London Calling

"Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford." — Samuel Johnson I couldn't agree more with the above statement, I love London, I love it's energy, the sights & sounds and it's energy. So as you can imagine I'd been looking forward to my trip to London with Helen & Rach for months and it certainly didn't disappoint!  Here are a few of the highlights -  Sunday -   Firstly & most importantly was visiting our favorite shops Cath Kidston & Collectif!   Next on the agenda was making the most of the beautiful weather with a walk to St James' Park. The flowers were all out and looked stunning! We also met this cheeky fella!   It always amazes me how much of a variety of wildlife there is in the London parks like this heron -  Of course being a plane geek I couldn't pass up the opportunity to snap this passing Airbus A380 ......  We continued our walk along to Westminster -    After returning to the hotel to freshen up we headed out to dinner and for a post dinner walk around Leicester Square & Covent Garden   Panoramic Trafalgar Square  The Seven Dials of Covent Garden  Monday - We were up bright & early to meet our friend Rach at the station-  First stop of the day was Camden Market.      Camden is my favourite place in the world, I love the fantastic goth &  punk  shops, the quirky stalls selling all sorts of different goods. There are loads of cool pubs and gig venues like KoKo where I met 30 Seconds To Mars for the first time back in Nov 2009. So whenever I head up to Camden my "Nice Shirt" (Long story) makes the pilgrimage too ...... One of the cool, new discoveries I made on this visit was the graffitti table where I left this little doodle -  After a good poke around the market we went up to the zoo!  Me & Rach monkeying around One of the Komodo Dragons from Skyfall  Lions Anyone for flamingo croquet? I loved the Butterfly tunnel!  Posing penguin! Meeting the Monkeys!   Giraffes! In the evening we got to do one of my favourite things which is walking around the city at night. I have a love of cities at night, they're totally transformed and London always puts on a fantastic show.   Chinatown  Out for dinner  There was a brief trip to M&M world ................ Then a quick hop along to Piccadilly Circus     Eros I also took a few 'arty' black & white photos -  London Eye   St James' Park by night Tuesday - What a beautiful morning in Covent Garden! After a final walk around Covent Garden it was back to Westminster to hop on a riverboat tour   Here we are rocking the nautical look!

A few pics from the tour -

 St Paul's Cathedral

 HMS Belfast

 The Tower Of London

 Tower Bridge

We alighted at Greenwich - 

 The original maritime hospital, now part of the Maritime Museum

We found a gorgeous riverside cafe to eat at called Byron's which I highly recommend,  great food & fantastic service. If you're in the area then check it out!

Rach & Helen awaiting fed

View from Byron's

 Cutty Sark

Greenwich Market

It was an absolutely amazing few days in London and I came back re-energised and inspired. I'm now dreaming of my own stall selling my jewellery & bits n bobs in either Camden or Greenwich Markets!

Thanks so much to Helen & Rach for a fantastic few days.

Love Jen

xxxxxxx

Ps here are a few recommendations if you're planning a visit to London-

Where we stayed - Travelodge Covent Garden really good value and helpful staff, just round the corner from Covent Garden market,  a 5 minute walk from Leicester Square & a 10 minute walk from the British Museum. In fact we like it so much we're going back to stay over August Bank Holiday weekend!

Where we ate - as I mentioned above I can't speak more highly of Byron's they have branches all over the UK too. 

River Cruise - We used Thames River Services amusing and knowledgeable guides and if you have a valid Oyster Card or Travel Card for the day then wave it at the ticket office to get a 30% Discount. 

Attraction Tickets - If you're passing through Victoria on your way to London Zoo or other busy attractions then buy your entry tickets at the Oyster Card counter. It will work out a little more expensive than the 2For1 train offer but when we arrived at the zoo instead of joining the end of the 2 and a half hour queue we were ushered to the front and were in the zoo within 5 minutes!

Getting about - If you can then walk as much as possible (weather permitting - this is the UK after all!). The Underground & bus service is fantastic but there is little as pleasurable as walking around London and seeing all it's stunning architecture. A lot of the famous attractions are closer together than you realize - for example we discovered Chinatown was literally tucked behind Leicester Square!