London, Take 2

I was fortunate enough last June to spend another 9 days in my favorite city, and after a rocky start… sitting on the runway in Dallas for two hours before we were finally able to take off, of course arriving in London late, then finding out that my driver left and they were unable to send another car (all I will say is stay far, far away from these people!!) and Uber to the rescue… it turned into an amazing getaway! And, which made up for the extra couple of hours in the airplane, we flew right over central London before landing at Heathrow Airport.

Just like last year, this was another solo vacation, and I stayed at the same hotel again because the location was (is) absolutely perfect. And I have to say, this time was even better than last time. I felt more confident, and I still remembered how to get to places, so didn’t have to use the map and directions as much. One concern was the weather. In the week or so before my flight, I kept checking the weather in London, and every day had between a 30% and 60% chance of rain. But then one by one, the rain chances disappeared and every day was supposed to be sunny, or at least dry. Except Saturday…

I had planned on some familiar sights, some things I didn’t get to do last year, and thanks to this book (I follow the author on Instagram), that I bought just before my vacation, some less touristy things as well. I might post about those at a later time.

One of the first things on my agenda was the Shard. It was closed for some kind of maintenance work last year, and as soon as they reopened, I purchased a (discounted) voucher. All I needed to do was pick the date and time to go up. I even took the stairs!! …but only up to the second observation deck.

Thanks to the Tower Bridge website I got to see the bridge open a couple of times. Thanks to some London Instagrammers I also found a new spot to photograph Big Ben.

I visited this fountain lat year, but sadly it was shut off. This year I got lucky and it was actually working.

Neal’s Yard, near Covent Garden was a favorite place from last year, and strolling through St. James’s Park, I ended up at Buckingham Place, although this is as close as I got this time and headed back the way I came.

A red telephone box with Big Ben in the background. Could it get any more “London”? This is obviously a very popular phone box, but everyone waited in line patiently and didn’t get in the way of the people taking pictures. And then there was Love Lane… how could this hopeless romantic not take a picture of that?! Especially with a pretty little park as the backdrop. And thanks to my favorite Brit, I found a new spot to take a picture of the giant dildo. Oops! I meant the Gherkin.

Saturday was spent with this little photo bomber.

We met at Holborn Viaduct. I got there first since it’s only about 10 minutes from my hotel. It was a cloudy but dry when I left the hotel, and while I was waiting for Brian… but as soon as I saw him, it started raining! Not hard, but enough for me to dig my umbrella out of my bag to protect the camera. Clearly little Eeyore brought the rain with him! We walked around for a bit and I made him pose beneath the Cock Lane street sign, which was also where a statue of a naked little golden boy was (haha). For lunch we (I) chose the beautiful Old Bank of England pub (scroll through the pictures on their website to see!) and afterwards we made our way down to the pier to catch the Uber boat to Greenwich Park. Unfortunately when we got there we heard someone tell another group that there were some cancellations and all the Uber boats were already booked. So on to plan B, which was to just wander around London, which included seeing St. Saviour’s Dock from both sides, a nice cold drink at Starbucks, people watching at St. Katharine Dock, enjoying peaceful St. Dunstan-in-the-East, a little tattoo photo shoot in the grass at St. Paul’s Cathedral Garden, and some laughs in between. We also may or may not have gotten ourselves arrested. In my defense, it was all Brian’s idea and I’m completely innocent! As for the weather, it stayed mostly dry except for the shower in the morning and one more in the afternoon (when we were in prison), I think the sun even came out a few times… no doubt due to my weather changing superpower.

After Saturday left three more days to cross things off my to-see-and-do list. These four phone boxes on the back side of the Royal Courts if Justice were another awesome Instagram find and I think they may have also been mentioned in the book I bought. I also spent some time in beautiful Middle Temple Garden, which is only open to the public for a few hours in weekday afternoons. Afterwards I visited Temple Church, which also has some odd opening hours and I was never there at the right time last year. And one evening, when it looked like there might be a nice sunset, I headed to Millennium Bridge and then to Reflection Garden for some pictures.

On my very last day, I strolled along the Thames again, took the Tower Bridge Tour, which I really enjoyed last year (I might have a slight obsession with this pretty bridge), finally caught the Thames at low tide and walked down the Shad Thames steps “into” the Thames, and fought my way through the crowds at Spitalfields / Old Spitalfields Market.

As you can imagine, it was another memorable trip that was over much too quickly. So many more things crossed off my list, and so many more I didn’t get to do (again), which means I’m just going to have to go back again someday. Hopefully soon!

I miss you London ❤️

29. July, 2024 | Categories: July | Tags: Big Ben, Birdseye View, Buckingham Palace, Clink Prison Museum, Girl with a Dolphin fountain, London, Middle Temple Garden, Neal’s Yard, Phone Box, Photo Bomb, Photography, Reflection, Royal Courts of Justice, St. Dunstan in the East, St. Paul's Cathedral, The Gherkin, TheDailyClick, Tower Bridge, Travel, View from the Shard | 2 Comments