London!
RAIN.
Wow can it rain in London. Anytime. All the time. Summer, Winter, night and day. In fact, every time I’m in London it rains.
Oh well, eventually I’ll start to remember some other pretty neat stuff too like Wimbledon, English pubs, Harrod’s shopping and Buckingham Palace. Of course I’m missing like 50349837 other neat things to do in London.
The city is HUGE and full of history, culture, style, and fascinating characters. If you don’t have an organized plan, you’ll have a difficult time visiting everything you want to see!
With SO much to see and do in London, can someone really accomplish a lot of sightseeing in one weekend?
My answer is YES!
So stay tuned, as I give you the full scoop and explain how I was able to pack in a ton of sightseeing, shopping and eating in just 3 days!
CHOOSING YOUR HOTEL
I spent about 3 weeks going back and forth through Trip Advisor and speaking with our travel agent about where to stay in London on our 3 day excursion. Take your time when researching like I did, it’s worth it. I eventually let Jane (the world’s greatest travel agent at Amex) talk me into The Goring, a super quaint and fancy hotel located a few blocks from Buckingham Palace. She convinced me that location was everything and I would be right in the middle of the best sights to see. I finally bit the bullet and said yes when my vote was swayed upon learning that Princess Kate stayed here the night before her wedding to Prince William. I figured it was a safe bet! LOL.
Their high prices are worth every penny. (It’s London, everything is expensive so be prepared). But if you can swing it, do it! All those extra fitness and dance lessons I taught before our trip certainly paid off. The Goring’s concierge is amazing. Their afternoon tea time is divine, known as one of the best English teas in all of London. Plus the hotel’s central location saved us hours of taxi time. The decorum is right out of a British television show and exactly how I’d envision a sheikh London hotel to look like.
GET ORGANIZED AND HAVE A SCHEDULE!
By now, you all probably know how OCD organized I am. I just cannot help myself. I’ll finally admit it: I’m a little bit of a control freak. I like to plan things in advance and stay organized no matter what I’m doing. I like complete control of my schedule and even though I know I can’t control the weather and traffic, I really like to try LOL. We only had 3 days to sightsee… that means two of those days we were arriving and departing Heathrow airport and relying on on-time plane and car rides. I’m such the optimist 🙁
I had our itinerary down solid. We arrived at ten in the morning and had a car waiting for us. (It rained our entire trip BTW). We would go straight to the hotel in 45 minutes, check in and head out for a full half day of sightseeing.
UGH- wrong. Our car was an hour late in traffic and we were another hour late in traffic getting to the hotel (note to everyone: add an extra hour for London traffic no matter where you are traveling to and from). By the time we checked in, explored our hotel and changed, we were hours behind my neat and tidy schedule.
Stick to the schedule when you can and improvise when you cannot. My new motto ha ha. As we were leaving the hotel, I made sure to buy several site entrance tickets from the hotel to save us from having to wait in long lines (which turned out to be a brilliant idea- the lines were long everywhere). Trying to make up for lost time, I started bossing poor Anton around (the most patient man in the world:) ) and had us hailing down an English cab instead of enjoying a 3 mile walk to our first destination.
DAY ONE:
The Tower of London
I visit the Tower of London every time I’m in London. It’s a beautiful sight filled with a ton of history! You can tour most of the castle while enjoying river views. There are actors walking around, marching and performing short historical reenactments. I love horses and they have one room full of human and horse models wearing full armor which I enjoyed viewing.
The torture room is a bit dark for me, but I’m sure some of you guys will totally want to check it out.
Ladies, you’ll enjoy the Crown Jewels! I found them impressive the first time, but then I start thinking of how the sale of those jewels could feed a few countries of hungry children and animals, so now I’d rather see something else.
There’s also a room that explains how money was made and developed throughout several centuries in England- it’s a fascinating history for sure!
St. Paul’s Cathedral
If you choose to burn a few calories along the way, you can walk from the Tower of London to St. Paul’s Cathedral. They’re close enough, it’s easy to see both in the same afternoon or morning. The architecture of the Cathedral is gorgeous and you can easily explore the indoors when mass is not happening. We didn’t have much time so we did not make it to the Crypt, but we got to enjoy enough for Anton’s first visit.
