Day 4: London Calling

We said “au revoir” to Paris from the back of an Uber, as we sped around the Arc de Triomphe enroute to Gare du Nord. We were scheduled to take the Chunnel via Eurostar to get to London (the Eurostar check-in is upstairs for reference). You go through customs for both countries before departure, which was cause for quite the wait on a Monday morning, but paid dividends when we hit London, as we were able to debark and exit the train station with no delay.

We packed light for the trip (two carry on size suitcases, two medium size travel backpacks and the kids two smaller backpacks) because we knew with multiple hotel stays and all the modes of transportation we wouldn’t want to lug any more than we had to. All but Brett’s travel backpack is pictured in the photo of Penelope above. I wish we’d gone even lighter, but it was hard with the cold weather (plus the forecast called for rain our entire trip). I packed cubes by location, instead of by individual and this was definitely helpful.

The Chunnel from Paris to London takes about 2.5 hours. Though you do have to allow all that extra time for check-in/customs. So it’s a lot like traveling by air. The kids slept for a bit, we played some games, and before we knew it we were entering the Channel. The tunnel portion lasts about 15-20 minutes.

When we arrived in London, we grabbed an Uber and set off for our hotel which was situated in Southbank. Our room wasn’t ready yet, so we dropped our bags with bell services and set off on foot in search of lunch.

One of the things at the top of my list for London was lunch at the Borough Market, which was less than a mile from our hotel.

If you’re local to Central Florida, the best way I can describe Borough Market is as a more robust version of Plant Street Market/Crooked Can (a place we love here in our community). We wandered, talked with locals, and ate our weight in tasty foods. More than anywhere else we went on our entire vacation, Borough Market felt like the kind of place we would frequent regularly. I’d also take a guess that the locals outnumbered the tourists here, and maybe that’s part of the reason we loved it so much.

And bonus for Harry Potter fans… apparently some of the Diagon Alley scenes from the first movie were filmed here.

Lucas claimed these the freshest strawberries he’s ever eaten…

When we couldn’t eat anymore, we popped over to a coffee shop across the street to grab some coffee before setting off on foot again. We learned this particular coffee shop does not offer any to-go beverages (unless you’re using one of their reusable mugs). Something I can’t fathom shops in the US doing. Not in a hurry, we sat down to enjoy our coffee and it was a nice little break. We discussed some of the things we wanted to do in London and let the kids decide where to go next.

15 minutes later and we had a walk to Tower Bridge loaded up on our phones.

There is something really cool about the way the modern and the historical architecture exist together in London. Buildings like the Shard sitting alongside Tower Bridge. Similarly, we found that everywhere we went in London there was a real coexistence of locals and tourists. Brett and I both felt like we got a vision of what it would be like to live in London, more so than in Paris.

We didn’t initially have plans to walk the bridge, but that’s exactly what we did. Of course, Brett and Lucas also geeked out over the fact that we were in the very spot Spider-Man defeated Mysterio. ;)

We reached the Tower of London on the other side and Lucas started sharing all kinds of facts about it. Turns out Mac B. (From the book series Mac B. Kid Spy) spent a lot of time here. The Tower wasn’t even on my radar as a place we would explore but Lucas was so excited about the idea that we put it on our agenda for the next day.

We were running on fumes, but didn’t really want to sit in the lobby of our hotel to wait for our room, so we grabbed an uber and took it to Harrod’s via Trafalgar Square. I’ve got to be honest, I’m really not sure why we did this. We are not shoppers. I dislike department stores, and yet, here we found ourselves in the middle of the biggest one in all of Europe. I think this is another case of us following suggestions from others, even when we should have known better.

We walked in the doors and I kid you not, the place sucked us up so fast, we couldn’t tell right from left and up from down. It was a maze and we couldn’t seem to find our way out. Honestly, it became a joke. The kids were cracking up at how annoyed I was with the fact that we were even there. Eventually we found the basement and the treats. We did leave with a bag of gourmet gummies, which went on to save us from many a meltdown on the streets of London. All in all… do not recommend. It was far and away the number one, “why the hell did we decide to spend our precious time on that?” moment of the entire trip.

But gourmet gummies… so silver linings.

Onward to Buckingham Palace! Which was maybe a little more than a mile walk.

I wish we would have been in London for the changing of the guard, but it wasn’t happening on either of the days we were in the city. After his recent role as a guard in the Wizard of Oz, Lucas was excited to see them. We were all a little bummed they were in their winter uniforms though and not the bright red ones.

We didn’t stay long. Mostly just checked it off the list of sights to see. We were a little more than two miles from our hotel and intended to grab an Uber back, but the kids wanted to walk. We probably should have vetoed it, but the walk took us past Parliament, Big Ben (Queen’s Tower) and the London Eye, so we said yes.

Pro-tip! Dole out candy on long walks, but be careful to ration your stores. Use only when necessary. Dangle the carrot. Extra points for tasty gummy carrot shaped bait…

After quite the trek, we arrived at our hotel and got checked into our room. We had a junior suite here and while the view was nothing to write home about, we all loved having the extra space. The kids were thrilled to see they each had their own bed! We had a great dinner at Oxbo, the restaurant in our hotel lobby, complete with tasty cocktails and a walrus on the wall, before making our way back to the room to get settled and plan out our approach for the next day.

Next… we tourist up the place!

Shoebox Full of Memories: A Paris and London Trip Report - March 2023 (Day 4: London Calling)