I love London!

I feel truly lucky to have had the opportunity to travel and see so much of Europe this year. One city that was on the top of my travel wish list, was London. After trying very hard to organise a way that I would get to see London, while living so close to it here in Denmark this year, it finally happened!

On Sunday 24th November, Maddie and I boarded our flight to London!

  

The weather was clear, so we got to look out over the English countryside as we landed in London, around 1 hour 10 minutes after leaving Denmark.

 

  

After being dropped off at Liverpool Street Station, we made our way to the Underground and caught a train to our hotel.

   

After checking in and eating some delicious Thai noodles for dinner, we made our way to Hyde Park and found the Winter Wonderland. It was set up like a fair, with so many stalls all selling Christmas crafts or foods, different Christmas or winter themed rides, millions of twinkling lights and of course Christmas music playing. It even smelt like Christmas, with the cinnamon, nuts roasting and toffee. There were so many people of all ages rugged up in warm clothes, walking around and enjoying the fair with smiles on their faces, it was such a fun, happy atmosphere.

  

  

  

Maddie and I had bought tickets to go Ice Skating. There was a lot of people, but the view of it all was breathtakingly beautiful and the atmosphere was so magical with a live band playing in the middle as we skated around underneath a canopy of lights, so I couldn't help but skate around with a smile on my face almost the whole time, despite the fact that I was concentrating really hard to not fall over or run into anyone!.

  

 

On the way back to our hotel, we stumbled across a street decorated beautifully with Christmas decorations and lights, which turned out to of course be Oxford Street. The shop Selfridge & Co. had so many decorated window displays, it was all so festive.

  

 

We were both just so happy, walking down the street past red telephone boxes as old black taxis and red double decker buses drove past. 

 

  

After breakfast at our hotel, we made our way through the Underground, to a big Westfield shopping centre. Boost Juice have recently opened up international stores (juice/smoothie chain that is my absolute favourite in Australia), so we hunted it down and after 10.5 months I was very excited to have my favourite Mango Magic Smoothie again. For Danish people, I guess it is similar to your Rugbrød or saltlakrids, how you miss it when you travel to other countries!

  

  

We made our way back through the Underground, coming up at Westminster with Big Ben towering above us. One thing that I have found out about Big Ben is that it is very photogenic, no matter what angle or lighting it is in for a photo, it always looks impressive. Once we got over the awe of it all, we walked around and saw Westminster, including two English policemen even wearing the black police hats. We saw Westminster Abbey from the outside.

  

  

  

  

We walked across the Westminster Bridge, taking a few touristy snaps along the way and listening to Big Ben ring as it struck 12. We ate pie & chips for lunch, another thing we hadn't had in 10.5 months!.

  

 

   

While lining up to buy our tickets for The London Eye, we saw some wax models. We had decided not to go to Madam Taussauds, so it was good that we still got the chance to see two of the very life-like wax figures.

  

The view from the London Eye is breathtaking. As the pod travels up slowly, you can see more and more, then from the top, the city of London stretches as far as the eye can see.

  

 

  

 

We walked along the edge of The River Thames, in an area called Southbank (like the south bank in Brisbane city!). A large section of the path was lined with very cute Christmas markets. We decided to buy some fudge and a Cadbury hot chocolate (we needed it to warm up!).

  

We continued to walk along the river past Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, pausing to have a little rest because touristing can be hard work, then across the Millennium Bridge which is in Harry Potter, past a school that we could see into the classrooms where the students where clearly bored and started making faces at us. Then we saw St Paul's Cathedral, which is very large and has impressive architecture.

  

   

  

We decided to catch a red double decker bus to The Tower Bridge. Naturally, we sat on the top deck at the front. It is such a great view from there sitting high up over the road.

  

  

The Tower of London is a royal palace and fortress that was originally built in 1078. It was quite amazing to stand and look at, but a bit difficult to comprehend the fact that it was almost 1000 years old! We walked around it, then also to see the Tower Bridge. By this stage we were trying to take some alternative tourist photos, to mix things up a bit from the regular standing and smiling in front of something famous.

 

 

  

Navigating throughout London is a bit exciting, because every second street or area you pass is named in Monopoly; playing Monopoly will never be the same again, now that I have actually visited all of the places.

 

We caught the Underground to King's Cross Station next, went through to Platform 9 3/4, then made our way to Hogwarts. 

  

 

Well maybe not to Hogwarts, but we went back to the area our hotel was in to grab some dinner. We decided to go to a Pizza Hut restaurant. The pizza was delicious, thick and had lots of toppings, quite different to the pizzas in Denmark but the same as those in Australia.

  

We also found a Frozen Yoghurt shop and I had my first frozen yoghurt in 10.5 months! Although it was quite over-priced, it was worth it.

The next day we woke up and made our way to Buckingham Palace for the Changing of the Guard ceremony. There were thousands of people there crowding the streets. It was quite difficult to see the main part of the ceremony because it happens inside the palace gates, but we saw the guards in their uniforms with tall fluffy hats, the band and horses march in.

 

  

After the ceremony was finished and the crowds had cleared we were free to see Buckingham Palace clearly.

 

  

Walking through St James's Park was such a picturesque experience. It is a very beautiful park, especially at this time of year when everything is alive with the colours of Autumn. But the best thing about it would have to be the squirrels that were everywhere! They are such adorable, funny, little animals, jumping around, digging and climbing up trees. There was an old man feeding them peanuts, by encouraging them to climb up his leg and take the nut from his hand. We found an empty nutshell at decided to try it, and it worked! They climbed up our legs took the nut and then jumped back down and ran up a tree.

 

  

  

  

We walked to the end of St James's Park, then to Trafalgar Square. The square had many statues, including a large one with 4 lions, but there was also a bright blue rooster, which was very out of place and a little puzzling.

  

 

After a little shopping on Oxford Street and Regent Street, we hired some bikes and rode through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. The sun was setting and it was an incredible sight, we paused to sit under a tree for a while and watch the sun set. It was just such a peaceful time and I really felt so happy to be in London.

  

   

  

I had the most amazing trip to London; I can now safely say that I am in love with that city. I think that I can also say that it has taken out #1 in my list of favourite cities, moving Paris down to a very close #2. I am so grateful to have been allowed this opportunity and that I got to share it with Maddie. I will definitely return to London.