Sightseeing While Walking Is The Best
Most sights in London close around 5-6pm. Realizing this as we left the cathedral, we decided to burn off some calories and walk the two miles back to our hotel. BTW London has some super subways- very clean and efficient. I am just one of those people who prefers to walk and get exercise. Plus walking is such a great way to see and feel a city! I’d planned on walking so we could see a lot of the sites and factored in a few hours to my organized agenda.
On our walk, we were able to check out Big Ben and the Parliament buildings, the Thames river and the London Eye (which, I confess I am too terrified of heights to try!).
Buckingham Palace
Walking back to our hotel forced us to pass Buckingham Palace. Since the palace is not open for viewing until late July, we could only observe from the outside. I walked up to a guard and tried to make him smile- unfortunately my attempts at humor did not win him over :(. They’re so well trained at being serious! At least we were able to walk the entire palace perimeter, check out Hyde Park and make it to our hotel before dark.
Novikov
Recommended by an English student of mine, I made a reservation two months prior to our stay at Novikov. The sushi here is freaking fantastic! Apparently I am not the only one who thinks so. The place was packed!
The service is impeccable- they never miss a beat. We arrived early and were seated in the downstairs lounge which has this total Russian mafia feel. Of course, I was obsessed! One of my fantasies is to go clubbing in Moscow in a nightclub, VIP style. Anton, who is Russian, once again started guessing what planet I come from. He thinks I’m super odd and he’s super funny, ha ha.
We enjoyed a drink in the lower lounge, then were seated upstairs in the sushi portion of the restaurant. Unbeknownst to me, Novikov has two sides to it: an Italian restaurant side and a Japanese side.
I’m a huge sushi lover so I of course chose the Japanese side. They serve every piece of sashimi, every roll, every nigiri on a bed of ice. Their sushi just melts in your mouth. We sipped on cold sake and ate a mixture of sashimi, rolls and uni nigiri for dessert. I highly recommend their sashimi- it’s FRESH!
After dinner, I was sooo not ready to leave. I asked Anton to convince the hosts to find us a table in their already packed lounge turned night club downstairs. The host was such a sweetie, he gave us a table downstairs for two hours at no extra charge (usually, they charge for each table after 8 or 9pm… it’s London). The music had a great vibe, the lights were low and the atmosphere was just perfect to sip sake and watch the crowds!
At about midnight, we took a taxi back to our hotel but somehow my heavily accented Russian didn’t pronounce it quite “properly” for our cabbie so we wound up in the theatre district and had a night cap at The Savoy. There were some very dramatic characters, actors I believe, letting loose after their performances which proved for an extremely entertaining end to our evening!
DAY TWO:
Breakfast at The Goring is quite gourmet… and oh so fabulous when they deliver it to your room! Exhausted from our late night, we got up quite early because we had a bus to catch. Day two was to be our Stonehenge experience. Once again, our hotel totally helped save us time- we were able to walk to Victoria station to catch our bus tour.
Stonehenge
I chose an unguided tour for us because I enjoy reading about the history on my own and taking my time to study the things that really stand out for me. You might be like me or not! Guided tours are great too, it just depends on preference.
I chose Stonehenge because I, as you guys can already guess, am fascinated by history and Stonehenge dates back over 5100 years! Was it worth the 7 hour day, 2.5 hour bus ride each way and two hour visit? I would say yes for me, because I’ve been to London quite a few times and had already seen all the sights in the city I had wanted to see. Anton, on the other hand, was a bit disappointed because he felt like he spent 5 hours on a bus to walk around a bunch of large “rocks” surrounded by a crowd of tourists. (Imagine him telling me this in his thick Russian accent guys, I was dying!)
I would recommend Stonehenge if you have a week in London and a free day to venture to Stonehenge. I would also recommend renting a car, I think it would be more efficient than a large bus.
As for my wardrobe guys, my aviator nation sweatsuit was the warmest outfit I brought so I piled it on top of my nicer attire while venturing out in the cold. Incase you didn’t know, I’m always freezing. My fingers and toes turn blue when I get too cold. I admit, I’m a wussy, So Cal native.
