By Glenda Winders

The reason for the trip was a sad one. My friend Marcia Kirby and her husband were in the process of planning a trip to England when he became ill and passed away. His wish had been for her to go anyway, but she didn't want to make the journey alone. Her e-mail said she'd trade me a ticket to London for my services as a tour guide.

It only took me a few seconds to type "Yes!" and push send, but after the initial excitement, I realized that I had a big job ahead of me. I'd traveled to England several times and lived there briefly, but with so much to see and do, how could I choose what to cram into just a couple of weeks? Here's how we figured it out.

One of the best decisions we made was to rent a flat in London. Other friends had told me what fun it was to leave the "tourist" stereotype behind and live like the locals, and with a little online research I learned that the price compared favorably with even budget hotels. Our two-bedroom apartment was in the upscale Kensington neighborhood and came with a little balcony from which we could see a sliver of Hyde Park.

When we had finished sightseeing for the day, we often stopped at the Marks and Spencer food shop next to our tube station for salad and bread, cereal and fruit, thus saving money by avoiding pricey restaurants and enabling us to eat breakfast and some dinners in.

The next thing we did was to compile a master list of things she wanted to do, things I wanted to do and things I thought would be important to round out her experience. We also made a pact to communicate honestly with one another so that neither of us wound up doing something in which we had no interest just to be polite.

Another good call was to each purchase an Oyster card. This is a refillable pass that speeds up traveling by underground, bus and some boats. We bought ours there, but we could have purchased them online before leaving the United States.

Some attractions, of course, must be seen on a first visit, no matter how "touristy," and the two that top most people's lists are the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace. We delighted in the Beefeater's narration of our tour at the tower and walked past the palace but skipped the changing of the guard ceremony since my experience had been that the exercise was somewhat overrated. Instead we took a boat to the Greenwich Observatory so we could stand on both sides of the international date line and toured Shakespeare's Globe Theater, where they let us sit in on a rehearsal of "Antony and Cleopatra."

We rode the London Eye and went up into the Shard, an 87-story skyscraper, both of which provided panoramic views of the city. At the British Museum we took a guided tour of the Enlightenment Room to learn how and why this venerable institution came to be before heading to other exhibits of artifacts from Britain's history. And of course we stopped in at Harrods, where there is a whole department full of trademarked souvenirs to bring home.

Since some of the places we wanted to visit were outside of the city, we went online to book coach tours that left from a depot near Victoria Station. In this way we were able to see Leeds Castle, Canterbury and the white cliffs of Dover one day and Stonehenge and the Roman ruins at Bath another. A third such trip took us to Oxford and through the Cotswolds to Shakespeare's Stratford-upon-Avon.

That trip also took us to Warwick Castle, which turned out to be one of the high points of our visit. The castle has played an important part in England's history right back to 1068, when it was built by order of William the Conqueror as a way to establish a presence in that part of the country. It was home until 1978 to the Earls of Warwick but was then sold to become a visitor attraction.

There is much to explore here, including extensive grounds, a great hall filled with armaments and a dungeon. But what we liked about it most was that the rooms are now outfitted with Madame Tussauds wax figures to show how the castle was actually used — from a weekend house party upstairs to the maids weaving cloth and men polishing weapons downstairs.

Marcia's special interests were cathedrals and gardens; mine were the arts and history. One Sunday morning she went to services at St. Martin in the Field while I browsed at the National Gallery next door, but we usually found there was something for both of us at the places we went.

Take for example Kensington Palace and Gardens, currently one of the homes of Prince William and his family, where gowns worn by Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Margaret and Princess Diana are on display. It was here we happened on the tip about buying a year's membership to Historic Royal Palaces, which gave us free admission to other places we wanted to see.

Kew Gardens contained breathtaking blossoms, trees and ornamental structures on acres of lawn. Here also was Kew Palace, which was one of the homes of King George III, who ruled during the American Revolution. Queen Victoria later gave the home as a gift to the country to mark her golden jubilee in 1887.

Hampton Court Palace, the home Henry VIII prepared for Anne Boleyn, was another such palace-garden combination. Anne was executed before she could move in, but her husband lived here with the rest of his wives. The tube doesn't go this far out of the city, so we took a train one way and a slow, lazy commuter boat back later in the afternoon — which turned out to be one of our best memories.

In fact, many of the memories we cherish most came from immersing ourselves in the daily life of London. We saw a play in the West End theater district, had a proper English tea in the cafe at Westminster Abbey and attended evensong at St. Paul's cathedral, where Marcia actually got to sit in the choir stalls and sing. We ate a traditional roast beef pub lunch on Sunday, and once a week, like everyone else in London, we set our trash and recycling out by the "kerb."

WHEN YOU GO

Many companies such as Vacation Rental by Owner and Airbnb rent flats, but we took the suggestion of a friend and used Coultens: www.coultens.com.

The line we used for our days out of London was Evan Evans, which provided comfortable coaches and knowledgeable guides: www.evanevanstours.com.

For information about all of the places we went, the best place to start is www.visitbritain.com. This is also where you can purchase an Oyster Card before you travel.

. Wax figures created by Madame Tussauds help bring history to life at England's Warwick Castle. Photo courtesy of Glenda Winders.

Hampton Court Palace outside of London was originally created by King Henry VIII for Anne Boleyn. Photo courtesy of Glenda Winders.

Glenda Winders is a freelance writer. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.