LONDON
'Ello poppet! Welcome to my London blog! I am excited to share mine and Chris' latest travel adventure to England's capital and day trip to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Bath. I was particularly excited to head back to London after having studied abroad there in the summer of 2011. It was great to see my old stomping grounds and fun to explore the city with Chris. Not to mention cross off one of our bucket list items -- Stonehenge!
Prior to this latest trip to London, I had a bit of a salty relationship with the city. While I had a great time studying abroad with my law school mates, London was in dead last place of the 25 cities that I had toured that summer. Yes, there were things I loved -- the Tube, the parks, the Harry Potter connections, etc., but the charm of the city was lost on me. That is why I was excited to return -- I wanted to see the city in a different light, experience new things, and also show Chris my old stomping grounds.
Per usual, I did some research and discovered London offers a pass for sightseeing. The London Pass is available in 24, 48, and 72 hour installments and you can also add on a public transportation option, which is awesome. With the pass, you can get into a TON of places in London for free and some of those places even have "fast entry", which lets you skip the lines, or queues, as they say in British English. Chris and I opted for the one day pass since we were going on our day trip to the countryside on Saturday. We decided against adding the public transportation to it just because we would need to take the Tube all three days. The one day pass cost us £66 per person, and as you'll see below, we did just about £100 per person worth of sightseeing on Friday, so this was a fantastic deal! So if you are traveling to London and plan on seeing the sights, I'd definitely look into this.
We had a jam packed three-day trip with sightseeing all day Friday, day trip Saturday, and exploring my old spots on Sunday. I hope you enjoy reading about our experiences below!
Friday, February 2nd:
We woke up super early -- like 3:45 a.m. -- for our early 6:30 a.m. flight to London. We were about to take our very first Ryanair flight. For those of you who aren't familiar, Ryanair is a budget airline, similar to Spirit Airlines in the States. So our flights were super cheap, but we did pay to be able to carry-on our luggage and pick our seats. We were actually pretty excited because we had just purchased new carry-on luggage that meets the international measurement requirements. This should come as no surprise, but our carry-ons in the States are bigger than European standards, so our current carry-ons would not make it into the cabin. If you're curious, I recommend the luggage we got by Samsonsite -- click here to check it out.
Our flight was a quick hour and Chris and I were able to sleep a little before landing at London Gatwick airport. We bought roundtrip tickets for the Gatwick Express train and enjoyed our 30 minute ride into the city. The train arrives at Victoria Station in the Westminster neighborhood, which was perfect because our hotel was only a few blocks away. While at the train station, we bought our Oyster cards, which is the metro card needed to take the Tube and buses in town. We put £20 on each our of cards and paid the £5 each to get one of the lifelong cards since we figure we'll be back again some day. Once we had our oyster cards, we headed out to the streets to find our hotel to drop off our luggage.
We stayed at the Hanover Hotel, which is a budget hotel in the perfect location. It's on a beautiful street, close to the train/tube station, and within walking distance of Buckingham Palace and Westminster. It’s also right by the theater where Hamilton is currently playing, so this would be a good area to stay if you are one of the lucky few to have tickets to that show. The room was pretty gross though. The carpet was super old and dirty with stains and gum stuck to it; the walls were all scuffed up; the shower hardly drained. Thank goodness we honestly just needed a bed to sleep in. There was no elevator/lift, so we had to carry our luggage up the narrow staircase five floors, which is fine, but an interesting inconvenience. They also had a luggage storage, which was great because we needed to store our luggage before we could check in and also after we checked out. Downside -- they didn't lock the storage room, which is so weird to me. So we left our luggage at our own risk. We paid $145/night and honestly I would stay there again with new carpet and a fresh coat of paint. Until those changes are made, I just don't think I could do it again.
