Travel Diary: London

Oh, London! Definitely my favorite city that I've been to. Mark and I were lucky enough to spend five days in London a few weeks ago and we had such a good time. If you've been reading for a long time (5+ years) then you'll remember that I studied abroad in London back in 2013. I became absolutely smitten with the city during my summer there and couldn't wait to come back.

 So last year when I was perusing Harry Potter and the Cursed Child tickets (as one does) and saw that you had to buy them at least a year in advance I started to float the idea of a trip the following year to London. There were some pretty cheap seats so we figured if we didn't make the trip we'd only be out $80. Luckily we were able to make it happen and I'm just so happy that we went  together. It was Mark's first time and while I'm no local it was still fun to show him around the places that I lived and studied and drank Pimm's :) keep reading to see more of our trip!

Where we stayed: The Park City Grand Plaza Kensington. It wasn't anything fancy but wasn't a dump either. We didn't want to spend a ton on a hotel since we knew we'd spend minimal time there so it was perfect in that regard. However, I would not stay in Kensington again. The school I went to was in Kensington (right around the block from our hotel) so I knew it was a nice neighborhood, but it's pretty quiet. It was kind of nice after the hustle and bustle of downtown, but most of the activities and restaurants we went to were at least a 20 minute tube or Uber ride away. The city is easy to get around, so not the end of the world but I'd probably stay in Belgravia or Covent Garden on a future trip!

Day One:

We landed around 7AM and by the time we got through customs and to our hotel is was 9AM and we couldn't check in yet. We dropped our stuff off and headed out to try and stay busy (and awake)! 

Our first order of business was to visit the Google London office to have lunch with my old coworkers. Mind you I'd just left a week earlier, so they still felt like present coworkers! I hadn't met some of them in real life before so it was really fun to spend time with them and see the office. It's SO NICE. The view below is from their cafe which puts the views in Mountain View to shame!

Next up was showing Mark Camden where I lived during study abroad! We went to my old neighborhood bar The Elephant's Head for our inaugural Pimm's and Fuller's followed by a quick tour of my favorite grocery store and the building we lived in. I'm a very thorough tour guide :) 

Our goal was to try and stay up until 8PM so we'd be on London time from the very first day and we made it until 7:45 haha. Thankfully after a very rough first day of trying to stay awake we were fine jet lag-wise for the rest of the trip.

Day Two:

I had always been interested in Windsor Castle as it's the place the Queen considers her home but hadn't made the trip when I was there in 2013. For some reason I thought it would be a whole day affair and I didn't want to sacrifice a whole day to go since we'd only be there for five days. Enter the royal wedding and me deciding that we just couldn't miss it! I found a half day tour that included a bus to the castle and entry to the grounds. The fact that it wasn't a whole day sealed the deal. 

I priced it out and it would have been $20 cheaper to take the train and pay for our tickets to the castle ourselves but it was nice to have a bus take us directly there and because we were part of a group our line was shorter. The guide said it's been nuts since the wedding so the line was crazy and we were happy we got to go in the shorter group line. The tour of the grounds themselves was just an audio tour but I still learned a lot. 

St. George's chapel where Meghan and Harry got married! You can go inside the church and a few really beautiful state rooms of the castle but there are no photos allowed. 

I am a huge royals enthusiast and Mark is not. However, I was thrilled that he had a good time and seemed to really enjoy learning all of the history. This was probably the only day I'll ever get where he was primed to be interested in the royals so I did not take it for granted and shared all of my knowledge ;) overall we liked the tour we did but we probably could have used another hour of time to explore. We saw most of the things we wanted at the castle but didn't have time to check out the town at all. 

After Windsor we did a tour and tasting at Beefeater. It was fun to see but definitely not a must. For 12 pounds you get a tour and a gin and tonic at the end though, so not bad!

Dinner on day two was at Cafe Monico which is a beautiful French restaurant. It's hard to see in the photos but it's two levels with this stunning chandelier and bar in the middle. The food was good but not the best I've ever had. Definitely great ambiance though!

After dinner we just happened to find ourselves down the street from an ice cream place my friend had recommended. It's called Bubblewrap and basically they make a fresh waffle cone and then put ice cream and delicious toppings in in.

