Mini Trip to London

I LOVE London. I always used to think that I’d like to live there, and I still think I would, but I’d only want to stay for about a year. I think I’m more of a small city kind of person. I also think that going there as a visitor makes me appreciate what a wonderful city it is even more. I am always so excited when I know I've got a day out in London coming up. 

Recently, I was lucky to be able to go to London for a few days and stay in my uncle’s house in Clapham whilst he was on holiday. I went with my granny and I thought I’d tell you about what we got up to during our visit. On our first full day we were up bright and early for a boat trip on the River Thames. There are several companies running boat trips up and down the river which are all fairly similar, but we decided on Thames River Services. 

We jumped on a boat at Westminster which took us all the way up to Greenwich. Luckily it was a lovely sunny autumn day so we had fantastic views of all the sights either side of the Thames including Big Ben, the London Eye, the Shard, the Tower of London, Tower Bridge and Canary Wharf. The commentary which accompanied the trip was actually really interesting – rather than your bog-standard London facts we were told some lesser known snippets about the city. For example, did you know that the new Charing Cross train station was designed to look like a train coming out of a tunnel?  

The boat journey took about an hour, and once we’d disembarked in Greenwich we had a quick look round the visitor center before pottering around the market, which is well worth a visit because it has some lovely stalls and shops around, but is far quieter than other more well-known markets in London such as Camden Lock. We had lunch in the Waterstones in Greenwich and spent a while browsing round the books as well – I love a good bookshop!

Having wandered around Greenwich, we hopped back on the boat and headed back down the river. On the way back to Westminster we stopped at the Tower of London to go and see the World War 1 centenary art installation, the poppies. I think that the installation is such a good idea and a really fitting way for us to remember those who gave their lives for our futures. The contrast of the red poppies against the green grass and beige bricks which make up the Tower of London was striking and I think gave a real sense of the sheer number of lives lost. I found it really moving. If you can get up to London to see it for yourself before November 11^th then I strongly recommend it.

The next day we were up early once again. We made our way to Piccadilly because I was keen to visit the Cath Kidston flagship store at 180 Piccadilly. Although there were no special events or anything on when I visited, we spent a while browsing round the shop. I struggled to choose one thing to buy (especially on my post-university-recent-graduate budget!), but eventually chose something in the London Bus print which I thought was a fitting souvenir of my trip. We looked round the shops in Piccadilly a little longer before wandering over to Covent Garden to potter round the shops there. I didn’t buy anything too exciting but we did find a Burt’s Bees Pop Up ‘Hive’ so I grabbed some more of their lip balm because it’s my favourite! Then we headed to the West End to go and see Matilda: the Musical.

Roald Dahl is one of my favourite authors and I love the character of Matilda so I couldn’t wait to see the story brought to life in a stage production. The set design was amazing; I think that was what impressed me most. I found the songs a bit bland and it was quite hard to understand what was being said and sung a lot of the time. But I loved the actor playing Miss Trunchbull, and the little girl playing Matilda was very sweet. Although the story was changed a little which I felt made the whole thing a bit complicated, overall I really enjoyed it. It really kept to the tone of the book, and I think that Roald Dahl would have liked it too!  

I thought that this particular London trip was really good because we had one or two big things planned which gave us plenty of time for exploring and pottering around, and that’s what I really like doing best in London. I hope this has given you some ideas of things to do if you are visiting London any time soon.

Emma J