A Week in London
I’ve been under a lot of pressure to get this post up, so here goes! Shoutout to my good friend Riley for always reading and enjoying my travel posts, typos and all haha. This one’s for you Ri 😉
When I left off last, I was in York with my mom and sister (see A Stopover in York, England). After our 24 hour stay in York, we hopped on an early morning train to London where we spent the next seven days.
Since London has so much to see, this is probably going to be a rather long post, so fasten your seat belts and prepare yourselves for the ride. I hope you all enjoy!
I have dreamed of travelling to London for most of my life (no joke). I live in a small town and I find that it can get a wee bit boring around here to put it mildly. Every so often I need to take a trip down to the city to get a good bout of culture to last me until my next trip. I think my week in London provided me with enough culture to last for at least six months, maybe even a year. London is such an incredible city. Every neighbourhood has something different to offer, it’s wonderful!
Day One (April 1st)
Our first day was not super eventful. It began with us catching an eight am train from York to London King’s Cross Station. After our train had pulled into the station, we hopped on the tube and rode it to Notting Hill (where we rented an Airbnb for the week). Riding the tube is a great way to get around London. Riding the tube is less great when you’re lugging around a big suitcase. We each purchased an Oyster card and loaded them up to make travel easy throughout the week. An Oyster card is the London equivalent of the Toronto Presto card. If you’re planning on being in London for more than a few days, I would definitely recommend purchasing an Oyster card to make travelling easier and more efficient (goodbye lining up for subway tickets!).
We took a bus from Notting Hill Gate subway station where the owner of our Airbnb met up with us. She toured us around the flat, which was very cute, and told us a bit about the area. Funny story, while my mom, Emma, and this lady were in the living room I was checking out the kitchen (typical). I went to open one of the drawers to familiarize myself with where things were and the front of the drawer came right off! From where Emma was standing in the living room she could see me, we exchanged a look as I hurriedly jammed the drawer back into place. Disclaimer: I did not break the drawer, it was already broken.
After the owner left we got settled in, then headed out and walked along Portobello Road, the Main Street in Notting Hill. We browsed for a few hours, then had a delicious dinner at Luna Rossa, an Italian restaurant (with vegan and GF options!!). We all ordered pizza (of course). Our table was right next to the counter with the pizza oven, so we got to watch the guy make all the pizzas, it was pretty cool.
We wrapped up our night cuddled up on the couch in our flat watching Bridget Jones’s Diary, a classic!
Day Two (April 2nd)
Our day started with us setting out to catch a train around 10:45 am down to to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.
An important note to anyone planning to go see the changing of the guard: plan to get there at least an hour before it actually starts. We did not leave ourselves very much time and ended up being able to just glance the tops of the guards’ hats over the heads of hundreds of tourists. We were in London over Easter break, so essentially all of Europe was on holiday and London was swarming with tourists. It was also raining, so it wasn’t the most enjoyable experience haha, oh well.
Our next stop was the Royal Mews, aka the stables of Buckingham Palace. We did an audio tour of the Mews, which we all really enjoyed. One of the Queen’s horses and a bunch of royal coaches, including the gold State coach that has been used for the coronations of the past seven monarchs, were on display in the mews. It was a great tour. One of the coaches on display was a gift to Queen Victoria from the Canada, it was a sleigh, which is now used by Saint Nicholas to deliver gifts to the children of the staff that live at the Mews on Christmas.
My sister had a Skpe interview for a summer job in the afternoon, so once we had seen the Mews we headed back to Notting Hill. We had a delicious lunch at Farm Girl on Portobello Road. Farm Girl is a very trendy, healthy, and delicious eatery. We were seated at a communal table with a photographer from New York trying to make a name for himself in London, and two British girls.
I ordered the the kale and coconut salad, Emma had a deluxe avocado toast, mom had a chicken sandwich, and we all shared an order of baked sweet potato wedges. One of the highlights of the Farm Girl menu is the extensive specialty drink section. What really caught my eye was the matcha selection. The have a hibiscus matcha, a green matcha, and a butterfly matcha. I ordered a hibiscus matcha latte made with coconut milk, which is a beautiful rose red colour. On the way out Em and I snagged some dessert to bring home with us. I got a slice of banana bread, it was delish!
