We pre-booked the coach and the hotel over the internet. Booking the coach early usually means you can find cheaper fares. On national express I managed to get us both return tickets for a total of about £43.00. The hotel was a bit of a gamble as we used hotwire.com to book it. Figuring that we wanted a base in the centre of London I used the station postcode as a search point and selected the star rating. Our eventual selection ended up being the Double Tree by Hilton next to Victoria Station (£170 for both nights for the room).
SATURDAY
Wanting a long weekend, we booked the coach from 8am Saturday morning and the return for 7:30pm on Monday night. I also double checked with the hotel that we could leave our bags with their reception when we were not in the room.
We were welcomed with a warm cookie upon check in - seriously yummy. The bags were taken (by us) upstairs to the 8th floor. Thankfully the lifts were working. Room was so comfy and we had a fantastic view over Victoria station. I was very pleased to find tea and coffee facilities (including 1 sachet of hot chocolate) and a few bottles of water. The bathroom was also beautiful. I could have stayed there for longer than 2 nights.
We were less than pleased to find that apparently on Saturday they had a shortage of toilet paper. We were given about 7 bits of toilet paper and I eventually had to phone for a resupply.
Once we had left the bags in the bedroom we then headed out into the city. My husband chose Camden Market as our first port of call for the weekend. He also joined the hoards of Londoners in owning an Oyster card - I already have one from a previous visit.
There was an attempt by the weather to ruin the day. It failed as the range of stalls and people still helped to make it a really exciting experience exploring the alleys between the stalls. Highly worth bringing cash with you as not all of the stalls accept card payment and some can be a little pricey. It will also give you a lot more bargaining power. If you are a comic book fan I should also draw your attention to a comic book store (Mega City Comics) across the road. Fantastic selection of graphic novels, artwork and comic books. They also do mail order. Hoping to get some of the comics to frame and put on the wall as part of our bedroom redesign.
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| Camden Market, London |
Next we did one of my picks for the weekend - visiting platform 9 3/4. Have been meaning to do this for ages and kept putting it off because of the queue. Apparently Saturday afternoon is a good time to go. We only queued for 40ish mins (instead of the 3 hour long queue that occurred earlier in the day). I selected a Griffindor scarf and got photographed - I admit that I gave in and spent the £8 for a pic (although there is a slight discount if you buy 2). The gift shop is only worth going to if you fancy the picture. If not then I wouldn't bother unless you have more than £50 to spend. I may need to purchase myself one of the nicer charms (around the £40-60 price tag). They were slightly out of my budget after my coat purchase. The cheaper ones were really poor quality and not worth spending the £6 on. However, they do have an online gift shop so I may have to do some saving....
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| Me running off to go and live at Hogwarts |
For our main meal we headed towards Victoria Station - a known location of food near the hotel. To my husband's delight we found ourselves outside a Yo Sushi bar. He has wanted to head into a bar with one of those tracks that bring food around for ages. We spent a few initial minutes looking lost and confused at the continuous procession of dishes. One of the team then took pity on us and explained the system. Not the cheapest meal but well worth the experience.
Not feeling very hungry that evening, we thought we would check out the hotel bar. The bar food (fries and onion rings) were nothing special. But they did hit the spot perfectly. I warn you now that this isn't the place to go for a professional cocktail or if you want to go somewhere with a large selection. But it is great for a nice relaxing evening.
[My husband stayed in the Marriot in Bournemouth for a night in 2013. The barman was being trained in how to make professional Gin cocktails. He was also a really great bar host and we learnt loads about cocktails. So now I judge most hotel bars by this standard. Just thought I would give you guys some context.]
SUNDAY
Sunday was another relatively early start as we wanted to find some breakfast before the Imperial War Museum opened. It turns out that nobody is in London before 10am and nowhere is open apart from Costa. It's right next to Lambeth North station. So head there if you need coffee at a normal hour on a Sunday morning.
We then headed over to the war museum. The perk of this is it's completely free to enter most of the exhibitions. There are a few you have to pay for but these change so precheck them on the website. You initially enter the building on floor 1. The building is built around one central column. This central column is currently filled with a hanging Spitfire and a Hurricane jet. It is a really impressive sight.