After dropping off our luggage, Chris and I were ready to hit the ground running! We had the whole day ahead of us and a pretty hefty checklist to get through. We planned out our day geographically and based on when places opened and closed. To start, we got a quick snack at Pret and took the tube to the Tower Bridge stop, which brought us directly to our first stop, the Shard. The Shard is London's tallest building and the tallest building in Western Europe. It stands at 800 feet / 244 meters tall and looks like it's piercing the sky. There is an observatory at the top of the building with 360 views of London. We got to the Shard right when it opened, so there was no line and not many people up in the observatory. The experience is designed really well with staff greeting you at every juncture and there is even a bar if you want to enjoy a cocktail. There are two different floors for viewing and we headed straight to the top. The top level is partially open, so it was a bit chilly in the dead of winter! It was a clear day, so we had unbeatable views of all of London. We spent about 15-20 minutes looking out and finding some of the famous structures like Tower Bridge, Tower of London, Parliament, and the London Eye. Entry to the Shard is £29.95, but free with the London Pass.
After our descent from the view at the Shard and unpopping our ears, we walked over to the bank of the river Thames to behold the beauty of London from ground level. We walked through a park past City Hall, which is the orb-looking building, and took in the views. The sun was shining and Tower Bridge looked incredible in all of its grandeur.
We walked across the Tower Bridge to the entrance of the Tower Bridge Exhibition. We hadn't necessarily planned on doing this, but it was free with our London Pass, and we had heard from one of Chris' colleagues that the walkway above was glass, so you get to look down at the river and cars driving across the bridge as you walk along. The exhibition inside the bridge has movies on how the bridge was built, the walkways across the bridge are indeed glass and are also filled with facts about the bridge, and the exhibition ends with the bridge's boiler room. For only £9, or for free with the London Pass, the views from above are totally worth it.
When you cross the Tower Bridge and get to the north side of the river Thames, the views are pretty spectacular. Here are just a few more pictures of some of London's greatest architecture.
The Tower of London is right next to the Tower Bridge and was our next stop for the day. The Tower of London, or officially known as Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, was first constructed around 1066 as part of the Norman conquest of England. It has served as a royal palace, an infamous prison, the home of the Royal Mint, but now serves as a museum and home to the Crown Jewels. The Tower of London entrance fee is £22.50, but free with the London Pass.
There is a lot to take in at the Tower of London, so I would plan on spending at least an hour here if you decide to go. We walked through a majority of the towers, marveling at the medieval ways of life, the views of the Thames, and the giant ravens that patrol the grounds. One thing that looked fun was the Yeoman, or Beefeater tour. The tours run every 30 minutes and are led by one of the tower's Yeomen, who shares stories and tales of the history of the Tower of London. [We heard a bit of one of the tours passing by and would have joined along, except we were on our way out and very hungry.] Our last stop before leaving the tower was to see the Crown Jewels. Some of the Queen's jewels are on display and it is a spectacular sight to behold. When you enter, you are greeted with a projection screen playing the Queen's coronation, where you get to see her wearing a lot of the jewels. Then, in the next couple rooms are the crowns, spectres, orbs, etc. A definite must if you visit the tower.
At this point, Chris and I were in the market for some fish 'n chips and lucky for us, the bank of the river is swimming with places that serve the traditional English dish. We landed at a restaurant right in between the Tower and Tower Bridge called Perkin Reveller. Chris tried a local lager and I a Cornish blush cider, which was so good and is unfortunately not sold in Ireland. We indulged in a starter of Salt Beef Croquettes, which were tasty and not at all what we expected, and then we chowed down on some of the best fish and chips we've had to date. The spot was cute with good views and the food was even better. Just look at the fish 'n chips!
After lunch, we planned on taking the Hop On, Hop Off Thames River Tour cruise [included with the London Pass] to make our way down to Westminster, but the Thames had other plans for us. The river was at high tide, so the cruises were momentarily on hold for the next couple hours. Shoot! Oh well, we made our way on the Bakerloo line to Westminster and came out of the station right at Parliament. The Houses of Parliament building is truly stunning, but what's not cute is the scaffolding engulfing Big Ben right now. We had heard from others that there was scaffolding around the famous clock, but I figured it was the typical European style of construction where they make it look like the architecture they are working on, so you at least get a sense of what it looks like. Nope, not this time. I was bummed out for Chris since he hasn't seen it before, but I guess it's really just an excuse for us to make it back to London again someday.
