Travel Diary : London (Part 1)

Hi guys! This past week I was traveling in London and Paris with my mom for spring break, which was so incredible! Keeping up with blogging was almost impossible, since we were getting up super early and walking nearly 10 miles everyday, I came home every night and passed right out. Now that I'm back to school, I have more time to work on these next few posts about my trip and get them up ASAP! Here is part 1 of my time in London :)

We arrived in London early Saturday morning, taking the tube from London Heathrow to our stop at St James Park, conveniently located right next to our Airbnb near Westminster Abbey. I highly suggest getting an Airbnb instead of a hotel, since it’s so much cheaper and you don’t have to worry about maid service and the possibility of items getting stolen. 

Once we settled into the apartment and got dressed for the day, we headed out to explore our neighborhood. To our surprise, Westminster Abbey and Big Ben were literally right around the corner from where we were staying! As we walked along the river, we made our way to Covent Garden to explore and shop!

In Covent Garden. We stumbled across a PAUL Bakery and Restaurant, which was delicious!  (As the week went on, we realized that PAUL is a pretty popular chain, but not all locations are restaurants.) I got the Brassica Gratin with a side of Smoked Salmon, which was yummy and kept me full for the rest of the day. This restaurant was adorable and a place that I would highly recommend!

That night, I met up with my friend from college who now works south of the river in Brixton! We had dinner at Cafe Sol, a Mexican restaurant with a very young hip vibe. After dinner, we bounced around to a few different bars to have drinks and catch up with each other. It was a great night.

Sunday morning we got a bit of a late morning because of the time change. This day, my mom and I wanted to check out Oxford Street and Carnaby for some more shopping. Obviously we had to stop for some touristy photos at Buckingham Palace.

We spent the day walking around the area and seeing all the different shops and poking our heads in different restaurants and hotels. One restaurant that we happened to stumble across was the Instagram-famous Sketch London. We decided to make a reservation in person and get a sneak preview of all the different areas in the building (I’ll cover this in Part 2… stay tuned!).  

I would highly suggest doing this area on a Sunday when it’s not too crowded. The cobblestone backstreets of Carnaby and the busy city sidewalks of Oxford Street reminded me of Broadway in Soho, Manhattan. A must visit, but definitely a busy area.

That night we weren’t craving a huge meal, so we ended up in a Greene King restaurant that was around the corner from our hotel, for a taste of “traditional” English food. I got the fish and chips, and I have to say, it was definitely not the best thing I had on the trip. We saw a lot of “Greene King” restaurants, I would say its comparable to Panera Bread chains in America: certainly not bad, but could be way better.

I hope you guys enjoyed this little part 1 of my time in London! Part 2 will be coming very soon, with a lot more photos and highly recommended spots, so stay tuned for that!

Maggie