Europe 2018 | Day 1 & 2 of 11: London
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Originally written May 16th, 2018.
We arrived in London at 8:30pm at Heathrow Airport. It took us about an hour and a half to get from the plane to customs and then through customs, but it was pretty painless. We found our way to the train and took the underground into the city, which took another 45 minutes. Our hotel was about a 10-minute walk from the underground station so by the time everything was said and done we arrive at our hotel, Hotel Xenia, around 10:30pm. We put down our bags and went out in search of dinner, but found nothing in the area was still open for & serving food (a bummer). We ended up picking up a few snacks from the Sainsbury food store & eating them in our room.
After finally falling asleep (around 1:30am London time), we awoke around 8am to hit the city. We started our day off at The Ivy Kensington Brasserie - enjoying a ham omelet & an eggs Benedict to start our day off right. We then walked around Kensington Palace & Kensington gardens before heading off to the nearest Underground station.
We arrived in Westminster & decided to make a stop for coffee and cake at Peggy Porschen Cakes! I cannot rave enough about the mocha and the cloud cake I ordered... both were fantastic - the cake was a great combo of super sweet frosting and savory cake.
After Peggy's we headed off in search of more touristy ventures, including Buckingham Palace. The palace was being prepped for the royal wedding this weekend. We enjoyed walking around St. James Park & eventually found our way to the Elizabeth Tower and the Palace of Westminster... both of which are heavily under construction... a bummer that we had heard about but needed to see with our own eyes.
From Westminster we walked towards Trafalgar Square, which was impossible to see thanks to all of the double-decker tour buses in the area... so we kept walking... passing Piccadilly Circus and heading towards SOHO. A friend had told us about Primark and we wanted to check it out for ourselves. Primark is basically like H & M and Forever 21... but better because you can't get the clothes in the US and it's SO CHEAP!! I got a sweater for one pound!!!
After Primark, we stopped at BrewDog SOHO for lunch, which I was a little skeptical about considering you can find BrewDog in Cleveland/Ohio, but I'd never had a BrewDog beer and the lunch menu sounded good. I enjoyed a 5am Amber Ale & my mom and I split a good burger, all in all, it was a solid meal and a cool place to hang out for a bit.
From BrewDog we walked to Carnaby Street, which was a nice mix of British & American stores and a great spot to walk around in.
Our last stop before heading back to the hotel for a break from our walking tour of London was The Churchill Arms, a picturesque bar located near our hotel. We enjoyed the bar and the royal wedding decorations!
After a break at the hotel, we walked to dinner at Rocca, located in South Kensington. Dinner was ok (what kind of a savage puts blue cheese on a pizza???????) but the service wasn't great and we decided we needed Gelato to compensate. We enjoyed a scoop from Oddono's and then headed back to the hotel bar for one last drink before calling it a night. I would say arriving on the day flight to London at 8:40 sufficiently helped us beat jet-lag and I am incredibly tired and ready to go to bed by 10pm London time... which is perfect for me.
All-in-all I enjoyed London, and aside from the insane cost of living, I could picture a life here for sure. Tomorrow we have a few hours in London before heading to Geneva on a 2pm flight. We will meet up with Heidi and Amanda in Vevey via a train from Geneva. Bring on day 3!!!
