SOLO EUROPE IV: DAYS 1-4 [LONDON]

it's been over 3 months since this trip, but i do plan to still post in its entirety. the holidays are always so busy for me as i look to make gifts & am still running my etsy shop. anyhoo, this trip has been a long time coming. before i even started solo travel, the uk (this trip also includes ireland) was on my list but it felt intimidating. first, i thought i would need to rent a car which scared me. second, i was intimidated by the itinerary. i am a big fan of british period pieces & enjoy reading british classic literature. i wanted the perfect itinerary & did not want to discover something later and think, "oh darn i wish i would have visited that place." i am one of those people that likes to visit a place & not feel the need to return as there are plenty of other places to visit in the world. now that i am getting older - i turned 33, eek - i just do not know how much longer i can do this. whether it is my health, family, or finances. i hope to keep doing this but i am not one for 5 year plans so who knows what the future holds. the older i get, the more uncertain i am. i do not have anxiety when it comes to it though; it is mostly gratitude. i just felt like it was about time & i did not need to keep pushing it out. i travelled for over 3 weeks (my longest yet) by land and sea to england, scotland, wales, northern ireland, & ireland.

the first stop was london (duh), but that was because it is easiest to travel to. i did also end up leaving from london. i actually only spent one full day there. i would rather spend my time in mid/small cities & towns/villages, but i still had to visit london for the museums though probably not the museums you would think of. i am not a contrarian, but i tend to not go to the big flashy museums. that is because when i am visiting i want to learn about the place i am visiting, not world civilization. so i skipped the natural history, v&a, & british museum.

because i did not have a ride to the airport, i took a bus & the light rail. this was my first time taking the metro with the new airport station. the station is not actually at the airport you still need to take a shuttle to the terminals, but it is definitely an improvement. the new station was really nice & reminded me of european. there are actually box offices there & a place for food/coffee. stations in la have no workers, other than security (which only consistently started during covid). either way, it is a nice addition & as long as i have a flight not too early or not too late, i plan to use the metro.

my flight was ok. got the cheapest red-eye flight and i knew what to expect. unfortunately i was seated near 2 small children who were fussy, so i literally slept only 30 minutes for a 10-11 hour flight. it was a bummer as i arrived in london around 10 am and would be up all day (i do not like to waste any days & it is easier to bypass jetlag). i sat next to someone on the flight where this was her first trans-antlantic flight and she was so excited it was infectious. i did also get to watch some movies which i always enjoy. it seems the only time i can sit and watch a whole movie uninterrupted is on a plane. i ended up watching the second harry potter movie (i watched the first one for the first time before this trip), what a girl wants (because duh), & new york minute. surprisingly as a millennial twin, i had never watched new york minute and it was better than i thought.

once i arrived at gatwick, i was greeted by a pret a manger (an old friend of mine from washington dc). i much needed some espresso. i then took one of the local trains (not the overpriced express train) to london. i helped some romanian americans with their train tickets (i am such a planner, i knew how to get around london). they were from oregon, but stopping in london before flying to romania to visit family. when i arrived in london there was a huge protest going on. i assumed it was probably more of an "eat the rich" or leftist (the american spectrum) protest as there were so many people & they were young. i was shocked when i later learned it was a conservative protest. luckily i was able to get through, take the tube to london tower, & walk to the hostel in the shadwell neighborhood. more on that later.

emperor trajan outside london tower

after dropping my things off, i headed out to my only stop for the day - the museum of home. to be honest i was a little disappointed. it was smaller than i thought & there was not a lot of information. i think more than anything, it is a community event center than a museum. on the way back, i took the more scenic route & walked through st. george's garden.

i believe this is the old mortuary of st. george's 

the hostel was in a food desert. i walked to 2 small grocery stores & was not pleased with the options so i got dinner at the hostel cafe. it ended up being really good (a ham & cheese toastie & a pistachio croissant). i called it a day early as i had been up for over 24 hours & wanted to get some as much sleep as i could.

i stayed at the wombats hostel. i liked the area. it was close enough to several tube stations (near the tower of london & shadewell area), but far enough away to be a little quieter where you felt like you were in a neighborhood (not a business hub). i was a little disappointed though. i had higher expectations as i had stayed in a wombats in both vienna & venice. they are known to be mid-range & in both of my experiences have modern amenities. the rooms were a little run down & i was surprised i had to pay to store my backpack the day i checked in. normally it is free. also it was unclear that the locker took credit cards (i thought it was only cash/coins). i ended up trying to find an atm somewhere & after walking to a couple businesses a few blocks away & then returning to the hostel to find out who actually might have an atm, was told they do take card. the best part of the hostel was the community areas. there was a good work area & a good cafe that served espresso & toasties. 