We left Ben behind and headed for Westminster Abbey to see where the kings and queens are coronated and the Duke and Duchess were wed. There is A LOT going on inside the abbey, but you get an audio guide to take you through and there are volunteers around every corner ready to share the facts they know. What we hadn't realized was that there are lots of very important people buried at Westminster. Among former kings and queens, Charles Darwin and Sir Isaac Newton are buried inside the abbey. It's not lost on me how weird it is that two scientists are buried in a church... I mean... right? Anyway. It was very cool and unexpected to see their burial sites. You really could spend hours in the abbey taking in the statues, busts, burials, and learning about the Order of the Bath. We had a great time and really enjoyed asking questions of the volunteers to learn more first hand about the abbey. Entrance to the abbey is £20 per person, but free with the London Pass.
The last stop on our go-go-go tour of London was the Churchill War Rooms. The war rooms are open a little later than some of the other attractions and we read it's best to go either when it opens or towards the end of the day to avoid crowds, so this was the perfect end to our day. Chris is pretty much obsessed with World War II, so this was a must-see for him. The war rooms are the underground bunkers where Churchill and his war cabinet called the shots during WWII. It feels like you are stepping back in time to the 1940s when you go down in there. Everything seems to have been kept intact since the war. You get an audio-guide that walks you through the history of each room and also gives insights to the quirks of Mr. Churchill. One part that I really enjoyed was learning about the amazing women that were instrumental to his team and hearing their stories on the audio guide. Another fun fact that was pointed out on the audio guide was that someone had drawn a cartoon Hitler on one of the maps, which you can still see on the map today. We probably spent a good hour and a half to two hours here. Luckily for us, there weren't many people at the war rooms, so we were able to see everything really well. I can imagine if there are a lot of people, it would be extremely crowded and hard to see each room. Entrance to the war rooms is £17.25, but free with the London Pass. Btw, the entrance is kind of tucked away, so be on the lookout!
With the sun down and so many sites seen, we were ready to sit down and enjoy some good food. We walked by some of the government buildings, including 10 Downing Street [the Prime Minister's home] and Scotland Yard, and made our way to the Thames to behold the London Eye lit up for the night.
Fun fact: There are 32 pods or capsules for people to ride the London Eye, one for each of the 32 boroughs of London.
We headed north to the Picadilly Circus area to find a restaurant called Flat Iron. I had read about this place online because you can get a full steak and fries for £10! The catch is that you can't make reservations and there is usually a line out the door. Well on a Friday night at 6:30, there was a line out the door. We did not have the stamina to wait out the line and noticed a hipster-looking burger joint right across the street, so burgers it was! Any comfort food was wanted and Byron definitely delivered. The food was savory, messy, and delicious.
Since we over-indulged at dinner, Chris and I decided to walk the two miles back to our hotel to cap off the night. We walked through Green Park and made our way past Buckingham Palace to wish the Queen "sweet dreams" before hitting the pillows ourselves to rest up before our next big day in the morning.
Saturday, February 3rd:
We woke up early Saturday morning excited for our day trip out to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Bath. For a quick breakfast, we popped into Pret to fuel up on some coffee and yogurt before heading to the Victoria Bus Station for our tour.
I could seriously eat Pret every day and did in fact when I studied in London. :)
Our departure was just a few blocks from our hotel, which made it super easy early in the morning. We had booked our tour through Viator, but the actual company who put on the tour was called Evan Evans. We all loaded onto the coach bus with our tour guide Nigel and headed out to Windsor Castle for our first stop. We drove through Chelsea and learned a little about Princess Diana's old hangouts and arrived at Windsor probably 30-40 minutes later.
Windsor Castle is the largest and oldest inhabited castle in the world and is where the Queen likes to spend most of her weekends [sadly the Queen wasn't there when we visited as we learned when Nigel asked one of the police guards "Is Her Majesty here this weekend?"]. The palace sits atop a hill in the town of Windsor imposing all of its splendor upon everyone below. The estate is sprawling and would take hours to properly see everything.
It took awhile to get through security, so we had only an hour and a half to explore. Some of the main attractions include the State Apartments, Queen Mary's Dolls' House, St. George's Chapel, and the Changing of the Guard. We were lucky enough to see the Changing of the Guard, but knew we probably only had time to check out either the State Apartments or St. George's Chapel. With the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle happening in May at St. George's Chapel, we voted to spend our time there. The chapel is really beautiful and quaint compared to Westminster Abbey. It was fun imagining Meghan walking down the aisle. Again, we used our time to ask the volunteers questions about the chapel. We found out the chapel has seating for 300, but they can squeeze in 800. Quite the jump in numbers, isn't it? We were also shown where Harry's family and Meghan's family will sit for the ceremony.
