Euro Trip 2024 - Chapter I - London Calling

We are back from our month of adventures in Europe, and some of you were asking for the blog posts before we even got home...so here we go!

It was about a year ago we received the Save the Date messages for another wedding on the west coast of France in Bretagne (Brittany.) This was the Summer we were going to try to get into Wimbledon as we decided years ago it was our graduation gift to our daughter, who has been playing tennis for 10 years now. We were not successful in getting tickets through the lottery, so the queue was our backup plan. The timing with the wedding worked out perfectly for us to do both! On top of that, there was also a Taylor Swift concert in Germany that Charlotte and our German exchange student had tickets to attend, so we started building our itinerary around these 3 events.

It was also our first big family trip without all 4 of us. Julien has been living in Australia since Fall of 2023 and wasn't going to make the long trip. Of course he was missed, but we're so happy for him that he's having these amazing adventures down under!

Chapter I - London

As we live in Connecticut, our favorite/easiest way to get to Europe is via Aer Lingus out of Bradley International Airport, which is you ask me, is a little gem of an airport. It's a super easy 6 hours overnight to Dublin, and from there we either hang out in Ireland for a few days, or catch another flight to our next destination. About a week before our flight we got the messages from Aer Lingus that there going to be cancelled flights due to a strike/action that same weekend we were traveling. We were feeling a bit anxious and looking for alternatives if it came down to it. As we got closer they released the list of affected flights, and it felt like a stroke of luck that neither our flight to Dublin, nor the next flight to London were on the list.

Despite the fact that I barely slept, the 2 flights were easy. It didn't matter to us that our 2nd flight was a bit delayed as we waited for the pilots to arrive - we were grateful that the flight wasn't cancelled, and we took the time on the plane to nap a bit! I had reached out to our rental host beforehand that our flight would have us in London a few hours before check-in, and she cleared us to arrive early.

From Heathrow there are a few options to get into the city. Our last time in the city we had taken the Heathrow Express train, but I had read that the Elizabeth Line to Paddington Station is more affordable, and what the people who work at the airport use. Despite that, we opted for an Uber, knowing we could go settle into our flat right away. In the end, I think it might have been quicker on the Elizabeth Line because we hit traffic in the city, but we were tired, and it was certainly easier to pop our bags in the boot and be taken right to our door. 

Our top floor flat at Abercorn Place. Photo from the VRBO listing. 

We stayed in a new neighborhood for us, St. John's Wood. It's a lovely residential neighborhood, so nice and quiet, but only a 10 minute walk to 2 tube stations. It's also where Abbey Road Studios is located, where the Beatles recorded, which was a 5 minute walk around the corner from us. You know that famous crosswalk (it's called a zebra walk there)...it was fun to watch so many Beatles fans stopping traffic to pose for pictures, and was hilarious to hear a guy yelling for his wife to get in the crosswalk so he could take a photo...and when she didn't, he yelled "Dammit, Eleanor!" It's funny if you're a Beatles fan. 

The flat was ginormous. We never even used the living room. The beds were comfortable, and had these soft linen sheets that I loved. There was an outside deck with a table where Scott had his breakfasts and tea. There were negatives though...we found the kitchen had an ant problem, and one of the bathrooms had an unfortunate smell. 

The Realtor in me can't help but look up what our huge 2 bedroom/2 bath flat with a terrace would go for in this neighborhood...it's right around $2.5M USD.  

The first activity on our itinerary (yes, I still keep a detailed itinerary, though I'm not strict about keeping to it) was getting over to Trafalgar Square for the Canada Day London event, and specifically to see Alan Doyle perform. If his name isn't familiar, he was part of Great Big Sea, my favorite Canadian band. We had the pleasure of seeing them a few times before they broke up, and their music has been part of the soundtrack to my life since my college days.

This free event was really well-organized, and super fun, and the only disappointment was the line for poutine was the longest line in all of the square...so no poutine for us, but we had great fries, Scott had a venison burger, and we had really lovely rhubarb & honey gin with elderflower tonic. Highly recommend if you can find it!

The square was full of sunshine, activities, Canadians, food, and joy. There was just so much happiness there. Alan and his band brought so much beautiful energy, and as they played I was having a moment. I felt so lucky to be there. I couldn't stop smiling, and singing & dancing. It felt like the absolute perfect way to start our vacation. 

