Our drive back from Bath to London was quite the adventure with traffic once we arrived just outside of London. Not wanting to believe the GPS, sadly it did take us about 50 minutes to go less than ten miles. But we successfully returned the rental car before time and safely!

We thankfully found the Marble Arches tube station which did not require a jaunt through Hyde Park like our route there did. We found our hotel and dropped our bags and made our way to Hyde Park but not before a quick stop at a coffee shop near by for a bite to eat. Little did we realize the it was a Chilean coffee shop, Harrison’s. We each started with a coffee and then shared a steak sandwich and zucchini and leek soup. Both were very good.

For the next several hours we wandered our way through Hyde Park, visiting the Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Palace Gardens and gift shop. We sat for a few in the sunken gardens which were often visited by Princess Diana when she lived there. They now display the memorial sculpture of her, which was dedicated by William and Harry in 2021.

Not knowing what to do next a full afternoon ahead of us, we went and did “Nick” things, we grabbed coffee at Blank Street Coffee, saw some architecture, walked through alleyways and even stumbled upon a digital installation in the middle of the city.

And then we found a Megan thing to do – we found PELOTON LONDON.  We even saw Bradley Rose who was arriving to teach the 6:30 pm class.  I had tried to sign up for a class before we came, but they were very limited as last week they didn’t have any at all, and only a few this weekend.  I was on a waitlist for a run class but decided to cancel last week as I didn’t want to be pressured to hurry along any part of our day to make it there.  We did dip inside the overly priced Peloton store where Nick tried to get me to buy a sweatshirt, where I reminded him I essentially had the same one back in the hotel room that I paid way less for, the only thing missing was the word London.  

We found ourselves in the SoHo neighborhood where we started our food tour the other day, we stumbled upon a pub called The Three Greyhounds so we of course had to stop in for a pint.  

We had dinner reservations this evening at an Indian Restaurant on Brick Lane so we decided to make the way back to the hotel, collect our bags and freshen up before making our way over to that area.  Once we disembarked the train it was as if we were in a whole different world.  Whitehall is a highly populated Bangladeshi neighborhood and it seemed as if they had just recently had different vendors set up throughout the streets that were tearing down, and the walkways were filled with various Middle Eastern stores and restaurants.  Once we made our way to Brick Lane it felt like we were in Rome with all the various men hanging outside of the restaurants trying to persuade you in.  The food scene here is quite competitive.  We enjoyed our dinner, I had the butter chicken and Nick lamb jalfreizi, and we shared paneer tikka and samosas to start.  

Afterwards, we were close to a few architecture projects, specifically the Gerkin that Nick wanted to walk by, but were were also near the Sky Garden.  One of London’s must do experiences, according to who we don’t know.  We decided while there that we were going to start a website called what no to do, and this would make the list.  It was fine, but not worth the money that we had to pay to get in because we didn’t have a reservation.  They pack you onto an elevator, and you go up to the 35th floor to be greeted by what seems to be every other tourist in London, and then they pour a terrible glass of champagne into a plastic wine glass.  It is supposed to give you a 360-degree view of London, but most of the sections were roped off, not accessible and the outside terrace was closed.  Certainly not the experience that we were anticipating, it’s amazing how glamorous Instagram can make things look.  

For our last full day in London, we had nothing at all planned.  We had dinner reservations, but Nick ended up canceling.  The other day I ended up booking one of the Sandemann’s tour, which started at Covent Garden.  Our guide for the day was Herbie, a street performer and wizard who moved to London 40 years ago at the age of 16.  He has been working as a street performer since then, he performs magic.  Herbie led us all through London today, we saw Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, and Clarence House (where the King lives) and we ended up seeing Big Ben strike at the 12 pm hour.  Our tour was a little hindered today by all of the protests that were going on around London, the biggest being one for Palestine.  The amounts of people were astonishing, they were coming from everywhere and it felt as if everywhere you turned there were more and more people.  After the tour, we ended up grabbing a drink nearby to use the facilities and when leaving even found ourselves “marching” with the very peaceful protestors.  

Nick had found a cheese bar with a cheese train at a nearby food market, so we made our way over there to find out that the wait would be 2 hours. Instead, we grabbed a few things from a few of the food stalls, ended up walking around, dipping in and out of a few shops, one last stop past the PELOTON store, because we were nearby, and saw Bradley Rose again – maybe he lives here?  

A few months ago Kelly Moore had sent me an Instagram post of a barge that also serves as a restaurant that serves all cheese items, and to our delight it was right behind our hotel.  We arrived with little hope of getting in, finding out that it was the sister restaurant to the location we earlier tried to patronize.  Well, we were in luck, although they initially tried to turn us away they did have a cancellation so they were able to seat us.  We enjoyed Currie cheese curds, a plate of three different cheeses, some meats, and a bottle of wine.  To finish we enjoyed their vanilla ice cream with bleu cheese and walnuts which was served with a side for port to pour over it.  Needless to say, we were done for.  

I had wanted to venture back out to find some gifts to take back home, but when we finally rose from the bed to find that it was raining, we decided to retire early for the evening as we have an early wake-up to catch a car to the airport.  I specifically chose this hotel and location as it would have allowed us to take the Heathrow Express, a 15-minute train to the airport for our 9:15 am flight.  Well, we found out the other day tomorrow that the train is not running and it would also appear that no trains from Paddington are running, so instead of taking a 1.5 hour roundabout way to get there we have reserved a car to take us at 5:45 am, let’s hope it shows up!