Like Westminster Abbey, there are a lot notable people who are buried at St. George's Chapel. Of particular interest to Chris and me are:
- King George VI and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon - the current Queen's father and mother;
- King Charles I - the king who was executed by beheading -- they had to sew his head back on before burial; and
- King Henry VIII - known for separating the Church of England from Catholicism and executing nearly all of his wives.
We had a great time at Windsor Castle. It was a little strange thinking that a family still owns it and lives there. That kind of wealth is unfathomable. I am super excited though to watch the royal wedding in May after having visited!
We grabbed a take away lunch from one of the cafes and loaded back onto the bus to head to our next location, Stonehenge. The drive to Stonehenge was awesome because we got to see the trees that inspired J.K. Rowling's "Womping Willows" in Harry Potter, Windsor Park where a lot of the royal family have homes, and the Royal Ascot, home to England's fanciest horse race. The drive from Windsor to Stonehenge was about an hour and a half long and once we got past the Royal Ascot, it was nothing but farmland. Stonehenge is literally in the middle of nowhere, which made us really happy we didn't rent a car and try to do this all for ourselves. When you get about a mile away, you can see Stonehenge up the road in all its glory.
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument believed to have been constructed between 2,000-3,000 B.C. Scientists still haven't unearthed exactly how or why Stonehenge was built. They do know it was used as a burial site and played an important role with the Summer and Winter Soltices. The stones are even bigger than you can imagine and it's hard not to stand there in awe of how an ancient civilization erected the structure, especially the stones that lay parallel to the ground on top of two standing stones. One thing I didn't appreciate before visiting was that the stones that do lay on top are held in place by ball and socket joints carved into the stones.
My biggest question is who is in charge of mowing the lawn around the stones? I wouldn't want that kind of pressure!
Near the Stonehenge shop and cafe are reconstructed huts to show what kind of dwellings the people lived in 4,000-5,000 years ago.
Checking off Stonehenge on the bucket list was a dream come true!
Our last stop on our day trip was visiting the City of Bath, one of the only cities to be entirely protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. On our way, we drove through Salisbury Plain, which is where the English military does a lot of their training and entered County Somerset, home of cheddar cheese and cidar beer.
Bath is located down in the valley of the River Avon surrounded by hillside. It was developed by the Romans in the first century AD and the town centered around a natural hot spring. The Romans built the Temple of Sulis Minerva and the baths using the hot spring as its source of water. The water at the Roman Baths was believed to have endless healing powers and many still believe that today. In its heyday, the baths were not only used for cleansing and healing powers for the Romans, but they also built an altar for animal sacrifices as they tried to please the gods. Thousands in the Roman Empire made the journey to Bath to experience the healing waters. The roman baths went through a long period of abandonment after the fall of the Roman Empire and it wasn't until the 16th century that it saw its revival.
As part of our tour, we got to visit the Roman Baths, which they have turned into a museum with audio guides. Besides seeing the old baths and the water source, the museum has parts of the old temple still in tact and on display, along with Roman coins and other artifacts. We didn't have time to see everything in the museum, so we stuck to the highlights of the actual baths. The water in the main bath today is no longer safe for human touch. It is filled with bacteria making the water a green color. That didn't stop a couple young boys from dipping their fingers in there [honestly I was hoping they'd slip and fall in]. At the end of the museum, you get the opportunity to try some of the safe spring water, which contains 42 minerals. Chris and I each had two cups of the water, which tasted a bit like metal and was pretty warm in temperature. I can't say we felt any healing powers, but here's to hoping!
The actual city of Bath is stunning. We had no idea how charming it would be. As mentioned, the River Avon runs through the city and its surrounded by hillside, but the architecture is Georgian and there is also a beautiful abbey right next to the Roman baths. The city centre is super cute with shops and cafes. There is no doubt we could have spent an entire day there. It was nearing 5:30 p.m. and we were not set to arrive back in London until around 8:00, so we grabbed a Cornish Pasty and muffin from the cutest cafe called Cornish Bakery to hold us over for the long drive home.