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the next day was a full day for me. i did end up doing the most steps for my entire trip - over 29,000 & it was the first day of my period (how brave). i felt it later as a few hours in i was getting light headed & my visision was darting (oh to be iron deficient). i ended up leaving later than i wanted, but i was still out before 10. i started my day by doing a free self guided tour of historic london city via the rick steve's podcast. he never disappoints & i consume all his media when planning my trips. i started in the temple area & saw some of the old buildings that survived great fire of 1666. 

my first red phone booth!

royal courts of justice (c. 1882 - victorian gothic revival)

fleet street

st. bride's church - it was destroyed during the london blitz & rebuilt in the 1950s in the neo-boroque style

st. paul's cathedral (c. 1710)

bank junction - the financial center of london. i found this to be one of the prettiest historical areas in london.

queenhithe mosaic, which tells the history of london starting with its roman roots.

ruins of st. dustan-in-the-east, which was destroyed during world war ii & is now a public park 

london tower (i had to google, but i guess the reason for the lions is the tower had the first zoo in london)

a poppy art installation at the london tower's traitor's gate. the red poppy is a memorial symbol for the world wars.

the tower bridge (c. 1894)

the tour ended at the london tower. if i had one more day, i would have maybe visited but it is one of the most expensive attractions in london. it is a complex & ir would have been nice if you could visit only some of the buildings with an a-la-carte ticket system,

i then took the DLR light metro to the docklands museum. i really wanted to learn about the city, but the london city museum had been closed for an extended time for refurbishment. this was an interesting museum & i was glad i went, but i wish i could have learned more about the history of the city itself, not just the dockland area. they have a reconstructed sailor town. i also visited the cafe. i love how most museums in europe will have a cafe (i had a water & pretzel).

part of the sailortown

i then took the jubilee line (it took me forever to figure out where the station was) to the IWM (imperial war museum). at this point it started to rain. it was busy, but worth it. most of the museum is about both world wars, but also discusses other wars & conflicts in the last century. it was intended to just be about the great war, but as it would happen, there were more wars over time. some of the most interesting artifacts was a caged bed that could also be used as a table during wwii, a black cape that was to be used at night after curfew, basket shoes to be used in the snow, & a bullet shot vehicle used by journalists during the war in yugolsavia.

the IWM is housed in an old royal hospital from 1814.

i wish i could find the artist, but this was an art piece about the holocaust. i learned that camps use to add iodine to potato scraps so no one could eat them :(

it was getting later & more rainy, but i wanted to make the most of my time. i had plans to go to the tate musuem, but i was running late. instead, i went on my first double-decker red bus that was pretty scebic as it drove over the bridge & past big ben. i stopped at hyde park. i walked through the park (and forgot to stop at the peter pan statue, oops). i did see the princess diana playground, but adults have to be accompanied with a child so i could not go in. 

my artsy photo out of the window of a double decker red bus.

"a dead letter box" - a kgb spy lamp post used during the cold war (it has a little door where the kgb would leave letters for each other)

the italian royal garden (c 1882)

elfin oak - a 900 year old stump decorated with fantastical creatures from 1928

i then stopped at a pret-a-manger nearby to pick up dinner to go, and took the tube back to my hostel. it was raining, A LOT. by this time i figured out that my shoes were in fact not waterproof. i waited a little for the rain to lighten up & then made the half mile walk back to the hostel. 

i got back to the hostel & this time there were more friendly girls in my room. there was one girl from italy who was surprised i had visited lucca when i was in italy in 2019. she had come to london just to watch hamilton. she also thought i was 23! surprisingly, the hostel was pretty warm at night (i was also on the top bunk), so i slept with the window open & the small fan in the bunk on. this night was wild as the wind was pretty bad. the next day i would be taking the train to bath. i was a little worried about cancellations or delays, but luckily that did not happen (that would occur at the end of my trip). throughout the night the wind would scream through the window. i also had the craziest nightmare & woke up crying. i think that was a first. 

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getting a bit ahead of myself, but to keep locations together, i am going to include the morning of day 4. the next morning i left for paddington station to take the train to bath, my next location. in the tube station i met some older americans who needed some help. one of the was a longshore-man in long beach (near the area i am from). i arrived at paddington station early as i like to have plenty of time & i like to walk around to go in stores & find coffee. i have never watched a paddington movie, but had to visit him. i was taking a selfie & this nice older gentleman offered to take my photo for me. i also stopped at the paddington bear store at the station (it is either owned by the estate or the production company). i ended up buying a small paddington bear cross stitch kit.

me and paddington