London Part 1
Long post ahead!
On our second day in London, we dove right in to sight seeing! We started the day grabbing a latte from Pret (basically their Starbucks) and headed to the National Gallery which has free entry! It was in the most stunning building with some of the most beautiful art we had ever seen. After the gallery, we walked right over to Westminster Abbey to attempt to beat the lines. Justin was blown away by everything in Westminster Abbey. He had no idea how many iconic people had their tombs there. It is also REALLY cool to see the church that held the wedding we were ALL awake at 4 a.m. to watch in 2011 (you know you watched Will & Kate’s wedding)!
When I went to London years ago, I remember we had the coolest card that got us in to all of the main attractions so you didn’t have buy individual tickets at each museum or attraction. Justin and I ordered the 4 Day London Pass about a month before our trip and it gave us access to everything! I had it right on my phone, so it was so easy to use and take to every place. They just scan it from your phone and you get right in! There is usually a separate line than everyone else, so the lines are usually shorter with it. You really get your moneys worth and I highly recommend!
After the Abbey, we went straight to the London Eye! We were a little skeptical on if we wanted to actually do it, but we thought, “what the hell? we’re here! we have to!” Justin hated it the entire time because it rocks back and forth way up high. To be completely honest, don’t waste your money. Tickets are pretty expensive and you can get WAY better views from other points in London! I get easily claustrophobic and I get very nauseous if i’m in a small space with no air circulation. Since you’re in a glass bubble, the sun is literally just beaming down on you in a small space… a.k.a, not a good place for me to be! We were pretty disappointed that we spent money on it, but now we know!
We journeyed down the river to the Tower of London! When you’re looking at a map of London, everything looks so close together! We thought it was only a few minutes walk, so we started walking for about 20 minutes and realized we couldn’t even see the Tower Bridge. We decided to get two of those bikes you can rent by the hour through an app. Once we started biking, we realized biking on the other side of the road with major traffic was not good for someone who is as uncoordinated as I am… It was also extremely dangerous if you aren’t used to the roads in London. Traffic is extremely fast and sometimes frightening. After having our bikes for a solid 5 minutes, we hopped in a taxi! We then realized we were actually pretty far from the tower and we definitely would have been walking for hours.
I was so excited to show Justin the tower because he is such a history buff, I knew he would be so fascinated. He could not believe everything that was there and it was so cool to be back there again after so many years. I was always very fascinated with Henry VIII and it’s is so incredible to stand where these historical people stood. I would absolutely recommend it! We stayed there until it closed, they had to kick us out! You can also get the most STUNNING views of the Tower Bridge!
One of the things we knew we wanted to see in London was The Phantom of the Opera! It is one of our favorite shows and I had heard incredible things about the London production. The show was taking place at Her Majesty’s Theater, just a 2 minute walk from our hotel. We bought tickets in the third tier, which was perfect! It was a little far from the stage, but you got the best view of everything going on. The cast was amazing and everyone was SO talented in the production. It is a MUST in London! After a long, long, long day of walking (10 miles to be exact), we just wanted some comfort food to take back to our hotel and chow down before bed. We ended up getting Shake Shack (so glamorous!) and ate it in our W Hotel robes in bed.. a.k.a., perfection.
We woke up early the next day and headed straight to something that was very high on Justin’s list… The Winston Churchill War Rooms. Winston Churchill is a hero to Justin, so this was very special to him. To be honest, I thought it was just going to be a couple rooms you go through and then it ends, but it was huge! There was so much to see and it was so incredibly fascinating. To be in the same room where Churchill made so many important decisions was really incredible.
I guess you could say this day was one of Justin’s “must see” days, because next we headed straight to the Imperial War Museum. The museum had different sections of different wars, so it was really fascinating to go through each section and see everything from different eras. This place was very special to Justin and he got to see things he never thought he would see. The museum is extremely well built and informative, but it is extremely heavy as well. The WWII is extremely graphic and emotional.
On our fourth (and cloudy/rainy) day in London, we woke up early and headed to one of my favorite places ever. We ventured out to grab breakfast at Laduree. Once we found it, we discovered it was not open yet (WTF Google?!)! We started walking around Covent Garden and just when it started to pour raining, we saw the coziest, most adorable restaurant, The Ivy Market Grill. We had the best, simple, English breakfast and a latte and headed to our next destination, the Shakespeare Globe Theater! We had the most adorable and most helpful tour guide (shout out to Millie, even though you’ll never see this!) and she gave us some helpful information. We learned that the original Globe Theater actually burned down in 1613 after Shakespeare really wanted to experiment with fire in his show and give the illusion that a cannon was going off in one of his productions. The theater burnt to the ground in just 20 minutes. It was rebuilt in 1614, just to be torn down in 1642. The theater that stands today was build as an exact replica, which, not going to lie, took away from the building a little bit! We departed our tour early, and headed to the HMS Belfast which was just a mile away. The ship was so interesting and was something Justin really wanted to see!
After our tour, we grabbed the best lunch at the cutest pub right by the water (which i’m a HUGE sucker for if you know me at all!)! We unfortunately had to pack up our hotel room, which we did not want to leave, and head to our Airbnb which was in West Kensington. When we checked out of the hotel, the sweetest front desk agent set us up with the house car to take us straight to our Airbnb!
Our trip got SUPER interesting when we arrived to our flat…