Day Three (my birthday!):

We started the day at Elan Cafe which is pretty much just designed to be Instagrammed, so Mark loved it ;) 

It was adorable and honestly the food was pretty good, which I was not expecting!

We were right down the road from Harrods so we walked over and perused for a while. That just wasn't enough window shopping so we headed to Liberty to kill time before our tea reservation. Both stores are gorgeous and fun to just walk around in. 

And where did I choose to go for my birthday tea you may ask...Sketch of course! 

If you haven't heard of it it's pretty much a pink paradise that is also very well-suited for Instagram. 

We did the champagne tea because it was my birthday and how could we not?

I loved every second of being there. It was so whimsical (just check out that teapot/creamer and some of the art). The treats were delish and we even got to try caviar as part of the tea service because #fancy. Even the bathrooms are whimsical and picture-perfect...

Yes, those are individual egg bathrooms. So worth a visit!

That night we had drinks at The Bloomsbury Club which has a cute urban oasis-y patio. 

After drinks we walked over to Margot for dinner. It was a really beautiful restaurant but we didn't find the waitstaff to be the kindest. The whole restaurant experience is different there though so it was probably just that we felt out of our element. There are no less than five people waiting on you but when you actually need anything there's no one to be found and you have to flag someone down to get your check and whatnot. 

 Day Four:

We started the day off at Portobello Market. This was one of my favorite things that we did when I lived in London so I was excited to go back. It's a huge market that spans probably close to 10 blocks in Notting Hill. There's a ton of food, art, clothes and antiques. I'd recommend going early and on a Saturday because that's when the most stalls are open. It's overwhelming but still really fun if you're in the mood to peruse and willing to sort through piles. I found a few cute prints that I bought for our next home!

Had to stop by The Churchill Arms to get a photo. We had planned to eat there but I just assumed it would be regular pub food, which is what we were in the mood for, and we were disappointed to arrive and see it was actually Thai food. We love Thai food but we had our hearts set on greasy pub food so we went down the street to a different pub for lunch. 

The rest of the day was spent at Harry Potter! So remember how our seats were so cheap? Well it's because they were truly terrible seats. I'm talking very high up and far away and there was a railing obstructing the stage. Despite that we both loved it. I had read the screenplay when it came out but didn't remember the plot line very well and Mark was seeing it with fresh eyes. The production was so well done and *magical*. Would definitely recommend if you're able to get tickets in London or now New York!

The show is two parts, which you can either do all in one day, like us, or you can split over two nights. There's a 2.5 hour break between the parts if you do it in one fell swoop so we had dinner at the nearby Berners Tavern and it was stunning. The vaulted ceilings and walls covered in portraits and paintings made for a very cool vibe. The insane mac and cheese I ordered was probably my favorite meal in London.

Day Five:

As you may have noticed we hadn't done much typical sight seeing up until this point. It just didn't work out to go see the well-known sites until our last day. It would have been better to do it right away so Mark could know how the city was laid out and where everything was in relation to one another but oh well. So on our last day we went on a marathon site seeing tour across basically the entire city. We walked eight (!!) miles that day and were so dead by the time we got to the airport that evening. 

The first stop was the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. We didn't go inside but if you have time I'd recommend it just to see the Crown Jewels! We took selfies at all of our stops that day but I'll just share this one and spare you the other twelve!

Next up was Westminster Abbey which again we did not go inside but if you can do it it's pretty amazing.

Followed by Buckingham Palace. The Queen escaped us the whole trip. She wasn't at Windsor or Buckingham on the days we were there. 

We did a super short stroll through the Victoria and Albert museum and I wish we'd had more time to spend there. There's a really cool fashion through the decades display that I wanted to spend more time admiring. 

Our final stop was Kensington Palace to say high to our good friends William, Kate, Meghan and Harry. After that we were back in our hotel's neighborhood so we picked up our bags and headed to the airport!

It was truly such an amazing trip. The perfect mix of just wandering around and planned activities. I'm so so happy Mark had a good time and can't wait to go back. I'm thinking it'll have to be an every five year tradition for my birthday because I just love this city so much!

Thanks for stopping by and hope you enjoyed seeing our trip!

xo Catherine