advised us to buy a day pass instead of a round-trip ticket) to go to the Imperial War Museum to see the many World War II tanks, planes, guns, V-1 and V-2 rockets, Enigma secret code machine, etc.

At El Alamein in Egypt and Normandy in France, I saw NO German tanks. This museum had a German tank buster on a Panzer chassis with an 88mm gun in the turret. A BIG BABY!

A couple of days later we went to the British Museum. There are 18,000 articles on display, and this number is only 10% of the articles that are available in the museum warehouse. If one spent 10 seconds looking at an article and 10 seconds to read the script, it would take one three years, viewing for six hours per day, to see and read everything exhibited in the museum.

A couple of days after that, I chose to take the train to Cambridge and a bus to Duxford to visit the Imperial War Museum airbase with 180 aircraft, mostly from WWII. (It was a former Spitfire and Mustang base during the war.) Two of our group accompanied me.

The information person at the Kings Cross station attempted to send us to the Liverpool Street train station for the train to Cambridge; luckily, we asked a ticket agent to confirm his directions. We actually were at the right train station for Cambridge.

When traveling, I always ask directions from more than one person and try to get more detail that just a “Yes” answer. It is too easy for people to just answer a question by saying “Yes.”

The agent sold us a group ticket (three people was a group) with three tickets for the price of two.

The Imperial War Museum had almost every warplane that flew in WWII plus new aircraft, including a B-52, which was HUGE, dwarfing a B-17 and B-29 under one wing. There also were SR-71 and U-2 spy planes, an F-111, an A-10, eight Spitfires, four P-51 Mustangs, a B‑24, a B-25, a big British Centurion tank, etc.

We had a wonderful trip, March 11-18, booked through Europe Express (now called EEI Travel, 19021 120th Ave. NE, Ste. 102, Bothell, WA 98011; phone 800/927-3876 or visit www. europeexpress.com), which is affiliated with Go-Today (www.go-today.com). At $720 plus airport tax, it was a very good value for air and six nights’ hotel. Our hotel cost was $48 per person per night including the 17% VAT; the round-trip air (Ft. Lauderdale-Chicago-London Heathrow) was $395; airport tax, $105, and airport transfers, $40. The summer prices are 50% higher. I would use Europe Express again.

JACK W. EFIRD, Jr.
Deerfield Beach, FL