As marvelous as our 24-hour trip to Marseille was, our visit to London would be equally as amazing.
Wednesday morning we left the south of France on way to London, England. George Gillett had some important business there before heading over to Liverpool. The 90 minute trip aboard the private jet was quite remarkable. It was truly a sight-seeing voyage. We flew over Paris and could see L'Arc de Triomphe, Les Champs Elysee and the Eiffel Tour. The view as we descended upon England was truly breathtaking.
We landed at a private airport in Farnsborough and drove one hour to London. Pulling up at our hotel was like arriving at Buckingham Palace. Claridge Hotel is one of the most prestigious hotels in all of London, and it's also one of the most expensive. A lot of the big stars, politicians and dignitaries stay there during their visit to England. Case and point: the Queen of Spain and U2's famous guitarist The Edge were on hand during our 24 hour stay.
After they begged me to have a bite with them to catch up on lost times, Hugo (my cameraman) and I rushed off to get some scenics of the city to incorporate in our report. We saw Buckingham Palace, the London Tower and the Tower Bridge, the Museum of Modern History and Big Ben.
After a few hours of running around town, we returned to the hotel to accompany Gillett to his meeting at the Premier League headquarters. We sat in for some of the discussions with Richard Scudamore, the EPL Chief Executive, but when things got a little more serious we had to leave. Afterwards, we got beautiful images of London under the lights and called it a day.
On Thursday morning we hopped back in a plane en route to Liverpool. Once we arrived, Gillett took us over to Anfield the home of his FC Liverpool squad. From there we went to the teams 90-year-old practice facility. I was expecting Liverpool to be a grey, run-down, blue collar town, but to my surprise it's absolutely beautiful. While most of Gillett's entourage headed back to the hotel to catch a little shut eye Hugo and I went to the southern part of town to see the Beatles old stomping ground.
We shot some visuals of the Penny Lane, Win Bar and drove around the Fab Four's former neighbourhood. On our way back to the hotel, Dave our driver stopped by Paul McCartney's old house -- I'm told the basement is exactly the way his parents left it.
The Edge, the Queen of Spain, the Beatles all in one day! My head is spinning. As Gerry Dobson the host of Soccercentral put it, this is the trip of a lifetime. He was right. It is truly a magical and we're just halfway through.