On the ground floor is the WW1 and WW2 exhibitions. There is some really interesting history and exhibits to be seen.
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| Imperial War Museum, London |
If all your kids are over 14 it is worth going to see the Holocaust memorial on the 4th floor. It really helps you understand the horror of what happened and you get to understand a little more about the big players who worked around Hitler. Honestly, I found it all quiet difficult to stomach. It's always hard to understand the horrors of what people do to each other. I honestly can say that I have so much respect for those who survived these atrocities and went on to live normal lives.
This museum does have a cafe, which is an excellent plan. It will take you most of a day to get around it and you will need a coffee. I would't hold out to much hope for the gift shop. There was not a lot there, although the book shop is definitely worth a look.
With the remainder of our day we decided to head down to Paddington station. This was to get a quick picture of the famous bear. What we had not realised is that the people who design and made the first Paddington bear toys were the parents of Jeremy Clarkson. Jeremy owned one of the first Paddington bear toys. For reference it's down on Platform 1 under the clock and it's really easy to get there via the circle line by underground. If you want to buy your own Paddington to take home you can pick up one in the gift shop!
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| Paddington Bear, Paddington Station, London |
Now we were feeling completely exhausted. We swung past M&S in Victoria station and brought ourselves a sandwich. Thankfully we brought a bottle of Tesco Cava with us (it was left over from NYE). It was a great way to relax after a busy day.
MONDAY
Last morning before we both head back to work. So we concluded that we would spend the day enjoying ourselves and exploring. Thankfully the hotel allowed us to leave our un-required bags with the concierge. They have a locked room and this hotel is so close to the coach station it's ideal to pick up from.
We headed down to Portobello Road market as our first port of call. Honestly, head down on a Saturday if you want the full experience. It's the only day during the week where all of the shops are open. However, it was still really fun exploring it and I managed to find a few new charm bracelet charms.
If you want beautiful but very cheap charms (I brought 2 for £8) then this is your new must see go-to place. The perk of being here on a Monday is I had the luxury of looking through the collections to find the ones I wanted.
For those looking to redecorate, this street is full of fantastic decor shops. There is some amazing antique shops and more modern print shops.
Don't bother with breakfast - this street has a waffle house. Sinful but beautiful! There is also more coffee shops than you can shake a stick at.
From here we jumped on a bus. You can't use change on London buses any more. However, with an Oyster card the cost is about £1.50 anywhere. We headed over to Victoria underground by bus. This is a great route as it also drives past Kensington Palace. From Victoria we jumped on an underground tube to Westminster.
Coming out of the station, the first thing we saw was the London Eye. I've been on it previously, but it is still impressive. My husband hasn't been that close before. However, I am pretty sure he was rather underwhelmed by the experience.
After a wonder around the outside of the Palace of Westminster (the Houses of Parliament - HOP) we headed into St. Margaret's Church. It's a small church by Westminster Cathedral but it is used as the office church to the H.O.P. It's free to get in (but no photos allowed inside) and really worth a look. While we were in there I also found a leaflet about tours of the H.O.P.
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| Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, London |
So this led me to dragging my husband in the direction of the ticket office. For info this is located to the right to the entrance of Portcullis house. However, we were then informed that audio tours only run on Saturdays. We were then told that there were no tours running because parliament when into session at 2:30pm (it was currently 1:30pm). The golden lining to this was that we were more than welcome to go and sit in the public gallery. This is completely free to anyone who wants to go and watch. We stayed for 3 hours. Unfortunately there is no phone or cameras allowed in the public gallery.
I could not recommend this highly enough. It's amazing how much about politics you can learn from being there. They also have a gift shop (I brought a bookmark, but didn't bother with the HOP branded lolly).
3 hours later we headed out to go and get some dinner. If we hadn't had a coach to catch at 7:30 we would probably have stayed as they were about to have a second reading of the law on Modern day slavery.
Overall a fantastic weekend. London is the gift that just keeps on giving.
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