Back From a Blogging Break and Literary London

View of the Rhine valley and Bacharach from Stahleck Castle.

It's been several months since my last post.  We did move to Germany, near Kaiserslautern, which is in the Rhineland-Palatinate in the southwest part of the country. The transition has been more complicated than I expected, especially since we didn't have internet in our new house for two months. The one upside was that I had lots of time for reading; hopefully now I'll get caught up with my book blogging.

Before I start posting reviews again, I thought I'd share a few photos. I haven't done too much traveling around Germany yet, but we did make a quick trip to beautiful Bacharach, along the Rhine.

I also had two amazing trips with my girls, one to Paris (just over 2 hours by express train from Kaiserslautern!) and London. I thought I'd include some photos of literary landmarks. 

One of our first stops was the V&A and we thought we'd stop by Harrod's. Walking along Cromwell road I realized I was passing Brompton Square, where Lucia lives in E. F. Benson's Lucia in London, which I'd finished just a few weeks before. I googled the address and lo and behold, there it was with a blue historical marker:

Closer inspection revealed this was Benson's own house!

We also saw THREE West End plays while we were in London, two of them classics:

I loved all the plays, each was completely different. I had to include The Mousetrap which I saw as a child while visiting Toronto. I was delighted to find this marker honoring Agatha Christie in the theater district:

The Mousetrap played for years at the Toronto Truck Theater, a converted church. It's no longer running in Toronto but it's still going strong in London. This counter in the lobby shows exactly how many performances:

Of course I knew the ending but it was still a great show and my girls loved it. 

Naturally, we visited multiple bookshops. We went to Waterston's at Trafalgar Square and in Piccadilly Circus; Daunt Books in Marylebone, and Foyle's near Charing Cross. I can't remember exactly how many books I bought but I wanted ALL OF THESE classic mysteries:

And I couldn't have missed a pilgrimage to Bloomsbury where I finally got to visit the Persephone Book shop. It's covered in scaffolding but still open. 

I arrived on a Saturday morning and my heart dropped when I saw the shop was closed! However, we double-checked the hours and it didn't open until noon that day, so I wasn't disappointed. I bought three more books, some bookmarks and a lovely Persephone tote bag. 

And no literary trip to London would be complete with out a trip to Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross!!

People line up to have their photos taken and sometimes it's quite a long wait. We went the first day of our trip and the lines were long, so we tried again the last morning of our trip and were pleasantly surprised by how quickly it moved. The employees were delightfully enthusiastic and of course there's a Harry Potter shop full of all sorts of souvenirs. (Also a great restaurant close by with a delicious Full English Breakfast.) I adored London and there's so much I didn't see, so I hope to go back soon. 

I hope to post more photos soon and actual reviews of books I've been reading this summer!