Holiday: Day 2 - London

Massive day, we kicked off early , we came home late and we did so much in between!!

The whole early to bed early to rise thing really did pay off for us with myself and the kids waking up before 5am, so we were ready and out the door before 7am which is great for maximising what you do in the day, not so great for the feet :(

First up was Buckingham Palace which is very token London. I was surprised there weren’t many people around but that could have been due to the time of the day. I’m a big fan of the Queen so find the whole thing somewhat interesting. Something I’ve never really considered is how much standing around the guards must do. I can’t imagine its a common occurrence someone steps out of line so there must be plenty of days when all they have done is stood around being ready to protect, I’d be curious to know what their KPI’s are… It’s also a little sad knowing that the Queen is probably not at home these days so there’s not really a chance she is pestering around inside, bit sad really.

Then it was time for a wander and a coffee. People probably know that I enjoy having a coffee but most are shocked to hear that I love a Starbucks, but let me be clear I only like the brewed coffee, that is all. It’s quick, it’s cheap and it reminds me of Hawaii, but anyhow we wandered through the park and found our first Starbucks, the day could now go on since I’d had my fix.

We wandered back along the street to Piccadilly Circus where we looked for souvenirs and went to Lillywhites (who previously wouldn’t sell me a soccer ball without ID) and then back down into the underground to do some sightseeing.

We worked our way along the river, passed the London Eye and back over the bridge to the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, then it was back into the underground and off to Tower Hill to see the Tower of London and Tower Bridge.

I’m not a huge fan of the Tower of London, it’s big , it’s old and it houses the Crown Jewels, but its not really my thing. What was interesting is that since my last visit they had replaced all the grass around the outside with gardens, which look amazing, even though I was slightly disappointed that the robotic mower that we had seen last time had lost his job, poor guy.

Tower Bridge however I am a big fan of. I’m not sure why because it’s not overly huge, but I think its just a good looking bridge, I even have the Lego model for it, still in a box as a collector set. Anyhow we did the out and back and took some photos, recreating our favourite photo from our previous trip (interesting to see how we’ve changed..) grabbed another quick Starbucks and walked back.

Our next stop was the London Olympic stadium, home to my favourite English football team West Ham United. We took the option to go through the giant Westfields near the station with a quick stop at M&S. Credit where credit is due, M&S know how to do a packaged meal. If you’re short on time that’s the place to go, and as per usual for me it was the trusty Caesar salad wrap for lunch, and another Caesar salad bagged for dinner.

Former Olympic stadium now home to West Ham United

On to the stadium, and while we didn’t do a tour or anything like that we did visit the team store where we loaded up with a few souvenirs, I always like to support the teams I follow so bagged another jersey. Whats interesting is that it seems significantly greener and busier around the stadium precinct than what it was the last time I was here. Maybe that has something to do with the weather and time of the day but there is plenty of development there and it’s probably made it one of the nicer stadiums to visit that I’ve ever been to.

London Olympic pool

Post stadium we quickly visited the aquatic centre that was used for the Olympics in 2021, we were so impressed we decided to go back, get our swimming gear and come for a swim. I can’t really say that I’m a swimming pool connoisseur but this pool was pretty spectacular, there just didn’t seem to be anything unnecessary or clutter around, part of the real for this is that they enforce that all bags etc stay in the change rooms, but needless to say after a day full of walking it was nice to churn out some laps and feel refreshed. Surprisingly it was still daylight when we got back to our hotel at 9:30pm which just feels odd.

Anyhow, that’s all for London, tomorrow we move to Paris!!

Michael