Shopping in London
You will all laugh at me for this. Our bus hit city traffic, (shocker I know LOL) so the driver dropped us off at a station a few miles away from our hotel. Eager to walk and stretch our legs, we ventured to the Sherlock Holmes museum and then started our trek to the hotel. I swear I don’t do it on purpose. It’s like I have a built in radar system or something. We followed the map and then suddenly got lost on a particular street. Not thinking much of it, I naturally 🙂 took control of the situation and had us take a few turns in what I “felt” was the correct direction. And before we knew it, I was standing in front of the Louis Vuitton store. Of course Anton rolled his eyes and gave me a hard time, but I did manage to peak my head in and check out the store.
I hadn’t realized we’d turned onto Oxford Street, London’s version of Beverly Hill’s Rodeo Drive. We passed a ton of fabulous stores which took great restraint and will power on my part not to enter. Instead, I found us a cute little pub to eat lunch at.
Pub Dining
I think we all know English food is NOT terribly healthy. They love things like fish and chips, heavy beers and butter, cucumber sandwiches. I wound up having a plain salad with slightly yellow lettuce, no dressing and a lot of sweet potato fries (my cheat reward after all of our walking!). Take a look at one of the menus we came across, I could not resist snapping a photo:
Back To The Goring
After our whirlwind two days, we opted to enjoy dinner at our hotel which was lovely. Having booked The Goring through American Express’s FINE hotel program, our dinner was complimentary which was a nice treat after our splurge at Novikov the previous night. We enjoyed the hotel’s bar and had a nightcap while listening so soft, live music and heavy British accents.
DAY THREE:
I did my best to get us the latest flight out of London possible as well as a late check out at The Goring so we could do some final sight seeing the morning of our departure. Getting our exercise in, we walked a few miles through town and the theatre district to my favorite museum of all times: the British Museum!
OK, I could seriously camp out here for a week! I’d spend a few days in the Greek part, a few more in the Egyptian section and a few more in the Roman one! The British Museum is spectacular. If you’ve never been, I highly suggest making this a priority. There’s so much history here and so many gorgeous relics and artifacts.
I was in heaven and totally became a nerd here. Anton finally had to pull me out of there so we would not miss our flight!
We decided to get some more exercise and raced back to the hotel on foot in time to grab our suitcases and check out. I was smarter this time: I allotted us extra time for the traffic. See, this old girl can learn a few new tricks! 🙂 Luckily, we had a smooth, traffic free ride to the airport with plenty of time to pass security.
(Incase you’ve never been to London’s Heathrow airport, beware, security can be quite slow so prepare yourselves ahead of time. Place all of your medicines and liquids in plastic bags because they will make you pull everything out and hold up the line until they’re placed in these bags)!
MY TIPS FOR A SUCCESSFUL, QUICK TRIP TO LONDON:
- Make reservations in advance. London is a very busy city and all of the popular places tend to be sold out, no matter what time of year. Even if you aren’t sure you will use them, you can always cancel. What you don’t want to do is to miss out on a great place because you did’t make one!
- Have a plan or rough idea of the places you want to visit. The easiest thing for me was to look at a map and plan excursions to an area where we could several things in the same few hours. This saved us a lot of time.
- Stay in a hotel near the main sites you’re interested in seeing. This will also save you tons of time and money in taxi fares or subway rides. Plus, you’ll be able to walk to places and see more of the city while burning off those British pub meal calories!
- Pick one cheat meal only and stick to it! If you want to splurge on calories for lunch at a pub, that’s great, but don’t go for pasta at dinner. Choose the sashimi or sushi selection for more protein and less carbs instead. You’ll still have a great meal, it’ll just be a whole lot healthier!
- Be prepared for traffic. Don’t make my first mistake- plan ahead and include extra time for traffic.
- Buy tickets in advance at your hotel to avoid waiting in line at the sites. I am so happy we did this. And do not worry- there were a few we did not use, but the hotel took them back and credited us easily.
- Travel in May or early June before the summer tourists start to arrive. London is a busy place! You’ll be able to see and do more, if you go when it’s a lot less crowded.
Do you guys have any tips for visiting London? What did you think about Stonehenge? Would you say it’s worth it or do you agree with Anton? Has anyone been to Novikov’s Italian dining side? I would love to hear your feedback!
xx Shanna
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