Emma kicked us out of the flat for an hour while she was having her interview, so mom and I passed the time by exploring more of Notting Hill. We bought a delicious loaf of dark Danish rye bread from Fabrique, a Scandinavian bakery. They had mouthwateringly good looking Swedish cinnamon and cardamon buns for sale too, which mom bought for herself and Emma (unfortunately they were not Ash-friendly).
While we were out I picked up some nice ripe avocados to make some bomb avocado toast on the Danish rye the next morning. Danish rye is literally my favourite bread ever. I make it all the time at home and it is just so damn good. Moral of the story, try Danish rye bread, your life will be forever changed.
We had some serious issues with the stove while we were trying to prepare our dinner. It was a gas stove and the electric starter was not working, so the kitchen got all filled up with gas and we had to air it out for a while before attempting to light the burners with matches. We didn’t end up doing too much cooking in this kitchen for obvious reasons…
Day Three (April 3rd)
Day there had three main stops on the agenda: The British Museum, Covent Garden, and Marylebone. The latter two are neighbourhoods in London and the first is self explanatory haha.
Now, I am no museum junkie, so keep in mind that most of my reviews of museums are probably quite biased.
The British Museum had a wonderful collection of artifacts from Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece (they had other exhibits too, but these were the two that we saw). In the Egyptian exhibit they had the mummified Cleopatra, which, I must say, was pretty cool. Did you know that she was only seventeen when she died?
Covent Garden is in the heart of the London theatre district. We wandered up and down the streets, popping in and out of stores, and eventually ended up in Neal’s Yard. Some of you may have heard of Neal’s Yard before, it’s a small alley that opens up into a charming courtyard surrounded by colourful buildings in the Covent Gardens neighbourhood.
We ate our lunch in Neal’s Yard at a cafe called 26 Grains. The atmosphere was very cosy and the food was exactly what I needed to warm me up. I had a turmeric latte and a bowl of yellow Dahl. A direct quote from my travel journal about 26 Grains: “the food was good and the aesthetic was bomb”. God, I should really become a food critic/ writer, I’d be “bomb” at it.
After lunch we took the tube to Marylebone, an area recommended to us by two of our family friends. Marylebone is a very upscale area with beautiful, and very expensive, shops. You may remember me mentioning my love for a certain strawberry green tea made by a certain French brand in my York blog post, well that brand is Kusmi and on the main shopping strip in Marylebone there is a Kusmi store. I, of course, went in and I, of course, bought $32 worth of strawberry green tea. I have no regrets, it was worth every cent.
We had dinner at Ukai, a Japanese restaurant at the end of our street. The decor inside the restaurants was very well done and the food was super yummy. I had the seaweed salad and miso baked aubergine. The aubergine was absolutely delicious! I want to try to recreate it and post the recipe on the blog, stay tuned for that.
Day Four (April 4th)
It was another cold and rainy day. In the morning, we walked to South Kensington to see the Kensington Gardens, the palace, and Hyde Park. Right by the palace there is a rather large pond with loads of birds. There were swans and many varieties of ducks in the pond, and hundreds of pigeons on the shore all waiting to be fed by the tourists. To be completely honest, Emma and I spent most of our time by the pond taking photos of the birds.
One of the sights that I knew I absolutely had to see while I was in London was Harrods department store. Being inside Harrods is like being in a whole other world. We went to the food hall first to get some lunch to take out with us. I cannot even put into words how extravagant just the food hall alone was, never mind the rest of the department store. The food hall is divided into rooms and each room has a theme. For example, there is a room dedicated to just sweets. There are counters upon counters of the most delectable looking candies, chocolates, and other delicacies that you have ever seen. I would say that pretty much any food you could imagine can be found in the Harrods food hall. It’s amazing.
In the centre of the room where all the fresh fruits and vegetables are there are counters stocked up with meals-to-go. The counters are divided into different ethnicities. There’s Japanese food, Italian food, Middle Eastern food, and the list goes on. Also, they have the most amazing salad bar (although the Whole Foods salad bar is a close second). I built a salad at the salad bar and took it with me to eat later on in the day.
We wandered around the upper floors of the department store. My favourite floor, besides the food hall floor, was floor five, aka shoe heaven. Every possible pair of designer shoes that you could think of is carried by Harrods. They had my dream shoes, a pair of black cat flats by Charlotte Olympia, but they were way out of my price range. Oh well, a girl can dream.
