Summer Break Scenes | London.

Hey y’all! I’m back from my second trip this summer and excited to share some pictures, favorites, and tips. My mom and sister and I just got back from a 4-day trip to London, England. We had a wonderful time and saw many new and old things and tried things we had never done before. We had been to London about 9 years ago, but wanted to visit again and experience things differently. Although it is tourist season in Europe, I did not expect there to be so many people! Now I’ll give you the highlights of our trip and the things we enjoyed the most and that are worth it to see. I also cannot for the life of me decide how to write this post, so I’ll just list the things we did (along with pictures)!

Victoria & Albert Museum

This was the first thing we did when we got into the city. It was a nice place to visit both because it was free and because it had a lot to look at! There are so many different levels and halls and exhibitions. Our favorites were the jewelry, theatre, and fashion exhibits. We didn’t even get to see everything, but we were hungry so we left early.

Dale Chihuly chandelier

Da Vinci's notebook

Ginger Roger's and Fred Astaire's outfits

Antique wedding dress and veil

Antique Dior 

Harrods and the Tube

After we left the museum we started walking toward a popular bakery/café called Patisserie Valerie. We were going to have tea there, but it was too busy for us to wait when we got there. Harrods was just a few blocks up the street from this café so we walked up there. We went into the Food Hall in the store to get a snack and a drink. It was packed in there! We got our stuff and skedaddled out of there! Next thing was riding the tube. If you are going to be in London for more than a day, I recommend purchasing an Oyster card at any Underground station. Basically, an Oyster card is a subway/bus ticket that you load money onto and you just swipe to ride either. It ends up saving you money in the long run and is really handy instead of having little pieces of paper floating around your pockets or bags. The tube (subway) is a really fast way of getting around the city and is relatively easy as long as you know where you want to go and have a map of the tube lines readily available.

Nandos and the London Eye

On our first evening in London we ate at a popular chain restaurant called Nandos. They serve Portuguese style chicken and sides. Since there were only 3 of us on this trip we were able to only purchase 2 entrees to split between us. You can order the chicken plain and add a sauce from the condiment bar or order your chicken with sauce. Either way, all of the chicken is marinated in a peri-peri sauce. I thought it was good and would eat there again. After eating dinner, we went to the London Eye. This was the one thing my sister really wanted to do and despite my mom being afraid of heights, we did it! It was not cheap, but the views were really great.

Foyle’s Bookshop and Afternoon Tea

Since I am going to be an elementary school teacher someday (hopefully K-2), I thought my souvenir should be practical and not rinky-dinky. I LOVE children’s books and the bookstore we went into had a wonderful selection of children’s literature! I had so much fun seeing all of the UK books and I ended up getting two books (although I wish I could have gotten more). The two I got were “Sir Lilypad” by Anne Kemp and Kay Thompson’s “Eloise”. Each book is so wonderful and I love the illustrations in each. If I’m buying a children’s book, I have to like the illustrations or I usually won’t read it. After our quick trip to the bookstore, we got back on the tube to go towards Kensington Palace. My one thing I really wanted to do in London was have real afternoon tea. We decided to make reservations at The Orangery at Kensington Palace. The atmosphere was so lovely and the china was really beautiful. The tea itself was good, but the food was something to be desired. The best things on the tiered tray were the scones and the Coronation Chicken wrap. So The Orangery definitely gets points for atmosphere, but not so much for the food. But nothing beats having tea in Prince Wills & Princess Kate’s backyard! After we had tea we walked through Kensington gardens, which are beautiful.

The Children's section of the bookstore

Tea at the Orangery

The Gardens at Kensington

The outside of the Orangery

The front of Kensington Palace

Fish & Chips and the Theatre

When in London, do as the Londoners do and have fish and chips. What better place to have fish and chips than at Holme’s Fish & Chips just down the street from Sherlock Holme’s house on Baker Street. The fish and chips were delicious, but our jackets smelled like fried oil for days…(not so good). After dinner, we walked to Regent’s Park for our evening event. We saw our first broadway show, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, at the Open Air Theatre in the park. First of all, Regent’s Park ais beautiful and so is the theater. Once you go through the entrance there are leaves with twinkle lights woven throughout. It made me feel like I was at Disney World or in the tree house from Swiss Family Robinson. It was a beautiful! The show was FANTASTIC and we loved everything about it! We highly, highly, highly recommend it!

Sherlock's House

Holmes Fish & Chips

Regent's Park

We were excited to see the show!

Double-Decker Buses and Droves of People

On our last day in London we didn’t have anything planned as we had done everything we wanted to do so we decided to use our Oyster cards and take a ride around the city on a traditional red double-decker bus. This was really fun and we got to see a lot of things without having to walk around and worry about bumping into people. We did make a couple of stops on our bus trip, 1) to see the Paddington Bear statue at Paddington Station…which does not exist, 2) to climb on the giant lions at Trafalgar Square which we could not climb up on for the life of us, and 3) to have lunch at Patisserie Valerie near Foyle’s Bookshop. I had my first ever Eggs Benedict at the café and it was delicious! My mom and sister both got a club sandwich and said it was delicious and my mom got the “best raspberry tart she’s ever had.” After lunch we got back on the bus and continued to ride around a little bit and saw lots of fancy stores. We also saw Piccadilly Circus (there were no animals at this circus). It kind of reminded of when you step on an ant hill and tons of ants come pouring out because there were SOOO many people! We finally decided we were done and took the last train from Liverpool Station back to the airport where our hotel was. It was nice to relax and have free wifi again.

Visiting Big Ben

Breakfast at Costa (the UK version of Starbucks)

Ben's Cookies are a chain store and they have really good cookies! 

I tried the Peanut Butter with Milk Chocolate :)

Bus tour pictures

The Ritz

Trafalgar Square

Piccadilly Circus

Selfridge's Department Store

Eggs Benedict (Toasted brioche bread, bacon(fried ham), two poached eggs, and hollandaise sauce)

Overall, our trip was wonderful and we got to see and experience a lot of lovely things. I would recommend visiting London to anyone if you get the chance. Make sure to check back shortly for more pictures of my last trip this summer before going back to school!