London
We made it to our next city, London! This being our first month-long stop of our trip, it meant we could slow down, relax a bit, and not feel super rushed. Our train ride in helped us adjust to that mindset... literally. There was apparently a traffic jam on the rails from Glasgow to London, so we ended up getting into the city over an hour and half later than scheduled.
Which was a slight bummer until we realized in the UK if your train is delayed by over an hour, you get a full refund! Big fans of this policy; American Airlines should take notes.
London
London is massive, there was so much to see and do. We figured the best place to start was with all the big boys, the London Eye, Big Ben, Tower Bridge, Westminister Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, etc. The most stunning for us, was St. Paul's. We got an hour long tour inside getting all the history, which was really impressive. After that, they let you climb up the inside of the dome to the roof that gives you a great view on the city, which also makes you feel like Quasimodo.
Museums in the city are all (mostly) free as well. The top two we visited were the National Gallery and the V&A. Honestly, I think they are free so the Brits can show off all the stuff they got when they were out conquering other countries. Not much collected from us though... USA! USA!
We got really good at the public transportation system. It is a little overwhelming at first, you have the Underground ("the Tube"), Overground, National Rail, DLR, double-decker buses, black cabs, and ferries. We basically spent most days using a combination of 3 or 4 of these to explore all the boroughs and districts we could.
We found ourselves in Westminister a lot of the time, we really enjoyed Soho which was packed with restaurants, shops, and a gelato place we got obsessed with called Bilmonte. We also really liked the northern parts of the city like Camden, Islington, and Hackney and would probably stay in one of those neighborhoods if we ever come back. We even found a church in Shoreditch we started going to most Sundays we were here.
One of the places we really enjoyed was King’s Cross, and more specifically, Coal Drops Yard. If you ask us, which you kind of are by reading this, ditch Camden Market and go to Coal Drops, way cooler. As we explored the shops though, you could see the pain in Kaitlyn’s eyes. So many awesome stores, but so little space in our luggage.
A few other highlights on the north side: Leadenhall Market - awesome vintage shopping, Borough Market - mostly just for the creme brûlée donut from Bread Ahead, and Barbican - a really impressive neighborhood we loved exploring.
Now onto the south part of London...
Peckham
Our AirBnb was in an area of South London called Peckham. It's an artsy, hipster-ish pocket of the city that historically had a rougher reputation but has changed a lot in the past few years. Basically, the Bishop Arts of London. Here we tried to live a little more like a local by grocery shopping, cooking our own meals, and finding some ways to work out. This ended up being a pretty good home-base for us!
As soon as we settled in, Kaitlyn found a local run club. After talking with a few people there, we learned about Parkrun, which is a free Saturday 5K hosted in most major parks around the UK (and a lot of parts of Europe). You just show up, scan a digital barcode, and run with the locals. We ended up doing that almost every Saturday morning. No surprise, Kaitlyn showed them all up got third in her female age group on her first run. All she got for her efforts... a congratulatory email.
Peckham had a ton of things to offer. There was good meat markets and bakeries, great coffee (Goodcup), a vibey pizza spot (Bar D4100), and our favorite pub in the city (Skehans). There was a bunch of great parks all around us and a few even had cherry plum trees, which helped us cut back on grocery costs.
Peckham also had a lot of foxes! We later learned they are all over London but it was crazy how many came out in the evenings. One of our first nights, we saw a fox prancing around a park at sunset. I thought we had witnessed a miracle, a once in a lifetime thing. But after a few days we realized the actual miracle would be to not see one.
We originally booked our Airbnb here to be away from the tourist-heavy spots and for the easy access to the metro, but it ended up being way more than that. Exploring Peckham and the surrounding districts of south London ended up being a whole lot better than we expected.
