I finally managed to sort through some of my travel photos so I can finally start posting about my Euro summer trip last year. This is the first post of many as I plan on writing about each city/place that we visited. I wanted to have blog posts about them because it’s a great way for me to look back and save these memories. This trip was such an amazing and special trip for me being my first time in Europe.
Follow through below if you want to know what we got up to and how the first leg of our 5-week trip went.
It is easier for me to write this if I start from the very beginning and share what we got up to each day. That’s how I remember our trip and it makes sense to me to refresh my memory like this too.
Before I dive in to our travels, the main reason for this Europe trip was due to my friend’s wedding. She lives in London now but we met through work here in NZ years ago. We’ve been good friends since. I feel so lucky that she chose me as one of her bridesmaids. It was the best reason and push for me to finally make the trip to the other side of the world. I’ve always wanted to go here and being so far away from NZ, we had to tag on a big trip after the wedding to make the most of it.
We left in NZ on 4th June 2023 and embarked on a long journey to London. I was travelling with Max and this was our longest trip we’ve done so far. He thankfully had Koru lounge access so we enjoyed and chilled there before our flight. Unfortunately our flight to Singapore was delayed so we only had about 30mins there before our next flight.
The flights to London are so long and I didn’t sleep at all. I closed my eyes for maybe 30mins but I was pretty much awake and watched a bunch of movies and a TV show ( Crazy Rich Asians, Elvis, The Whale, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Antman, a Jason Stathman movie, a Julia Roberts and George Clooney movie and 5 episodes of White Lotus season 2).
After about 24ish hours of travelling, we finally made it to Heathrow airport. We arrived in London late afternoon. We were greeted by my lovely friend Antonia and her now husband Liam at the airport and they helped us navigate the train to our accommodation. It was so nice to not have to figure out where to go especially after being so sleep-deprived. We just followed them and we got on the Elizabeth line to Kentish Town.
We dropped our luggage off at our accommodation Sonder Camden (more on this later) then headed out to grab some dinner at a pub. We wanted to beat jetlag by adjusting to the time zone so after dinner we ended up walking around Camden. Before this trip, I’ve heard about Mamasons as a Filipino dessert place. We stumbled upon it during our walk and I had to get ube ice cream!
I think we got back to our hotel around 11pm and I felt so delirious at that point. I’ve been awake for way too long and I was so spacey and exhausted. I thought it helped with jet lag though and helped us get through a busy week in London.
Day 1
Looking back, we actually managed to do quite a lot in our first full day in London. We started our day by walking to Camden Market and exploring it. We got food and ate it in one of the spherical things.
I didn’t buy anything besides food and we highly recommend checking out the halva shop there called Sumsum! They had so many different flavours!
After Camden Market, we took the tube to the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The V&A museum is free to enter and it’s a beautiful museum. We particularly enjoyed the huge ceramics level up the top. Max does pottery and great at it so now we both have such appreciation for ceramics!
After the museum, we walked towards Knightsbridge and I was fully in awe of how beautiful the architecture and buildings are in London. I knew it before coming here but there is so much heritage and beautiful architecture wherever I looked.
I randomly turned right after seeing this beautiful street which ended up being Beaufort Gardens. It looked like such a fancy street and based on the cars parked there, it was a rich one.
Then we ended up in Harrods. I watch a lot of UK Youtubers/content creators and have been for years so I’ve heard/seen a bit about how good Harrods is and that I had to check out their food hall. Harrods didn’t disappoint and I got some treats from the patisserie section. I highly recommend the chocolate eclair with gold flecks. It was so delicious!
After a bit of rest back at the hotel, we met up with Antonia and Liam at Camden Road Arms pub before taking the tube to City of London.
There were so many beautiful buildings within City of London and I’ve learnt that it is the historical financial district of London. There aren’t many residents in this area but many offices and businesses are within this district. I loved the curved buildings!
We had dinner at one of their favourite restaurants Bar Duoro. Dinner and food were great. Highly recommend the prawns and chocolate mousse.
