London Town.
Before I get into the deets of our most recent travel, I just wanted to say a heartfelt THANKS to all of you for your super awesome comments & messages about my last couple of posts (Asher's Surf Birthday Party & the beautiful Murray Wedding). It was a beyond fun trip back to the states & I LOVED crafting for & throwing such a summery soiree for such a sweet little babe! It definitely recharged my craft mojo, so if ya need any help with your own celebrations, let me know! I'm jonesing for a new project!
Summer is by far the most popular season to travel to and around Europe and we're joining in on the jetset! We're planning lots of fun trips to take advantage of the beautiful summer weather. First up... the land of royalty, fish & chips, double decker buses and British accents. I was so SO so excited about this trip. London is one of those sparkly TV/Movie cities...ya know? But, because the sights are more familiar to me than those we saw in Prague or even Barcelona, I had some high-ish expectations. I did a fair amount of research and planning before this weekend Eurotrip and thanks to one of our local Londoner friends, we were able to narrow down restaurants & sights a bit more easily.
It's about a 90 minute flight from Frankfurt to London and we arrived at Heathrow on Thursday evening. The hubs had pre-purchased tickets for the Heathrow Express train from the airport to our hotel at Paddington Station -- but, as they say -- best laid plans... [insert eye roll here] and upon our arrival we found out that the Heathrow Express (15 min direct train) was suspended, so instead we took the tube x 2 for an hour or so to our hotel. We were all tired so we just grabbed some quick take-away dinner & headed to bed so we could be chipper & cheery in the AM.
Those that know me well know that I am far [far far far] from a morning person. And on vacations I win the 'most likely to sleep through breakfast and request a bedside latte delivery' award. But in order to motivate me to get up and at 'em I scoped out some delish brekkie spots so we didn't miss too much of the London morning.
Our first stop was Byward Kitchen& Bar (also known as The Kitchen @Towers). We picked this restaurant based on reviews and proximity to the Tower Bridge and took a cab to get there [London cabs are so cool aren't they?!?]. The restaurant was so cute and the food was great. They had a comfortable dining room and a lovely outdoor seating area.
We both had a traditional English Breakfast. YUM. The English TOTALLY know how to do breakfast...! Jason ordered the vegetarian and I loaded up on meats. Asher ate his weight in squeeze packs prior to food arriving, but he ordered scrambled eggs and milk :)
From there we had the tourist of all tourist days and got to see many of London's most well-known attractions. We walked from breakfast to the Tower of London & Tower Bridge. We saw it up close and then walked across Tower Bridge to get a great view from the other side.
The weather was GORGEOUS during our trip to the UK. The London skies were clear & sunny and made for perfect touristing. And, as touristing goes, I'd highly recommend what we did next! We hopped on a city cruise ferry boat & got an amazing view of London from the River Thames. It was about £10.50 to get from the Tower Bridge to Westminster Abbey. Cheaper than a cab or uber and with WAY better views!
Asher slept through most of the 30 min trip, but woke up right at the end. Just enough time for him to oooooh and ahhhh at all the sights. For those that don't know, Asher is SUPER chatty [he get it from his momma ;) ]. He's almost 14 months and not walking yet. But he says 10ish words consistently! It's pretty cool to hear him chat and see those little brain-gears turning. He even surprised us with a new word while in London: BUS !! Baby A is pretty obsessed with anything that has wheels so he must have been pretty impressed by those London double deckers because he wanted to tell us ALL about them.
" BUS, BUS, BUS, BUS, BUS. BUS. BUS. "
lol!
Anyway, back to our trip...here are a few of the photos we took from the top of the river ferry!
So once we got off the ferry, we wanted to get a closer look of Westminster Abbey & Big Ben, however there was a TON of construction. We couldn't even get a picture without scaffolding blocking our view. So if you're planning a trip to London anytime soon, id HIGHLY recommend the river ferry views.
Next, we walked through St. James Park and headed to Buckingham Palace! We stopped for a little play break since Asher had been in the stroller for a bit by this point.
And then walked down the red roads toward Buckingham Palace! SO cool to see in person. The Queen forgot to invite us in for tea...but we're pretty sure we're on the list for the next Royal Ball, soooooo that should make up for it ;)
From there it was time for Happy Hour AKA NAP TIME! We headed back to our hotel, Asher snoozed and the hubs and I cozied up with a glass of vino and Netflix. Traveling with a baby is SO DOABLE, but it's funny how certain things are like world's different. Case in point: anytime we go on a fam trip J & I get to binge some Netflix. Ya know, since the baby's gotta sleep and all, it means we're hotel-bound a bit earlier and can make a serious dent in our Netflix bucket list.
Once Asher awoke from his slumber, it was time for fish & chips. We found a place with great reviews just a short walk from our hotel AND they took reservations on OpenTable. Win. Win. Win.
And the food was just as good as it looks. Okay, okay, we could have done without the Mushy Peas, but we knew we had to at least taste them if it was to be a real fish & chips experience.
So we toured & toured and ate & ate London style and went to bed to rest up for a day fit for a local.
All things Notting Hill & Chelsea up on the next post!
ever yours,
lindsey
