When Prince Harry and Megham Markle get hitched on Saturday, Heathrow Airport will make sure passengers don’t miss a thing.
The airport promises that on Saturday all TV screens in the terminals will be tuned to BBC News 24, which will offering live wedding-day coverage. Giant TV screens tune to BBC1 will be set up in Termionals 3 and 4 as well.
Inside the terminals, arriving passengers will be treated to 1,000 ”royal’ lemon and elderflower cupcakes, which are inspired by Harry and Meghan’s break-with-tradition lemon elderflower wedding cake with buttercream frosting and fresh flowers.
Special Royal Wedding cocktails are being servied at the United Club this week and over the weekend at Heathrow as well.
For those who can’t make it to Heathrow, the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum has revealed a (funny-looking) bobblehead of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
And, back in London, Madame Tussauds has added a Meghan Markle wax figure standing beside a refreshed Prince Harry.
Don’t worry –Heathrow Airport is rolling out the red carpet for everyone and there are a jolly lot of attractions, museums and special sights that are very inexpensive and many where admission doesn’t cost a penny.
A must-see for most every London visitor, the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square has more than 2,300 Western European paintings from the Middle Ages to the early 20th century, including work by Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh, Georges Seurat and many others. Admission is free, although there is a charge for some special exhibits.
The Museum of London delivers a punch with galleries exploring the archeological history of London, Roman London, Medieval London and the ever-popular display of fire-fighting equipment, paintings, films and objects relating to the September 1666 fire, the Great Fire, that is London’s most famous disaster. Admission is free.
Napoleon Bonaparte's Toothbrush
Courtesy: Wellcome Library, London
Sir Henry Wellcome, of the successful pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome & Co, was a world-class philanthropist and a voracious collector who collected more than million items relating to health and medicine. The Wellcome Collection, opened in 2007, has intriguing changing exhibitions, unusual artwork inspired by modern-day health and medicine, and more than 1500 objects from Wellcome’s collection, including a shrunken head, a guillotine blade, a brass corset, Florence Nightingale’s moccasins, a lock of hair said to be from the head of King George III, and Napoleon Bonaparte’s toothbrush. Admission is free.
It’s possible to spend an entire week at the British Museum, which houses more than 7 million items from cultures around the world. So pick a few exhibits and rooms you want to see before you walk through the door. The Egyptian mummies are among the most popular exhibits, so put them on your list, but consider visiting some of the smaller and less-visited rooms, such as the Clocks and Watches gallery, which holds hidden treasures such as this automated brass clock in the shape of a galleon. Admission free; there is a charge for some special exhibits.
On Sundays, StuckatTheAirport takes a look at offbeat, inexpensive and locally-branded items you can buy at airports.
This week I found an item I’m betting will show up in electronics stores in Heathrow, Gatwick and all other airports in Great Britain any moment now – if it hasn’t already.
For a few years now, my travel gadget wish list has included some of these rechargeable batteries from USBCell. They eliminate the need to tote around yet another charger because there’s a USB port under the cap that lets you recharge the battery on a USB plug on your computer or with a USB adapter.
I’ve been waiting for the price to come down on these batteries; they’re a bit pricey (about $18 a pair). But I may have to go ahead and buy a few packets now because the company has jumped on the Royal Wedding bandwagon and issued William-and-Kate-branded rechargeable batteries.
Corny but cute, yet very eco-friendly.
Santa, are you taking notes?
[Note: This Souvenir Sunday post isn’t a benefit-to-me promotion in any way, but when I asked MOIXA Energy for a photo of the royal batteries, they offered to set up a 20% discount code (“Royal120”) for StuckatTheAirport.com readers. If you buy some, let me know how they work and what sort of conversations they ignite at the airport.]
And..
If you find a great inexpensive (about $10), offbeat, “of” a city or region souvenir when you’re stuck at the airport, please take a photo and send it along. If your item is featured on Souvenir Sunday here at StuckatTheAirport.com, I’ll send you a set of ANA (All Nippon Airways) Relax and Refresh aroma cards or some other fun travel souvenir.
