London Weekend

We love a UK city break and every year make sure we’ve included one in our travel itinerary, this year we headed down to the capital for a long weekend in London. The weekend definitely went by way too quickly but we thought we’d share some of the highlights with you after all there’s never a dull moment in London!

Saturday

Our trip started pretty early and we arrived at Euston around 10:30am and after we dropped our bags off at the hotel we had one thing on our mind, brunch! Something we’d researched a fair bit for this trip was coffee shops and so we headed to the nearest one, the Bloomsbury Coffee House. If you’re looking for a good coffee this was definitely the best! We both had items from the breakfast menu and it left us full until dinner so it was well worth the £17.

On our way out the hotel contacted us to say our room was ready. We were staying at the Radisson Blu Edwardian Kenilworth on Great Russell Street and found the location to be perfect! The room itself was a bit warm and a bit noisy but otherwise fine for a weekend away.

After a pretty relaxed afternoon, of bobbing in and out of shops around Oxford Street and Soho, we headed out for an early dinner to a restaurant just off Piccadilly Circus – Rowley’s. We both had a steak which was cooked perfectly and tasted delicious followed by the amazing chocolate bomb desert. Whilst it is delicious it’s also a pretty pricey restaurant, if you’ve travelled to London by train then this a great place to take advantage of the Days Out Guide 2 for 1 vouchers available to anyone who’s travelled down by rail – We did! (It was still expensive…)

Our Saturday evening, the reason we went down to London, was certainly the highlight of the trip – a night at the Prince Edward Theatre to see Aladdin. Having both grown up in what we’d consider the Golden Era of Disney Aladdin was a firm favourite for us both as kids and seeing it on the stage was magical! It’s an excellent take of the film and well worth a watch whether you’re a fan of it or not!

Sunday

We started the day early with a run route incorporating some of the best sights to see in London whilst still managing to keep the distance fairly short (7.7km) you can read our post of the perfect tourist run route here!

Sunday’s planned activity was a trip out to Greenwich, just 40 minutes out of the city centre by DLR it was easily accessible and so worth the trip out! There’s a lot to do in the area, we’d planned a walking tour which lasted around 2 hours and at £8 for the two of us was a bargain! Our guide showed us around the university grounds explaining the history of the site, what some of the current notable features were, told us all about the films that had been shot there recently and then took us up through the park to see the best view of London you’re ever likely to see! Greenwich really does have so much to see and do. You could very easily spend the full day out here.

Once we headed back to the city it was time for another Coffee Shop stop, this time we headed to Monopoly Board Favourite Fleet Street to visit the Fleet Street Press – in case you’re wondering Fleet Street was the heart of London’s journalism back in the day, we reckon that’s why it’s called press but we could be wrong! We didn’t have a bite to eat in here, but the tea was lovely!

Monday

Finally it was time for a peaceful and relaxing morning after two days of early get ups it was nice to finally have a restful morning even if we had to ruin it by packing up the room. Once again we spent some time wandering through a few shops, this time in the much nicer Covent Garden area and before long it was time for Coffee Shop Stop number 3. We visited Grind Covent Garden for a quick pick me up and we weren’t disappointed, the pot of tea had enough for 3 cups in it! Plus the had some delicious food on offer, we picked up a Pastel de Nata, in preparation for Portugal in July, which was very tasty.

Our planned activities for Monday were over the other side of London but we decided to enjoy a walk over rather than sit on the tube. We headed first to Monument, the tower that was constructed to commemorate the Great Fire of London in 1666. For just £5 we were allowed entry to climb the 311 steps to the top – of course James saw this as a challenge so we had to power up all 311 steps without stopping – or even slowing down!

Just around the corner from Monument was the highlight of our Monday. We headed to 20 Fenchurch Street, more commonly known as the Walkie Talkie building, to go to their Skygarden on the 35^th floor, bookings are required and can be made up to 3 weeks in advance – be warned weekend and sunsets are booked up in the blink of an eye! The view from the Skygarden is incredible! With 360 degree views across the whole city it’s well worth coming up - especially as it’s free! You’re given an hour's slot which is plenty of time to stroll around, take loads of pictures and enjoy a smoothie from the bar.

We finished off our Monday and our weekend in London with a wholesome meal from Wagamama and some cocktails from the London Cocktail Club on Shaftsbury Avenue, taking full advantage of their two for £12 happy hour!

So that was our quick weekend away in London, we hope we've inspired you to visit! Let us know if you're heading to London and what your plans are!