I really wasn’t expecting to go to London and every day up until my cousin and I got on our plane felt like waiting for someone to tell me there had been a mistake. Our time in London was short but packed. It was amazing to see so many old buildings, places I’ve only read about first hand. It was nice to see friends and meet up even though it was for such short periods of time. Every tour we were on included random bits of information about places and history we were passing that didn’t necessarily have to do with the highlights of the tour, these nuggets of information were probably my favorites. Here’s a list of some of the places we passed that may be places of some interest.
- Harvey Nichols is a shop to check out their intricate and creative window displays. Located at 109-125 Knightsbridge, London.
- Harrods is 7 stories tall and it’s a shop where you can get/order anything from a pin to an elephant. To visit Harrods go to 87-135 Brompton Rd, London.
- The Natural History Museum or British Museum (Natural History) has sculptures of animals both alive and extinct on the outside. The museum is free and they are experts on dinosaurs. All publicly funded national museums in the UK are free. The Natural History Museum was founded in 1881 and is located at Cromwell Rd, London.
- Every entrance of the financial district is guarded by dragons to ward off evil.
- The Fuller’s Griffin Brewery offers 5 pound tours and samples.They’ve been brewing in Chiswick for over 350 years. This brewery can be found at Chiswick Lane South, London W4 2QB, England.
- Piccadilly Circus is a stop we made on a busy night. It’s a road junction that was built in 1819. It’s known for the large tv displays and neon lights. It’s near most of the entertainment and shopping districts and is mostly just a large open space. Piccadilly gets it’s name from different kinds of collars that use to be sold in the area. Circus, which made me think it was a giant brightly colored festival area, is actually pulled from Latin to mean circle. While it’s name actually doesn’t mean anything as exciting as my mind conjured, it’s still pretty cool to look around at night and see all the illuminated signs.
I wished we had more time for a lot of the places we went; to explore Bath, the town around Windsor, or just in general. Out of all our tours we enjoyed the free Beatles walking tour the best and we loved just using the London Pass to explore. Early Spring was a beautiful time to go to London. It was warmer than Chicago yet still cold and mildly rainy, but the flowers were in bloom.