Travel Diary: London
London. Capital city of the United Kingdom. After
years and years of dreaming to visit this huge city, I finally did this summer.
My expectations were high since everybody I know praises the city and is, at it
seems, in love with it. It is not only a very important city for Europe, being
the centre of finances and economy but also home to over 8 million people – the
same amount of people living in the whole county where I come from! Crazy,
isn’t it?
I didn’t realise that my wish was coming true (and I'm still stuggling to believe it!) but I found myself very soon next to my friend at
the airport. Unfortunately not everything went well. The board crew which was
supposed to accompany us to London was stuck in the early morning traffic so we
had a delay of an hour. At least our flight wasn’t cancelled. As we reached the
city, we were able to see some sights from above .
After picking up our luggage we got an OysterCard and
took the next tube on the Piccadilly line to our hotel which was in Bayswater.
We left our luggage there since our room wasn’t ready yet – time for exploring
the city! But before we did, we ate lunch at Pizza Hut (it was quite close to
our hotel!). Being a Beatles fan, it was mandatory for me to visit Abbey Road.
It wasn’t hard to find and I found it amazing that I wasn’t the only one
wanting to see the famous road and the Studios. People were walking over the
crosswalk like the Beatles originally did for their Abbey Road album but
unfortunately there was some traffic so it was hard to get a good photo without
any cars in the background.
From this point my friend and I went to Primrose Hill
on foot. On our way we saw many beautiful houses that were bigger than a
typical English house made of red bricks. We decided that we both would move
there some day (haha, if we could ever afford it!). The view you got when standing
on top of Primrose Hill was great! Regent’s Park was just across the road, so
we decided to walk through it. It was a nice stroll and it was so quiet even
though it’s in the middle of London!
We then went to Baker Street where there was a tall statue of the most famous detective in the world: Sherlock Holmes. There wasn’t only a Sherlock Holmes museum (with a long queue in front of it) but also a Beatles shop! I had to go in there and after looking at all the merchandise I decided to buy a magnetic bookmark. We didn’t visit the Sherlock Holmes museum because there wasn’t enough time.
Day 2 – Wednesday, 22nd July 2015
After having not such a great sleep we attended breakfast on the following morning. This was supposed to be our big sightseeing day so we
took the Central line to Marble Arch where there was a stop of The Original
Tour, a hop-on-hop-off-bus company that shows you the must-see sights of
London. So we got onto the bus and received
earplugs that allowed us to hear a little more about London than we were going
to see and had already known. I listened to the German speaker at first but then I
switched to English and I was happy not having any problems to understand the
speaker.
There was a certain route that the bus was going to
take and we decided to hop off the bus at Tower Bridge after seeing St. Paul’s
Cathedral, Regent’s Street, Trafalgar Square, The Shard and City Hall. We
visited Starbucks and admired the Tower of London before we went on the Tower
Bridge and bought tickets for the exhibition where we went up the bridge and
had a great view over London. We were also witnesses of one of the many
openings and closings of the bridge.
We then got onto the bus again and just a few minutes later off again because we wanted to see Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and the Millennium Bridge. I have to admit that the Muggles did a great job rebuilding the bridge after it was destroyed by Death Eaters in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. ;)
There was also a nice little book flea market where I
bought Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson for a pound. I love book flea
markets! Afterwards we went on foot to the next bus station on Blackfriars Bridge.
It seemed like a mistake because we waited over half an hour for the bus to
come! Even though it says that a bus will arrive every 10 minutes. Is the
traffic guilty? I don’t know, it was just not so great to lose time. The next
stop was Westminster Bridge! There it was, the major sight of London: Big Ben!
(Although its name is actually Elizabeth Tower and the bell inside is called
Big Ben but everyone says Big Ben. Anyway!) So I saw Big Ben,
the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. We also took a lot of photos.
And since it started drizzling and my friend and I were cold but we didn’t have
enough clothes with us, we bought typical tourist sweaters/hoodies/jumpers
(however you call them :P). Now I own a jumper with a red phone cell on it.
Because we were tired of waiting, we went to
Buckingham Palace on foot through St. James’s Park. There were of course a lot
of tourists but we could see the famous guards of the Queen through the fence.
