London, England
London is huge. Like really, really huge. Not only are there 8 million people who live in London, but more than 19 million people visit the city as tourists every year and I’m pretty sure 80% of them visited on the same day we did. Note to self – next time you visit London, don’t go in August.
Brian and I went to London on a 3-day, 2-night adventure. But in reality, our 3 day trip ended up being 48 hours to explore the city. It’s not as quick as I thought to travel from Amsterdam to London. At least not the way we did it. Somehow it took us 6 hours to get from Point A (our house in Amersfoort) to Point B (our flat in London). The two cities are 240 miles apart and if we had wanted, we could have driven to London via Belgium and France in about the same amount of time it took us to fly there. Between the 45 minute train ride to the Amsterdam airport, arriving early for our flight, flying 1 hour to London, and then navigating a bus and a couple trains to get from Luton airport to the Kensington area in London…it took forever.
Observations
– The Tube (London’s subway) uses the phrase “Mind the Gap” to warn you not to fall in the little gap between the train and the station platform. This phrase will forever remind me of London.
– “Look Left” or “Look Right” is stenciled on the street at crosswalks to remind visitors to look the opposite way for oncoming traffic. After 3 days in London, I still screwed this up frequently and was terrified we were going to be run over by a bus.
– Londoner’s don’t look for “Exit” signs like we do in the U.S. – they follow signs pointing to the “Way Out”.
– Everyone should buy an all-day pass for the Tube. The Tube is easy to use, it felt safe and clean, and it was by far the best way to get around the city.
– Don’t fly into Luton Airport no matter how good the deal. Your time is worth money and Luton is way outside the city. Suck it up and fly into Heathrow. It’s more convenient.
– It’s hard to fit more than 3 attractions in one day. There are lines for everything, the attractions can be spread out, and many have limited opening hours.
– We made it through 3 days without using any cash. We could use our credit cards everywhere, which was convenient and awesome because then we didn’t have to worry about getting too much/too little cash.
London Attractions
There are a million things to do in London. I think you could spend a year in London and do something unique every day and still not scratch the surface of exploring the city. We ended up seeing the following sites during our short visit:
Thames River Cruise
I love boat tours. If a city has a boat tour, it’s very likely I’m going to be on it. We boarded a giant tourist cruise boat (City Cruises was the one we tried, but there were several to choose from) at Westminster Pier and sailed down the Thames River to Greenwich. The trip took about 70 minutes, and on the way to Greenwich we saw the London Eye, Big Ben, Parliament, Tower of London, Tower Bridge and several other smaller sites the tour guide pointed out. We had lunch in Greenwich (a super cute area!) at the Gypsy Moth, a typical English pub. We then walked through the Greenwich market and I wished we would have eaten lunch there instead – there were a ton of street-food vendors with ethnic foods that looked really yummy.
The Tower of London
This was our favorite site in London. It was a good combination of history, fun facts, good views, and interesting tours. The Tower of London is a historic castle located on the north bank of the Thames River and right next to the Tower Bridge. We took a guided tour from a Yeoman Warder (they are also known as Beefeaters…no one knows why…) and it was super interesting. The guide was funny and the information he shared was cool. The Tower was also a cool place to see the Queen’s guards up close too -they do look like little toys and have crazy fuzzy hats.
The Tower Bridge
Did you know the London Bridge and the Tower Bridge are different? I didn’t. I always thought when people talked about the London/Tower Bridge that they were different words used to describe the same bridge. Nope. The famous bridge you’ve seen in pictures with the the towers on each side is the Tower Bridge. It’s just as gorgeous in real life as it is in the photos. The best photos I took of the bridge were taken from just outside the Tower of London, where you have an elevated vantage point to view the bridge. We also took pictures from our boat tour down the Thames River, but those pictures didn’t turn out very well because of how cloudy it was at the time.
Big Ben
This was a bust. Big Ben is undergoing renovations, so although we could see the iconic clock, the rest of the tower was covered with scaffolding.
Westminster Abbey and Parliament
We didn’t go inside these two sites, but I stood next to them, took a picture and confirmed they are real.
Buckingham Palace
The palace looks a lot cooler on TV when someone from the Today show is standing outside talking about some big royal event. When we stopped by it was a bunch of people gawking at the palace from really far away (you can’t go inside the gates). I’m glad I saw it, but the visit was literally 5 minutes just to say “been there, done that”. There is a nice park, Green Park, right outside the palace that would have been nice to relax in for awhile if all the grass hadn’t been completely dead due to the extreme drought.
Cutty Sark
This is an old Brittish clipper ship in Greenwich right by the pier that has been restored as a museum. You can walk inside and under the ship and learn about it’s history in the tea trade. Although I wouldn’t recommend making this a destination on it’s own, we had some time to waste before getting back on the boat tour in Greenwich and it was free for us (normally there is a fee) to tour. We did a quick 20 minute walk through, but could have spent a lot more time reading various info as it was actually pretty interesting.
Eating and Drinking
Hansom Cab
Brian’s goal was to find some good craft beer bars in London and we succeeded with the Hansom Cab. We tried several local beers (and got generous samples to figure out which ones we liked), talked with the awesome bartenders for awhile, and met a random old guy at the bar who befriended me and recommended tons of local places for us to check out.
Churchill Arms
This place was recommended to us by the old guy who befriended us at the Hansom Cab. He told us the outside of the bar was full of flowers, the inside had tons of Winston Churchill memorabilia and the restaurant served good, cheap Thai food. Strange combination, huh? The place was exactly as he described – right down to the strange warning you get when the waiter seats you at your table and says you can only stay for 1 hour. OK. No problem. We’re from America – we invented fast food. The food we ordered was great – and only 7.5 pounds (about $10) per person, which is super affordable for London. We finished in 42 minutes with time to spare.
Capote Y Toros
This Spanish tapas restaurant was awesome. Loved, loved our food. I found the place randomly on Google and it turned out to be a great find. Authentic food. Live guitar music. Cozy atmosphere. A wine list that had 20 pages of red wines. We tried four items: Ham croquettes (wonderful, and completely different from Dutch kroketten – so glad my sister told me the Spanish ones were good or I would have avoided them); Chorizo cooked in Sherry (Brian loved this, I thought it was good but a little spicy); Pork meatball casserole (yum, yum); and a Spanish tortilla with chorizo on top (these tortilla’s look nothing like what I thought they would, but were super yummy). We also made friends with the couple sitting next to us and ended up talking to them until we were the last people left in the restaurant and it was 11:30 p.m. on a Wednesday night.
Craft Beer Company
This was a bar north of the Tower of London that we walked to after our long day playing tourist. The beer list was awesome. The place was packed and spilling out on to the street. And I was one of 5 women among 100 men 🙂
Random pictures:
2 Comments
Gina Wyttenbach
Hi Amy,
Todd Wyttenbach’s wife here. Just a quick note to let you know we really enjoy reading your posts – thank you for sharing your adventures with us!
Gina
Amy
Thanks, Gina – I’m glad you are enjoying the posts!
Amy