Wimbledon
One day, we noticed some pop-up shops and displays getting set up for Wimbledon. We thought it would be legendary to go but assumed everything was sold out by now. That's when we learned about 'The Queue'. Basically, you can just show up to the Wimbledon grounds early, wait in line for a few hours, and potentially get tickets to the stadiums that day. We did a little research and decided to try our luck early in Week 2 of the tournament. We packed some breakfast, “tubed” over, waited about two hours in 'The Queue', and we were in! We must have been lucky because everyone we told that to, were shocked. Multiple people told us they waited 8+ hours in previously and some of them even didn't get in after their wait.
It was a really cool experience. Everyone was dressed to the nines. Flowers and tennis everywhere. We spent the day hopping around from match to match, men, woman, and singles, doubles, everything. All while trying the traditional refreshments: Pimm’s and strawberries & cream. Pro tip: you are allowed to bring in your own food and one bottle of wine per person. We took full advantage.
If you’re ever in London at the right time, this is 100% worth doing. Dare I say, we 'LOVE'd it!
Bath, Lacock & Stonehenge
Kaitlyn found a great day tour that hit three places we wanted to visit: the city of Bath, the village of Lacock, and Stonehenge.
Bath was full of history, and had that old English charm. We explored the famous Roman baths, which were impressively preserved over all these years. The water was full of minerals in this area (see murky green water photo below) and they even let you drink some of it if you wanted. We both indulged, it's no Pellegrino though. We had the taste in our mouths for like two hours after that.
Lacock offered a small glimpse of the Cotswolds charm. We ate dinner there in a quaint pub from the 1300s and saw a few Harry Potter filming locations, including the house he was “born” in. (I guess really we have to watch those movies now.) We also saw the spot where apparently the first modern photograph was taken. Naturally, we took a photo of it. Photo inception.
Then we traveled to Stonehenge for an inner circle tour. Most people when they visit see it from behind the ropes, which is about 20 feet away, but we booked an after-hours tour that let us walk inside the circle which was a game changer. We even took off our shoes and walked around barefoot for the ultimate ancient “grounding”. We could’ve easily spent two hours there, which sounds like a lot but our allotted hour flew by and we really wished we had a bit longer. It really was a surreal experience, something dating that far back and scientists still not knowing who made it or why it's there. If they would do what we did, they'd figure out instantly it was the aliens!
Seven Sisters
On one of our last days in England, we decided to take a train from London to the bottom of the country, where we could hike up and down the Seven Sisters. These are chalk cliffs on the English Channel that are really incredible to see. We started our hike from Seaford all the way to Eastbourne where we ate dinner and headed back to London. We clocked about 16 miles that day and it was totally worth it.
Wrapping Up London
We spent our last week trying to do any last items on our London bucket list. We saw a West End show (The Book of Mormon) and the Thames River cruise. We were able to get last minute, day of tickets. They with really good seats about five rows back from the stage. The show was hilarious and a fun way to spend the night. The cruise was also really cool, a little touristy for sure, but awesome! Getting to see all of the landmarks from a speedboat while listening to the James Bond theme song is actually the only thing you really need to do here. We picked this over going up the London Eye and were really happy with our choice.
The other thing we learned about is the Londoners obsession with Indian food. Every time we asked someone for a recommendation they would always give us an Indian place. I guess it all adds up when you remember the countries historical ties, the cricket obsession, and their national dish being tikka masala (google it if you don’t believe me). After we ate at The Tamil Prince, the obsession started to make a lot more sense to us.
Also there is no A/C. We knew this already but got a harsh reminder while we were here. This apparently was a record hot summer for London. It got up to the mid 90s. Which being from Texas, that is not too scary, but we gained a lot of respect for the heat here. It's not blistering, but there is no escape. The apartments don’t have A/C, and neither do the restaurants or shops. All the housing is built for insulation so the flats just bake all day in the sun and trap in the heat. It was almost always hotter indoors than it was outdoors. We had our fair share of hot sweaty nights in the apartment. The silver lining was our clothes dried really quick on the indoor drying rack.
London as a whole feels so big and has so much to do. Even being here a month I feel that we could easily stay another and fill up the time with stuff we didn’t get to do. We were certainly sad to pack up and leave but not too sad because we are very excited for our next city, Amsterdam!
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