On our way down the escalator there was a group of young people, maybe in their earlier twenties, with arms full of bags from designer stores like Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Dior, etc. It is very easy to tell the difference between the frequent shoppers and the tourists in Harrods. As I said, it’s like a whole other world in there. I would have taken more pictures inside the store, but I was feeling quite judged so I refrained.
My sister was set on going to the Natural History Museum, it was the one thing that she really wanted to see while we were in London. The line to get into the museum was huge! After we had been in line for at least half an hour these two ladies and a couple kids started standing right next to the line and pretended to just be having a casual conversation. I watched as they snaked their way into the line, needless to say I was pissed. I was going to confront the ladies, but Emma suggested that that may not be the best idea. Apparently some other guy in line had said something to them and the one lady got really aggressive with him, so I held my tongue. We ended up having to wait in line for almost two hours to get into this museum! The admission is free and it was the Easter break, so that’s probably why, but still, two hours! And it was raining!
Emma had another Skype interview for her summer job that afternoon, so by the time we actually got into the museum we only had about forty minutes to look around. We saw some dinosaurs and fossils before we had to leave, but that was about it.
If you are planning on visiting the Natural History Museum I would suggest that you give yourself lots of time and avoid going during a holiday. It was so packed in the museum that we couldn’t even stop to read the plaques on the exhibits, we just got pushed along by the crowds.
Emma had her interview, she got the job by the way (go Em!), and we decided to eat dinner at home in our flat.
Day Five (April 5th)
This was a very full day.
First, we took the tube down to see the London Tower and Tower Bridge. We walked across Tower Bridge to get to Bankside on the other side of the Thames. It was beautifully sunny and warm for a change, perfect for walking.
We walked to Borough Market, arguably my favourite place we visited in London. Borough Market is an enormous indoor/ outdoor market under the railway bridges in Bankside. There are so many interesting food stalls, I was in literal heaven!
I bought a slice of GF + vegan passion fruit cheese cake, I am definitely recreating this recipe for the blog, and for lunch I got a mix of Indian Dahl, potato curry, cauliflower curry, rice, and a onion Bhaji (all GF + vegan) from Gujarati Rasoi. I absolutely love Indian food and this was easily some of the best that I have ever had.
There were so many amazing deals on fresh fruits and vegetables. I bought some fresh figs and passion fruits to enjoy with my breakfasts throughout the week. If I lived in London I would literally go to Borough Market every day, I am dead serious.
At one stall I loaded up on medjool dates. I told Emma that the dates were￡18 per kilo and I asked my her to hold my bag of dates and tell me how heavy she thought it was. She held the bag and then said, “well, it’s definitely not 18 pounds”, I gave her a look after that comment. Apparently my sister is incapable of doing simple weight conversions. It took her a minute to catch on. In the end I bought ￡14 worth of dates, but I have no regrets. The dates made for great snacks throughout the rest of my trip (win!).
After doing one final walk around the market we went to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. I am a die hard fan of Shakespeare and I have been ever since my fifth grade class studied A Midsummer Nights’ Dream (my all-time favourite Shakespearean play). We did the guided tour of the theatre and it was absolutely amazing! Our tour guide was phenomenal and I was just so over the moon to be in the Globe Theatre, this was definitely a highlight.
The Globe Theatre that stands today is actually the third Globe Theatre and was completed in 1997. Look up the history of the Globe, it is an incredible one! In the courtyard outside of the theatre there are names engraved into the paving stones. It cost ￡300 to have your name put on a paving stone and all the proceeds went towards the costs of constructing and maintaining the new theatre. My two favourite stones belong to Michael Palin and John Cleese, the actors from Monte Python. The story goes that when the stones were being put in Michael Palin was very busy, so he asked his good friend John Cleese to fill out all the required paperwork to have his name put on a stone. Cleese filled out Palin’s paperwork, and in good old Monte Python style humour, Cleese made sure that Palin’s name was spelled wrong. The stone reads “Michael Pallin” instead of “Palin”. I find this absolutely hilarious.
Once our tour had concluded and we had visited the gift shop at the theatre, we crossed the the Millennium Bridge to get back across the Thames.
My mom really wanted to go to Evening Song at Westminster Abbey and to be honest to was a little bit of a let down. There was a big wall separating everyone from the choir, which made it very hard to hear the lyrics that they were singing. In the end we only stayed for about fifteen minutes before heading back to Notting Hill.
