Travel Around London via a 7 Day Itinerary
We just completed our first trip to London! We traveled early April during my daughter's spring break.
Travel Schedule: We left before sunrise April 7th. Our Charlotte departure had a connection through Washington, DC - which we nearly missed. There were no delays, there just wasn't enough time between the 2 flights against the massive size of the DC airport. We then flew from DC direct to London. We arrived very late London time (like 9pm local). I highly recommend this, instead of taking a red eye and landing in the morning. This way, when you land, you are exhausted and ready for bed anyway. You can sleep off your travel and wake up immediately on the local time.
Hotel: We stayed at the Four Seasons - Ten Trinity Square. We have this habit of staying at Four Seasons during soft openings :) Not everything in the hotel was open when we were there, but it was nice because we were one of the few guests.
Itinerary:
Day 1: On the first day, we hit the local stuff to our hotel pretty hard. We started with breakfast at Sky Garden, walked around Ten Trinity park, Tower of London (which included tour of the Crown Jewels), walked the Tower Bridge and London Bridge, hung out in Tower Park.
Day 2: The tube was right next to the hotel so it made for quick transportation everywhere. We saw the Changing of the Guard, Buckingham Palace, palace gardens, Big Ben, London Eye, Trafalgar Square, The Horse Guard and Waterloo Station. We then walked back to the hotel from that section of the city. I would say the night walk was worth it to see the city after dark. When you are in the tube, you obviously get no view.
The first 2 days we walked something like 23 miles.
Day 3: We spent a large part of the day walking around the British Museum. There was a feature on the "American Dream" - which clearly we had to see. My daughter spent most of the time gauging at the naked men statues. There was so much to see, we literally walked around for hours until we just got bored. :) We also explored Harrods and did some shopping.
Day 4: Train to Universal Studios Harry Potter tour. This place was amazing! More in another post.
Day 5: Hampton Court Palace was on the agenda, and took most of the day. We chose this because of the Easter activities they had going on and the child friendly environment.
Day 6: We hired a drive and headed out to the Roman Baths & Stonehenge. We wanted to go to both of these locations, but this was also going to double as my view of the English countryside. The day was completely worth it and both locations were really quite amazing. (and my view of the countryside was also fantastic).
Day 7: Honestly, we were tired. We'd hit the big things on our list. We didn't really have anything else we felt we "had" to do. We did venture out to Camden Market. Because of the timing of our Harry Potter tickets, we were not able to do this when we were up at the Kings Cross station area a few days before. So we headed back there and checked out the market. It was far too crowded. But was OK. After that we just did some general sight seeing and shopping. Cyberdog was really awesome!
Travel: The way back was much the same as the way there. Took a morning flight, through DC, back to Charlotte. Arrived in the evening, close to bed. I have to say that because of this flight schedule, we didn't experience much jet lag, if any, on this trip.
Hotel: We stayed at the Four Seasons - Ten Trinity Square. We have this habit of staying at Four Seasons during soft openings :) Not everything in the hotel was open when we were there, but it was nice because we were one of the few guests.
Itinerary:
Day 1: On the first day, we hit the local stuff to our hotel pretty hard. We started with breakfast at Sky Garden, walked around Ten Trinity park, Tower of London (which included tour of the Crown Jewels), walked the Tower Bridge and London Bridge, hung out in Tower Park.
Day 2: The tube was right next to the hotel so it made for quick transportation everywhere. We saw the Changing of the Guard, Buckingham Palace, palace gardens, Big Ben, London Eye, Trafalgar Square, The Horse Guard and Waterloo Station. We then walked back to the hotel from that section of the city. I would say the night walk was worth it to see the city after dark. When you are in the tube, you obviously get no view.
The first 2 days we walked something like 23 miles.
Day 3: We spent a large part of the day walking around the British Museum. There was a feature on the "American Dream" - which clearly we had to see. My daughter spent most of the time gauging at the naked men statues. There was so much to see, we literally walked around for hours until we just got bored. :) We also explored Harrods and did some shopping.
Day 4: Train to Universal Studios Harry Potter tour. This place was amazing! More in another post.
Day 5: Hampton Court Palace was on the agenda, and took most of the day. We chose this because of the Easter activities they had going on and the child friendly environment.
Day 6: We hired a drive and headed out to the Roman Baths & Stonehenge. We wanted to go to both of these locations, but this was also going to double as my view of the English countryside. The day was completely worth it and both locations were really quite amazing. (and my view of the countryside was also fantastic).
Day 7: Honestly, we were tired. We'd hit the big things on our list. We didn't really have anything else we felt we "had" to do. We did venture out to Camden Market. Because of the timing of our Harry Potter tickets, we were not able to do this when we were up at the Kings Cross station area a few days before. So we headed back there and checked out the market. It was far too crowded. But was OK. After that we just did some general sight seeing and shopping. Cyberdog was really awesome!
Travel: The way back was much the same as the way there. Took a morning flight, through DC, back to Charlotte. Arrived in the evening, close to bed. I have to say that because of this flight schedule, we didn't experience much jet lag, if any, on this trip.
No comments
Post a Comment