Trip Report! Day One: London

We had a direct flight from Raleigh to London, which was awesome, except that it got in at 7:00 a.m., which was 2:00 a.m. in our heads.

We knew we had to stay up for most of the day and try to go to bed at a reasonable hour so we could get on UK time as quickly as possible, but it was rough. We took the Heathrow Express train to Paddington Station, which was fortunately less than a mile from our hotel, and then walked the rest of the way.

I knew the hotel (Kensington Gardens) was not going to be fantastic, because the location was incredible and it was only $129 a night. However, our time in Tunisia taught us that as long as we have safety, cleanliness, hot water, and towels, we will be good to go. We aren't choosy.

We arrived at the hotel at 9:00 a.m., kind of doubtful they would let us check in so early. The manager was a very nice, very personable woman who seemed familiar with exhausted early morning arrivers from the US, and said she could give us a room immediately - but it was on the top floor. Or we could wait until the afternoon for a second floor. We were grimy and exhausted and gosh, we can handle some stairs, right? So we took the top floor. And then we found out it was SIX flights up. Poor Ben, trying to carry both suitcases by himself (he insisted! and then relented after four flights and let me carry mine the rest of the way).

The room was very small, but it was clean and had hot water and towels and we felt pretty safe from robbers way up there on the sixth floor.

Our plan was to get cleaned up and then wander in the neighborhood near our hotel, which was just a few blocks from Portobello Road, Notting Hill, and Kensington Gardens. We went over to Portobello Road, which was picturesque but not too busy, given that the big market day is Saturday.

We quickly realized we can cover quite a bit of ground in not very much time, and decided to go all in and head for some tourist attractions.

We took the tube from Notting Hill to Westminster, to see Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. I really wanted to go inside Westminster, as I remember it being really impressive and moving, but it doesn't open until 2:00 p.m. on Wednesdays, apparently, and there was a huge line of people waiting to get in. So we took pictures and moved on.

For our first London meal, we stopped at a noodle shop across the Thames from Parliament. It was in the same building as the Marriott. Here is a Molly'n'Ben Travel Tip: If you're wandering around a city being a tourist and you have to pee, go to a hotel. Just walk in briskly like you know where you're going and surreptitiously look for the restroom signs in the lobby. We developed this strategy in New York last year and it has not failed us yet! Anyway here are the noodles.

After lunch we decided to walk over to St. Paul's Cathedral, which I had not seen the last time I was in London. It was kind of a long walk but nice, right along the Thames. We went by the London Eye but decided not to go up.

Here is a tired self-portrait.

There was quite a bit of construction activity in London, I guess because of the upcoming Olympics.

We really liked the neighborhood around St. Paul's - lots of tiny, winding streets between the buildings. It's hard to believe they actually drive on these roads, but I guess they do.

St. Paul's was huge and gorgeous, of course. You can pay to go up to the dome, but we were quickly discovering that we're pretty cheap when it comes to tourist attractions. We went inside to look around but didn't pay for the whole tour.

We were getting pretty delirious by this point so we took the tube back over to the neighborhood around hotel and went for a walk through Kensington Gardens. We started by walking down a road on the edge of the park that turned out to be lined with embassies. They were all very impressive, but there were signs everywhere saying "No Photography." The only visible security we saw was outside the Israeli Embassy, where they had guards armed with machine guns and a big barrier wall protecting the gate.

We reached Kensington High Street at the south end of the park and turned back north through the gardens to see the Palace. The last time I was in London, in 1998, Diana had just been killed the summer before and there were huge memorials all over the place. It was more subdued this time, and unfortunately the front view was also torn up with construction activity. It was a gorgeous day, though.

Finally we had made it until 5:00 p.m., which we deemed sort of okay for going to bed. So we went back to the hotel and crashed until 7:00 a.m. the next morning.