Hi friends, welcome back to my Paris and London Anniversary series 🙂 It’s hard for me to believe this is the last installment of the series! This post is a bit of a catch all with places we saw, but didn’t spend much time at, and includes pictures from multiple days. On our first day in London, we walked around after visiting Westminster Abbey admiring the House of Parliament and Elizabeth Tower (renamed from Big Ben in 2012 to commemorate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee). I would love to tour the Houses of Parliament one day, but it didn’t make it to the top of this list this trip.
The famous London Eye. We only admired it from afar, we didn’t have our hearts set on riding this famous Ferris wheel.
Trafalgar Square was right outside our hotel and this place was always bumping! They had a Jurassic Park event going on so it was always pretty busy and lively. I thought these ice cream cone statues were cool until I saw the big flies.
The National Gallery is free to enter and includes work by Botticelli, Van Gogh, and Velazquez. We were museumed out from Paris, but would love to visit one day.
Jon and I still had some daylight left after Windsor so we decided to walk around to the Admiralty Arch and National Mall. Admiralty Arch connects Trafalgar Square and the National Mall which leads down to Buckingham Palace. The arch was built to commemorate Queen Victoria’s death, but is now owned by billionaires and being converted into a hotel, apartments, and private club.
I loved how festive the National Mall looked with all of the flags! I should’ve known with all the gates that it was going to be pretty crazy in this area the following day.
As I mention in my Notting Hill post, we walked by the must-see Piccadilly Circus, Oxford, and Regent Street. We walked through on a Saturday morning and it was very empty. If you’re in London before Christmas there is a beautiful light display on Regent Street that is on my list!
On our way back from Kensington we walked through Wellington Arch and down Constitutional Hill to Buckingham Palace. The closer we got to the palace, the more crowded it got and we soon realized we would not be getting anywhere near Buckingham Palace.
I wanted a picture with the gate, but that was fenced off and stadium seating had been put up in front for the upcoming Jubilee concert. Oh well, next time! We got in and out for a picture as quick as we could to avoid the crowds.
St. James Park is located in front of Buckingham Palace, but with all the crowding we spent as little time here as possible. On a normal day this would be a beautiful spot to wander and relax.
Jon and I decided to end the trip with a delicious Indian dinner at Dishoom. We had walked by this restaurant every day and there was always an incredibly long line. Living in NYC we are used to lines and know anything with that long of a line has to be good. We got in line and they brought us some chai tea and mint tea while we waited and it ended up being around a forty-five-minute wait. The weather was nice and we weren’t near hanger so it wasn’t too bad of a wait. The restaurant is huge inside and the tables are well spaced out so it feels like you’re in your own dining world. We were very hungry from the 25,000 steps we walked our last day and this was the deliciously filling meal we were looking for! There are about eight locations in the UK and I’d highly recommend checking them out!
We had free tickets to go to up to the Sky Garden, but we decided not to go. We were pretty exhausted from our eventful day and extremely full! We headed back, relaxed, and started packing for our flight the next morning. Jon and I took the tube to the Heathrow express and were at the airport pretty quickly. It was very straightforward and everything was going smoothly until I forgot about the one plastic bag for liquid/gel rule for carryon bags. Every nook and cranny of my bag got searched and I had to decide between keeping my contacts or makeup (I chose sight over beauty in case you were wondering 😉 ). It was sad to see half my toiletries thrown away so wastefully, but rules are rules I suppose. So if you’re travelling in the UK, remember they are very strict about their gel/liquid rule in a carryon.
Jon and I found a flight deal and it was only about $100 extra to fly business class home compared to premium select so we got to go to the lounge and had a very comfy trip home. We had fun taking turns putting up the divider screen when the other wasn’t paying attention.
Jon and I had such an incredible time celebrating our first wedding anniversary in Paris and London! We loved both places and had so much fun. I also feel pretty lucky to have visited right before the Queen’s passing and to have seen her flag flying while we were at Windsor Castle. It was such a joyous time to be in London. I hope you’ve enjoyed following along and that this has brought back some good memories or inspired you to visit these wonderful cities 🙂