Fun fact: Johnny Depp has a home in Bath.
Once we made it back to London, we were dropped off back at Victoria Station. It had been a cold and wet rainy day, so all we wanted was a hot dinner. We found a tiny, but authentic Italian restaurant called Il Posto, run by the sweetest old Italian man and filled our bellies with ravioli, tortellini, and a bottle of wine.
Overall, our day trip was incredible. For $120/per person, we got to see three iconic places, which also included entrance fees, and we got to ride along on a comfortable coach bus, not having to worry about driving on the left side of the road or trying to find our way. Chris and I both agreed we would do another tour like this again. It was a long, 11 hour day, but you can have cold food and beverages on the bus, and stop into any cafe at any of the sites. It was great having our tour guide teach us along the way to each site, but he did leave us to our own accord once we got to each place, and I wish he would have stuck with us for at least some of it. My only other critique is the bus had no outlets or usb inputs for charging phones and that was stressful! My phone died at Stonehenge because of the cold and it was a bummer not only for picture taking, but it is a long, dark ride back from Bath to London, so having a phone to keep you entertained for that portion would be nice.
Sunday, February 4th:
On Sunday morning, we checked out of our hotel, left our luggage at the storage, and headed south to the Pimlico and Vauxhall neighborhoods to go see the MI6 building. It was a quiet morning and this area on the Thames was filled with some stunning architecture whose blue and green glass windows illuminated with the rising sun.
After pretending we were secret agents, we grabbed a quick breakfast at Pret and took the tube up to to Buckingham Palace. We walked through the promenade at Buckingham to wish the Queen a good morning, made our way through Green Park, and headed to Trafalgar Square through Picadilly Circus.
When we got to Trafalgar Square, we were met with bumping music, an MC, and thousands of runners ready to race in London's Winter Run. It was so fun! The energy and atmosphere was super fun, so we found a spot on the steps of a museum to watch a few waves of racers make their way across the starting line.
Next, we made our way to Covent Garden, one of my favorite markets in London. We saw a man on stilts, heard a real life opera singer, and made our way through the different vendors. We found an artist who had prints of his paintings of London and got to talking with him. We really liked him and his work, so we bought one of his prints and he even signed it for us!
The last thing we wanted to do in London was visit my old residence and neighborhood from when I studied abroad, which is over by King's Cross. We hopped on the tube and when we made our way out of the station, I immediately realized that they completely redeveloped the King's Cross station, which was all fine and good, but THEY MOVED THE HARRY POTTER 9 3/4 PLATFORM! I was super distraught and was frantically searching for it like a mad woman until Chris was like ... give.it.up.
We walked down the street the few blocks to my old residence, two tall towers of dorms. I don't believe it is still run by the same management company, but it was fun to see it from the outside and remember fun times with my law school mates. The neighborhood is definitely coming up -- there's hipstery restaurants and well, hipsters walking around, and it doesn't feel as sketchy as it did before. The only businesses that I still recognized were The Big Chill, which is a bar, and the McDonald's.
Right across from the Big Chill was a cool looking pizza joint that looked promising, so we popped in for lunch and it did not disappoint. The restaurant is called Pizza Union and its 12" pizzas range from £3-£6.50, so it's basically the best pizza place ever.
We had a 3:45 p.m. flight out of London, so after lunch, we headed back to our hotel to grab our luggage and hopped on the Gatwick Express before arriving at London Gatwick Airport.
Our time in London was some of the best. We explored so much of the city on that first day [and never faced a single line -- thank you February], traveled out to the countryside to see some really old stuff, and walked down memory lane on Sunday. The trip could not have gone better and it was fun to visit a city I called home for a short four weeks. I'm so happy I gave London another shot because this time I found all of its charm.
Btw, Ryanair was great!
Update on Trips & Visitors!
Lots has happened since my last post, so here is an update on our current travel plans and visitors:
March 15-19: Jeremy will be here
April 1-11: My parents & Aunt Diane will be here
April 19-22: Amsterdam
May 4-7: Stockholm & Helsinki
Sometime in May: Alisa & friend Katie will be here
July: Shawn will be here; Chrissy, Andy, Ann, & Andrew are tentative!
August 4-12: Slovenia & Croatia -- not yet booked
Until next time!
Cheers, xo