We ate dinner in again and continued the Shakespearean theme by watching Shakespeare in Love, one of my favourites.
Day Six (April 6th)
Another market day. This time it was Camden Market that we went to see. Camden Market is very different from Borough Market, but it is just as amazing in it’s own way. It is comprised mostly of food vendors, vintage clothing stalls, and art stalls. Camden definitely had a different feel than Borough.
I bought gifts for some of my friends at various different artists stalls. I bought gin and tonic flavoured tea for my friend Sophie at one stall, it smelled delicious!
Before deciding on what we wanted to eat, we did a big loop around all the food stalls and looked at what each had to offer. I ended up getting Indian food again at a vegan Indian food stall called Spice Box. My meal consisted of cauliflower channa masala, pumpkin curry and brown rice. What my mom got for lunch was quite unique. She got an order of halloumi fries with some kind of sauce and pomegranate seeds sprinkled on top.
A big section of the market is called the Horse Stalls, where the stores are quite literally old horse stalls. This is where all the vintage clothing and most of the art can be found in the market. My mom bought a vintage Barbour vest for my stepdad here. There were tons of cool things, but the exchange rate is so bad for us Canadians right now that I tried not to do too much shopping while I was over there.
Before leaving the market Em and I got doughnuts from Cross Town Doughnuts. All of there doughnuts are made with a sourdough base and they offer a nice little selection of vegan doughnuts. I got the vegan beetroot doughnut with blood orange glaze and pistachios, absolutely delicious! The beets in the batter made the doughnut super vibrant, it was very pretty.
The previous night our mom had booked tickets for us to go on the London Eye. Even though we had tickets we still had to line up and the line was massive! Luckily it was a beautiful day, so waiting around outside was’t too bad. The lined moved pretty quickly, I think we only waited for about an hour, which really isn’t all that bad.
The London Eye has 33 carriages and each carriage holds 25 people. It takes about 30 minutes to go all the way around and you get stellar views of parliament, Big Ben, and the rest of London. Unfortunately, Big Ben was under construction while I was there and was all covered in scaffolding.
It was my mom’s last night before flying home and all of our last night in London, so we went out to a nice restaurant for a late dinner. Portobello Garden is right around the corner from the Airbnb that we rented. It is a cute Italian place in the back of a thrift store. You have to walk through the store to get to the entrance of the restaurant.
I ordered an antipasto platter with olives, sun-dried tomatoes, courgette, aubergine, crisp bread, and rocket. Emma’s appetizer was literally a giant plate of meat and cheese, she ended up bringing most of it home with her to have for lunch the following day. We wrapped up the meal with an order of tiramisu. What a nice ending to a lovely week!
Day Seven (April 7th)
My mom had to leave early in the morning to get to Gatwick for her 12 o’clock flight home. We said our goodbyes, then Emma and I went back to bed and had a little bit of a sleep in. We had to be out by 11 so that the flat could be cleaned, but we were allowed to leave our bags there until quarter to one.
It was a Saturday, so the Portobello market was on. Emma and I walked around the market for a while and did a bit of shopping. It was another glorious, sunny day. I bought a few things at a boutique called Portobello Fashion Boutique. They have a great selection of beautiful women’s clothing and accessories for pretty reasonable prices.
I had another serious craving for falafels, so I was scouring the market for them. There was one stand that was selling GF and vegan baked falafels, I had hit the jackpot! I bought three and ate them throughout the day. They were the biggest falafels I’ve ever seen. They were also the best falafels that I have ever had.
Em and I got gelato at 3BIS Gelateria on Portobello road. They had a few vegan options. I decided on the raspberry, dark chocolate, and lemon gelatos. I had never come across dairy free chocolate gelato before, I was pretty pleased about finding it because I am a chocoholic. I’m not much of a fan of candy and I never have been, but chocolate is one of my favourite things, especially dark chocolate.
Once we had walked by all the market stalls we headed back to the flat to collect our bags. We took the tube to King’s Cross and caught a train to Linlithgow, Scotland where some of our relatives live.
There is so much to see in London that you could spend months there and still not see it all. I am so in love with this city and all the wonderful things that is has to offer. I cannot wait to one day return and take in more of its amazing sights.
I hope you have all enjoyed reading about my adventures in London. Next up, Linlithgow! And don’t worry, the next post won’t be so long!
xx
Ashley
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