Our luxurious hotel room

Trying not to let my mishap ruin what was going to be a lovely trip to London, we set off to find a pub. We filled our bellies with British beer and cottage pie and walked through one of the fanciest neighborhoods I have ever encountered, Nottinghill. Car after car were Mercedes, Bentley, Range Rover, the cheapest in the neighborhood being an Audi! It was neat to be able to see where high class Londoners live!

The first pint of many….

Cottage pie

The next morning we had a walking tour arranged that showed us around the touristy parts of London, and it started from Covent Garden. I had never heard about this part of London before, but so glad I finally know about it. With high end shops lining the streets and markets with people selling arts and crafts, it was such a charming part of London.

The highlights of our tour were of course Buckingham Palace, but we also got a glimpse of the palace where Prince Charles, Camilla and Harry live, which I had never known about before. Our tour was led by a Brit, who also happened to be an actor, he was interesting to say the least. Quite the character, but probably one of my least favorites guides as he continuously reminded us about tipping him and the other tours the company had to offer.

Our tour guide for the day

Woman guard at Prince Charles’ Palace

Prince Charles’ Palace

Our last stops on the tour was to Big Ben, The Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey where we ran into two of Nick’s students from this past semester (actually it was sorta planned).  We joined Kat and Sarah for a quick lunch at a burrito truck along the Thames in South Bank.  After an enjoyable lunch and catching up about recent travels we departed for The British Museum.  Earlier in the day we also bought theatre tickets to Billy Elliott, which was playing at The Victoria Theatre, so with some time to spare after the museum we stopped by our old stomping grounds (LOL), Holborn Whippet for drinks and appetizers.  Billy Elliott was amazing, the young actors were just phenomenal, as well as the adult actors.  All in all, it was a very successful day.

Big Ben & The London Eye

Food Truck Burritos

The next day after having a wonderful full English breakfast at the hotel, we made our way through Hyde Park to visit the Natural History Museum, while I was excited to see a real giant dinosaur, I was quickly disappointed to find out it was a replica.  But not to worry they did have some real dinosaurs within the museum, just not at large as I had anticipated.  While I love kids, a museum over run with them was not the best of experiences, so we cut our visit short, grabbed some lunch and then just walked around to see the sites.  This visit to London was more about being outside, doing free things, and just enjoying the city rather than trying to rush around and seeing as much things as possible.  We did make a stop into Harrod’s (out of the three times I have been to London, this was my first trip).  I really enjoyed it, the decor was quite interesting and we found out that they had a Prada Exhibit on the top floor that we were able to visit for no charge.  The exhibit had a lot of older designs, which included hand bags, shoes and clothing.  

Prada Exhibit at Harrod’s

On this visit we were also able to visit some architecture that Nick didn’t get to see the last time we were there, such as The Shard, The Gherkin, Lloyd’s, and London’s City Hall.  Of course this was not without sprinkling in some of the touristy sites for me, such as London Tower Bridge, and a walk back to see Big Ben and The Houses of Parliament.  I really enjoyed just walking this trip, seeing the various street performers and we would often take breaks so that Nick could rest his ankle, and it was just wonderful being able to see the city go by and not being in a hurry to get anywhere.

Tower Bridge Selfie

The Tate Modern

We enjoyed another trip back to The Tate Modern, which I was really glad that we did as they had some new exhibits within.  I was really bummed as they have a current Matisse exhibit that I really wanted to see, but it was ridiculously expensive, so we passed and just enjoyed the rest of the museum instead.

Our last night in town we enjoyed watching the FA Cup in a pub right around the corner from our hotel, we then made our way back for a good nights sleep in our twin bed 🙂  Which actually ended up being the worst nights sleep, as I think that I was worried about not waking up in time to catch a train to the airport for our flight.  But we were just fine, we got up and ready and went to check out to find the man who ran the hotel sleeping on the couch in the reception (odd?), we made our way to the bus stop right around the corner, where the gentleman the night before gave us directions to the Victoria Station. When we arrived, we found a huge yellow sign over the bus stop sign that indicated that this stop was currently out of service, so we walked down the street to the nearest tube station to find that the tube stations did not open until 7:00 am…. seriously?!?!?  Luckily a cab was driving by and Nick asked him how much it would be for a ride to Victoria Station, as at this point we only had 20 pounds to our name!  Thankfully, we made it to the station and it only cost us 12 pounds, we boarded our train to the airport and arrived in plenty of time to make our flight, and with 8 pounds left over enjoyed a very healthy breakfast that Nick strategically bought for us!

While this trip was a lot more money than we anticipated, we really enjoyed the pace and being able to see more of London this time around, checking off buildings that Nick had always wanted to see, and just enjoying the city itself.  I had planned to try to get out of the city to Bath, but it did not work out for us this time, so maybe an excuse to come back one day in the future.

Please view more pictures from our trip here!