The first weekend of September we went to London for a few days. Monica had been there before many years ago, but it was my first visit to the city (not counting a stop in the airport on the way to Guatemala). I had actually been to England before, visiting friends up north but that’s quite a few years ago (way too many years!).
Anyway, I’d not seen London before and I was very excited to add this to my list of visited places. We left on Friday and for a city that’s actually not really that far away, we had quite a journey to take to get to London. First to Schiphol, a short flight to Luton and then a busdrive to get to London, from where we took the tube to the location of our apartment. The apartment was in a quiet area, which was great, as it meant some restful nights after busy days.
We’d meet up with Monica’s cousin and her husband a day later and so had the rest of the Friday afternoon and evening to ourselved and visited Camden. A fantastic lively location that also played a mayor role in 90’s Britpop and of course Amy Winehouse is from there (we found out about her statue there too late, so that’s for next time). Also the foodmarket there is amazingly varied so for a first day there we really enjoyed ourselves.
Next morning after Monica and I walked through the art-street of Brick Lane the rest of the gang arrived and after a short rest in the apartment we headed out for a two day sight-seing extravaganza of London. For Saturday we had a walking-route set up to see the main sights: the London Bridge, Tower of London, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral and several more. Luckily it was a sunny day and very enjoyable for a good bit of sightseeing.
The bus left us at St. Paul’s Cathedral. We crossed the Millenium Bridge and visited the Tate Modern museum from where we followed the Thames towards the London Eye and Big Ben. From there we headed to St. James park, a park that leads up to Buckingham Castle. The park is one of the many beautiful and huge parks in London. It’s truly amazing how large it is. We found squirrels there that were fed by the manu visitors and hid the nuts in the park grounds.
From there to Buckingham Castle (which -sorry to say- as a building didn’t impress me much) and eventually to Notting Hill. Now that is a lovely location with coloured houses and did leave a good impression. It was however at the end of the afternoon and I think that in the daytime with open stores and market-stands it will look even more imressive, so here too we will have to return some day. But for this visit the day was at an end and we’d walked enough that day. Time to get back to the apartment and rest a bit so we,d be ready for Sunday.
After a good breakfast (not the full English one) we were ready for another day of London. First we took a bus to Holland Park to see the Kyoto Garden and some of the Dutch gardens there. It is quite out of the way, but an interesting trip to see a different part of London that would otherwise have been missed. From there back to the center to see the Borough Market for foodmarket, some delicious coffee and an amazingly good pizza! After rhat we went in the center where we saw a bit of the architecture and that really is on another scale. The size of the modern buildings there, especially when you see it together with the older buildings is just unbelievable.
We headed on towards Chinatown and as the evening set in we went to the Tower Bridge, which – illuminated in the night- is a sight to be seen.
On Monday we reluctantly packed out luggages and left the apartment. We headed to Paddington Station where we’d take the bus back to the airport. As we had to wait some time there we did a round in the area and found a park with Paddington. It’s a nice park to spend some time in, better then waiting at the station, and eventually, when the bus came we said our goodbyes to London. However this trip really was way to short and we really want to see more of the city so are we coming back? Absolutely yes!
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