The week after Thanksgiving (2007), I took mom on a trip to London and Paris. It was both of our first trip overseas and we had an absolutely great time! We saw just about as much as you could possibly see in a week and just can’t wait to get back. We saw so much I am going to separate this into two segments. Since we arrived in London first, I will talk about that first.
Nov. 22-23:
On Thanksgiving day, we flew from Detroit to Toronto and onto Heathrow Airport in London. There was a bit of bad weather in Toronto so we arrived about an hour late to London. It was still rather early in the morning, however. We slept a bit on the plane and felt like we got great service on Air Canada. After a quick run through customs (which went very well), we found the Underground station at Heathrow. We got two 7-day travelcards and were on our way to London! 
We weren’t able to check into our hotel, the Holiday Inn Kensington Forum, but left our bags there before heading out to explore London. I thought this was a very decent hotel in a great location as far as transport links goes. I think there are three Underground lines at the Gloucester Road stop, which was right around the corner from the hotel.
We decided to work out the cobwebs from the flight and to get right into the London experience, we would walk towards Buckingham Palace. It turned out to be a bit further than I thought but we did pass by Harrods which I think mom enjoyed. Also a few museums (which it turned out we probably should have stopped in at). Eventually, though, we arrived at St. James Park, which was absolutely beautiful. You’d never know it was late November. From there it was on to Buckingham Palace. Although maybe not the most awe-inspiring place, it certainly was interesting to see the changing of the guard. Really, I don’t think there is a better way to start off a London vacation. There were SO many people there!!! Very exciting to see all the pomp and circumstance.
From there, we walked down towards Paliament and Big Ben. The first site of Big Ben was really exciting! I’m not sure it was until then that I really realized that I was in London! It’s a very busy area during the day and I took loads of pictures of course. Across the street is Westminster Abbey, which is like 1000 years old. So we got in line to see it, of course. Very somber place. More like a huge mausoleum than a church from my perspective, but it was very interesting to see all the graves and monuments to so many famous people. You couldn’t take pictures inside but I got several of the old exterior structure. At this point we were beat so we hopped on the Tube back to the hotel for a bit of rest…
After our nap, we went around the corner to a small chain restaurant for dinner. It wasn’t anything too special but we were really hungry so I think it worked for that purpose anyway. There are lots of nice looking places to eat but it was a bit early so several of them either weren’t open or looked fairly dead. I never think it’s good to be the only one eating in a place. After dinner, we hopped back on the tube to take us to the Tate Modern. This is a huge museum of modern art housed in an old power station. There is a cavernous hall with very little art that you enter first. Unfortunately, we were really too sleepy to enjoy it, but I was glad we went. Outside is the Millennium Bridge and St. Paul’s across the river. It’s worth the trip just for those sites, I think. Also not far is Tower Bridge. So I took a bunch of pictures there as well. We capped off the night in Piccadilly Circus. Since it was a Friday night, the place was really hopping! Very fun place for a little treat.
Nov 24
We had breakfast at a little (and I mean little) French pastry shop across from the Gloucester Road Tube station, Paul. Very good pastries. I think I had my first chocolate pastry, but far from my last!!! It was excellent and highly recommended.
The Tube was a bit of a challenge on this particular day as much of the Piccadilly Line (and all of the Circle Line as it was Saturday) was shut down. So I had to think on my feet in order to get us up to Notting Hill. But TFL gave us a nice Tube map so I referred to that and figured out how to get where we needed to be. London Underground really is fairly easy to use once you get the hang of it. Anyway, this was market day on Portobello Road, so we headed up there for the morning. I think mom really enjoyed all the little markets in Europe and this one especially. It was very enjoyable. She got lots of little trinkets along the way. I do wish I had gotten a few more things though! And we should have eaten somewhere along there as it all smelled oh so good. Very fun place to spend a Saturday in any case.
Alas, I had plans on stopping in at a museum or perhaps strolling through the park but we opted instead to grab our bags. If we had time, we’d eat something at St. Pancras before boarding the Eurostar. Turns out that was the right decision!! From Gloucester Road to St. Pancras, one takes the Piccadilly Line. I don’t know why but on this particular Saturday, EVERYBODY was taking the Piccadilly Line no matter where they were going. So it was absolutely craziness, especiallly if you happened to be carrying 3 bags at the time… People would lean in when the door closed! And, of course, with all the crowds it must have taken an hour or so to get there. So we were rather pressed on time. We had no time to waste. I picked up our tickets and it was pretty much time to board the train, which is what we did. And we were off to PARIS!!!
The rest of the report-
Paris Report (Part 2)
Back to London (Part 3)
My photos are located here: London and Paris Album
Tags: bigben · buckingham · london · portobello · uk · underground2 Comments
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