Day 1
We arrived in London early Monday morning. Approximately 2 hours later tahn scheduled as there was a delay in Singapore. We were lucky they didnt cancel our flight honestly, as the plane we were meant to fly out on had landing gear problems. Sigapore Airlines found us another plane to take and while we had to change boarding gates and wait for the plane to arrive and get set up for us, the two hours extra, while painfully at the time given it was early in the morning Singapore time and we already had an 8 hour flight under our belts, it was still better than having to find a whole new flight.
So arriving early has its own challenges as you can’t check in when you get there early, unless you want to pay for early check in, or you are lucky and your room is ready. We went the cheap option and left our bags in the luggage room and went out for th day.
Given we were reasonably knackered, we wanted something relatively easy. So we walked from our Motel to a close Underground train, headed to Embankment, and then from there we took the Uber Boat up and down the Thames. Note this is not a tourist boat so you don/t get a running commentry – but you see the same stuff. So we saw the Eye, the Power Station, Elizabeth Tower, London Bridge, St Pauls Cathedral etc, all from the river.
TIP – if you are going to do this it is MUCH cheaper to get a Hop on Hop off ticket for the day. A return trip from Embankment to Putney was around £21 each, but if you do the Hop on Hop off it is about £25 each – and if you buy 7 days in advance they are even cheaper and it works out about the same price as the return trip mentioned earlier. Also, we got on the boat and just didn’t get off until we had done a full trip all the way down and up and then back to Embankment. Of course if you get the ticket you can get off anywhere and back on when you feel like it. We just took the easy route so we didn’t expire on our first day!
So here are some photos from our trip up and down the Thames.
Day 2 – Westminster Abbey, St Pauls Cathedral and Trafalgar Square
Day 2 had us commencing the use of our Go City 3 day pass. This pass is pre-purchased and you can select the number of days you can use it for. We purchased 3 day passes and it gives us discounted access to approx 100 attractions to choose from. For day 1 of our pass we selected Westminster Abbey and St Pauls Cathedral.
On arriving at Westminster Abbey at approx 9.30am there was already a crowd gathered for entry. There was a sign for Go City passses saying entry was for after 1pm, but I questioned the guy on the gate as the Go City app cetainly didn’t say that, and he ended up letting us in. We still had to stand in line, but better than having to come back later.
After going through Westminster Abbey, we headed over to St Pauls Cathedral. This we thankfully less busy and we could look round comfortably without being squeezed in. You can go right to the top of The Dome, but be warned, it is 528 steps in total! Take it in stages and have lots of fluids. The effort is definitely worth the views you get at the top.
Lastly we decided to take a quick stop at Trafalgar Square. Unfortunately the fountains we under maintenance so there were a few fences etc but it was still nice to say we had been there. If you are in to Galleries, you could of course that these in while you are here.
Some photos of Day 2 will be provided shortly.
Day 3 – Tower Bridge, Tower of London and Museum of Natural History
Another hot day for our third day In London. Today we did the Tour Bridge Tour and visited the Tower of London. Both of these were available on the London Pass we brought. The Tower Bridge Tour required a booking but that was easy to do.
The Tour of the Tower Bridge was great ,with lift access for those who need it (and after all the stairs yesterday we decided to take advantage of that!). The walkways between the South and North towers includes a glass floor. For those who are wary of heights, be warned!
The Tower of London is a massive area with lots of different buildings and displays to check out. You should plan to spend quite a bit of time here to take full advantage of this magnificient place. You can clearly see the different eras through the buildings alone.
Last on our list for the day was the Museum of Natural History, also available on the pass. We really only checked this place out for the architecture, but if you have the time and it isn’t too crowded, definitely take your time around here as well. For us it was just too hot and crowded on the day to do that. The building however, is simply stunning!
This is our final day in London and we had to check out of our Hotel by 11am. We elected to leave our luggage there again until we were being picked up by our Uber to take us to the rental car pickup later in the afternoon.
Day 4 – Madame Tussauds and the London Transport Museum
We wanted a relatively easy day so we picked two attractions on the pass – Madame Tussauds and the London Museum of Transport. Before we entered Madame Tussauds, we came across a lovely Parish down the road and took a couple of quick pictures. There are so many of these lovely little churches around London. We then headed to our appointed time for Madame Tussauds. Madame Tussauds was overflowing with people, especially in the popular areas where there are reality TV stars and musicians of today. The other areas with older musicians, Star Wars and Marvel were the better places for us. It was a great place to check out. The London Museum of Transport is relatively small but has some lovely examples of older trams, trains and buses and some detail on how the infrastructure of these were undertaken. It was a nice place to wander around.
After these we headed back to meet our Uber and collected our Rental Car for the next part on our journey – which is off to Brighton!
The London Pass – Is it Worth It?
It really depends on how you use it, whether you plan everything out in advance to minimise travel between attractions, tickets available for those that need it, and lastly the time of year. We attended during summer school holidays so many places were busy, particularly Westminster Abbey and the Museum of Natural History. Also some places will take a long time to go around and take in everything they have to showcase – such as The Tower of London.
A 3 day pass is £129 – and we did 6 attractions from the list so we certainly didn’t loose any money. Given that you can buy it in advance and it only activates when you scan you first attraction it is good for budgeting etc whichnis one of the reasons I went down this track.
If you are interested in the London Pass click here for details.
Using Public Transport
The public transport in London can be both easy to navigate and frustrating at the same time! There are apps you can use for the Underground but I found thst Google Maps was just as easy to use, and in fact was better as it gave you all the steps to get to the place or attraction you want to go to.
By simply typing in where you wanted to go in Google maps, it will give you options on now to get there when you select the icon for public transport (i.e. the bus looking icon). It will tell you if you need to catch the bus or thr underground, including any walking required to get to the correct starting point, and then the number of stops before you get off, the stop to get off and then any walking required to finish off.
When taking the bus it tells you the bus route number and the bus stop letter – this makes it very easy to find. Once at the bus stop, keep an eye out for your bus route number and as the bus approaches, flag it down by putting your hand out. They will not stop otherwise! On the bus, hit the button to stop the bus when you are leaving the stop before the one you need to get off at.
For the Underground, note the colour of the route you need to take and the Station it leaves from. This will help you navigate to the correct area in the station. Then you can head to the platform it advises you to take to get to you destination. It can be a little confusing, but if you are not sure, ask one of the staff as we found them extremely helpful!