What I didn't know at the time, was that on that very same day, across the pond in Sydney, Nova Scotia, my kids were granted Canadian citizenship! 10 months earlier I had applied for citizenship for them, hoping that the origins of my own Canadian citizenship were enough to qualify them. There was a lot of celebrating when we got home 4 weeks later to find 3 new citizenship certificates waiting for us (I had applied for the certificate as well since my own citizenship status had possibly changed.) 

After Scott & Charlotte played bubble hockey (or rod hockey) and while Tokyo Police Club was closing down the the event, we ducked into a nearby pub showing the Euro Cup match long enough to watch England win over Slovakia. With sunset after 10pm in London, we headed out for a walk towards Buckingham Palace, then towards the Thames. Charlotte had a brief interest in doing the London Eye again, but changed her mind when we got there. We stopped at a Tesco Express for a few groceries, then back to the flat to rest before Scott & Charlotte would head to queue up at Wimbledon before dawn the next morning.

At 4am my two tennis players headed out to Wimbledon, arriving around 5am and taking their places as number 2192 in the queue. 6 hours later they made their way inside and got to see Matteo Berrettini play an exciting match against Fucsovics, and later a couple of other matches. We are Berrettini fans, so that was really exciting! Our graduation gift was a success! Meanwhile, back at the flat, I slept almost 10 hours straight, recovering and resting after our travel and my hectic work schedule. I lounged, read my book (The Lost Bookshop) ate crumpets, drank hot cocoa, and later explored our neighborhood. It wasn't what I was expecting to do, but I needed that quiet day. 

Since they had found success on their first day of queueing for Wimbledon, that meant we had a full open day to fit in some of the activities from my list on the itinerary. After a bit of a lie-in (I let them sleep in after their long day) we headed to Little Venice nearby to ride the London Water Bus from Browning's Pond along Regent's Canal, to Camden Town. We got to Browning's Pond early enough to get a cup of tea from the adorable floating Waterside Café prior to getting on our boat, which took us down Regent's Canal through the London Zoo (where we spotted the painted dogs!) The commentary was fun, talked about real estate and who had owned (ie. Madonna) some of the homes we passed, what celebrities live in the neighborhood (sadly we did not see Jude Law walking his dog.) It was a sweet, relaxing way to get to Camden, where we were headed to the market for some shopping & lunch. 

Camden Market was vibrant; a mix of shops and food stalls and other businesses, buzzing with activity, and we really enjoyed it! We all chose Asian foods for lunch, and Charlotte tried the strawberries and chocolate dessert that is all over the Internet. Her review was that they're overrated.

Next up I had made a reservation to get into the National Gallery. It's free, but if you don't have a reserved time, the wait can be pretty long. We tried not to gloat as we skip the long queue, and really enjoyed the museum. Some of my favorite impressionists are there, and there even had a Piero della Francesca on display. He's an early Renaissance painter I've appreciated since I studied in Urbino, Italy. He has an interesting style, and I've always been drawn to his Diptych of Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza (sometimes called the Duke & Duchess of Urbino.) I just love that big nose in profile!! I believe it's still on display in the Uffizi Gallery in Firenze.   

I really wanted to to go explore the Waterstones Piccadilly location, which is the largest bookstore in Europe, and it was close by. On the walk along the way, I spotted that at St. James's Market they had set up a screen and chairs outdoors to watch Wimbledon. Can you guess where we parked ourselves for a while? We had realized an oversight was made on booking our flat - it didn't have a TV, and while that's fine for me, hubby really wanted to watch some tennis!

Waterstones does not disappoint! 5 floors of books and 3 cafés (unless I missed one!) I found the Jenny Colgan section - she's a Scottish writer I really enjoy - and found a signed copy of one of her books I didn't know existed. Here's something you might not know, but books in the UK cost less than they do in the US. Even with the exchange rate, it's still much more affordable. Just like so many other things there...food, toiletries, museums, activities...etc. 

I lost Scott for a while, because he'd wandered to a bar for a drink, and then back to St. James's to watch more Wimbledon, so I must have been in the bookstore for longer than I thought! 

We have certain activities that we tend to do a lot on our travels, and one of them is to try the local escape rooms. We did our first one in Budapest 9 years ago, and we've been doing them ever since. While watching Wimbledon at St. James's, Charlotte booked us a room at Escape Hunt Oxford Street, which is located in a huge bar that also has axe throwing, darts, shuffleboard tables, snooker, and mini-golf - all in the lower level of a building.  It has to be said that even though we're experienced, we were missing Julien, and he's our best player. We made it out of the Alice in Puzzleland escape room with 31 seconds left on the clock. Shoutout to our puzzlemaster Isaac who was great!