It also happened to be Prince George’s second birthday but we didn’t notice
anything about it when roaming through London. Some minutes later we got off
the bus once again at Piccadilly Circus and visited the M&Ms World (how
amazing is that shop?!) and Trafalgar Square. Despite the saying, we didn’t meet
anyone we knew at Piccadilly Circus but it surely is a great place, same goes
for Trafalgar Square. I think it’s awesome that you can go and see The National
Gallery for free but again, we didn’t have time to visit museums.
Day 3 – Thursday, 23rd July 2015
This was our Harry Potter Studio Tour Day. We got up
early and ate a lot of breakfast since it was going to be a very long day without
actual breaks. And, of course, on this very day, the underground had disturbances
and delays. Luckily, it only lasted for a couple of minutes and we eventually did arrive at
London Euston Station, still in time. After asking for advice at the
information desks we knew which train to take – destination to Birmingham New
Street. And, guess what: It was late. But there was also something else that
wasn’t familiar to my friend and me: The platforms on which the trains would
arrive were about to be announced and weren’t for sure at first place. So we
found ourselves in the middle of a crowd, staring up at the screens. At soon as
platform 11 was announced, a lot of people started walking at the same time,
rushing to get to the right platform. It was funny to watch and to be a part
of. The train was full so we had to stand but it was just for 15 minutes after all. As we
got off at Watford Junction, it wasn’t hard to find the bus that would take us
to the Warner Bros. Studios (pictures of Harry Potter were on it).
It wasn’t a long trip and finally we were there. My friend and I collected our Digital Guides and joined the queue. I don’t want to talk about it too much because I don’t want to spoil anything. All I can say it that it was amazing! It is worth the money. You see so many things, so many props and costumes that were used in the movies and you get a lot of information on how the movies were made. It was so nice to see how many details were included to make everything look authentic. Don’t forget to bring your camera…and money, if you want to buy something from the shop (trust me, you will want to buy at least one item! :P). It’s true that it isn’t cheap, but hey, it’s merchandise. Since when is merchandise supposed to be cheap? Attending the Studio Tour also made me realise again how privileged all the actors and people behind the camera were, being a part of all of this.
Day 4 – Friday, 24th July 2015
This was our final day in London. And for the first
time in these couple of days, we could really…enjoy…British weather. It rained
the whole day and my clothes got really wet despite having had an umbrella
with me.
Anyway! There were still some places that we wanted to
visit so we couldn’t lose any time. First stop was the Hard Rock Café where we
both bought a top. Then we visited Harrods. What a big and beautiful building!
Since it wasn’t that expensive, we bought tea and shortbread. Then we headed
for Oxford Street. We found the Disney shop pretty quick. A really nice shop
that plays various Disney songs while you are shopping. Again we bought
something: a cup. Bambi was on mine. :D
Afterwards, we went inside Urban Outfitters, Topshop,
Superdrug, Waterstones and Primark. Two tops and some make-up were added to my
done-shopping-list. It was time for lunch so we went to Nandos. I’ve never been
there before but I liked it a lot! Okay, it might be a bit expensive but the
food was delicious! The cashier even asked us where we were from and then he
told us that he’d been there as a tourist. It was pretty funny.
As we left the restaurant it was already time to head
back to the hotel and leave for Heathrow. So we went back, put our stuff in our
suitcases and took the next tube. Everything went well…until we had a delay
again. This time we sat in the plane for more than an hour until it was allowed
to move and depart. We arrived at our home airport a few minutes before
midnight.
That was it. Looking back, I can say that it was a
great trip. I really saw a lot of things and we almost did everything that we
planned to do. I even found my future house! Just kidding. But I think living
in London would be very nice. Yet I have to admit that although we had an
amazing time, it was definitely too short to really enjoy. You know what I
mean? It was kind of stressful at certain moments because we didn’t have many
breaks since our time was very limited and we rushed from place to place to be
there in time. There were surely a lot of places that we didn’t get to see and
I can say that I'd be more than happy to return to London one day. It might be a busy city yet it is also a very beautiful one.
If I learned anything in London for the rest of my life
then it would be the fact that you should never underestimate the British
weather. Yes, I know, a lot of people living in Britain complain about it but I
was naïve enough to trust the weather forecast and didn’t pack enough for a
cold summer’s day. Stupid me. I’d highly recommend you not to be that stupid.
Have a nice day!
xx Julia Annabeth
P.S.: Special thanks to my wonderful friend for allowing me to use some of her photos for this post :)
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