The night ended at a really cool pub near Oxford Circus called Adam & Eve for a late dinner. The kitchen was closing but was kind enough to let us order. It took ages to come out, but the decor was interesting (in a good way,) the food was delicious and they had a passion fruit cider from Sweden called Rekorderlig that I would love to find again. Cider is my drink of choice when I'm in the the UK and parts of France. I'm going to try to find this passion fruit cider at home!

Day 4 we slept in and had a lazy morning before heading to board Brigit's Tea Tour, which is a 90 minute tour on a double decker bus while having tea (we did it at lunchtime.) We shared a bottle of champagne, savored our sandwiches and delicious desserts, and enjoyed the warm scones right out of the oven, with clotted cream and jam. Our tea was served in souvenir to-go cups, and we left with our leftovers boxed up to finish later. It was nice to ride by some of the sites we hadn't been by yet on this trip, see a few things I hadn't seen before, and a bit sentimental to stop in front of the pub where we had our first meal in London with the kids 11 years earlier. They were so small then. I hope I appreciated it as much in the moment then. 

This was the Swan where we had our first meal in the UK 11 years ago, on the upper terrace. 

The kids tucking into their fish & chips there in 2013.

Julien had taken our photo.

It was our last night, and I had booked something I was really excited about, even though I'd hesitated initially due to the price. I'm so glad we did it. Mamma Mia the Party was worth every penny and was one of my favorite things we did in London on this trip!! It's an immersive experience at the 02 Centre, where they've recreated a huge Greek taverna inside, and over the course of the evening you get a 3 course dinner, a welcome drink (and you can order more drinks or wine throughout the event) what feels like a Broadway showing happening all around you, and a dance party to end the night...all set to the music of ABBA! 

The food was great, and it is served family-style for each group. We started with olives, a variety of dips, pita, then a gorgeous Greek salad and spanikopita. The storyline started to unfold...a Greek daughter falling in love with an American, and her Greek father not approving. It's a musical and has a live band, some surprising special effects, and so much talent. Even the waiters sing and are part of the show. Our main course was lamb and beef, with sides of roasted vegetables, potatoes, a couscous salad, and they timed it to come out in the storyline of when the chef of the taverna is making her famous lamb. Dessert came out later as a Greek lemon cake with Greek yoghurt, and was followed by coffee and baklava. It was a lot of food, but even more fun! We sang, we danced, we smiled with our German-speaking table-mates. By the dance party I was on my feet, taking in how special this moment felt, and what a way to end our time in London! 

The next morning we took our seats on the Eurostar train to Paris for the next part of our adventures. My only regret was not getting to meet up with some friends I made taking an online class some years back. I'll catch you next time, Jacinta!

My travel tips for London:

The Tube is really user-friendly. You don't need an Oyster card anymore. You can tap your credit card at the turn style, and don't forget to tap again on your way out. The app we used to tell us exactly which trains to catch is the TFL. We could have it start from our door step, tell us exactly how to get to the nearest station with walking directions, then tell us which trains to take, and how to walk to our destination after exiting the station. Brilliant!

There are so many amazing free museums in the city - just look into making a reservation so you don't waste time in the queue!

This was our first time using eSim cards, and it was easy! We bought them through Orange France, and paid about $40 for a month, and never came close to using up our data allowance. We picked Orange because they offer a global option, and we were traveling between 7 countries for 4 weeks. Financially it made more sense for us than to pay the daily rates on our home plans - it would have been up to $336 each if we'd used our phone travel plans.

If you have a kitchen, you can save a ton by eating in for a few of your meals. Food in the UK is so much more affordable than at home. I've talked about it before. The stores have "meal deals" where for for £5 you can get a sandwich, a drink, and a snack (usually a bag of chips/crisps or a candy bar) which make for an easy and affordable lunch, and otherwise our bags of groceries cost a fraction of what they cost back home. We saved money by having our breakfasts, snacks, a lunch and a dinner at the flat.

Buy your books in the UK - the prices were a much better price than what we pay for the same books in the US! A paperback I just bought at home cost $18.99 USD but only £9.99 at Waterstones. Even with the exchange rate, that's over $6 saved.