After dinner, we actually ended up back at their place in Kentish Town and we walked back from their place to our hotel. During our walk back, we saw our first fox sighting! That was pretty exciting. So our day 1 ended up being a huge day and we didn’t get back ’til midnight.
Day 2
The next day was a free day when we didn’t have any specific plans. We got up and decided to walk to a different tube station which was a great idea because we found great coffee.
We ended up at Caravan Coffee Roasters on the way to Caledonian Road station and it was the best coffee we’ve had pretty much the entire trip. Coming from New Zealand, we are spoiled and a bit of a coffee snob. Our coffee here is amazing and my sister is also a barista so we’re quite picky.
This place was great and we’ve come to learn that the owners are kiwis! Makes sense they know good coffee. I think they have more branches in London but we only went to this place. We came here a few times in our week in London so fair to say we highly recommend it!
We planned our day at the cafe and we decided to hit all the touristy spots. We took the tube to Buckingham Palace. For my first time in London, I had to tick this off and tbh, seeing the palace was underwhelming. I was like ‘is this it?!’. There are so many more iconic buildings in London and it was just ok and not as impressive imo.
We then walked through St James Park and probably the highlight of our day was seeing squirrels. It sound silly but we don’t have foxes or squirrels in NZ so seeing them out and about was exciting and made us quite happy.
We continued hitting the tourist spots like Trafalgar Square, Royal Horse guards, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. Then we saw the London Eye from the other side of the embankment and took an Uber boat along the Thames river. We got off before Tower Bridge and made our way to Borough Market.
I saw taking an Uber boat through the Thames on Tiktok and honestly, it was a good idea! It’s a great way to see more of the city when you’re short on time.
It was so busy in Borough market and I made a big mistake this day by forgetting to eat lunch at midday. I got hangry and all the lines were too long. Max got a sausage roll in the market and he said that was pretty good.
Afterwards, we walked to Tate Modern. It’s quite an interesting place and it’s a huge building. Max and I bond over our thoughts of modern art. It’s fascinating to us and some are silly and hilarious. I was very hangry at this point of the day so I wasn’t the best travel companion but we did end doing some cat drawings and leaving them in this wall inside Tate Modern. It was around 5pm so we took the tube back to Camden.
Because I was so hungry, we had dinner early and I chose Bintang. This is a Filipino restaurant in London and was close to where we were staying. They had happy hour and the food was good. We had halo halo for dessert too.
Day 2 ended up being another huge day so after dinner, we just rested back at the hotel. We did so much walking and it was only our second day!
Day 3
The next day was busy for me as it was Antonia’s hens do.
We had a whole day planned so I got ready in the morning then headed to her place before taking the tube to Picadilly Circus.
The first part of her hen’s do was lunch at Brasserie Zedel which is a French art deco restaurant. It is underground and is massive. It’s so beautiful and luxe in there. The food was amazing and pretty well priced for the whole experience. It was great!
Our main plan for her hen’s do was to watch Moulin Rouge musical. When we finished lunch and got out the restaurant, we found out that the show was cancelled due to cast illness. It was so sad but it must’ve been bad if they had to cancel a west end musical show for the day. We had to come up with another plan right then and there and we ended up going bowling instead.
For dinner, we went to Mele e Pere in Soho. The portion sizes were huge especially the bread but the food was pretty good.
Overall, we had a great day. Even if it didn’t go exactly as planned, Antonia said she still had an amazing time so that’s what mattered. I took the bus instead of the tube home and found it was easier to get back to the hotel that way from Soho. Max had a pretty chill day in London. He went back to Caravan coffee and checked out a weird museum he was recommended to see then went to a pub.
Day 4
This was free day for Max and I so we had another central London exploration. This day was the first day the sun was out. It was actually pretty cold the first few days when we arrived and I only brought one jacket, the white denim jacket as you can see from my photos above. It was so nice not having to wear a jacket for a day.
We started our day at Caravan coffee roasters then took the tube to Covent Garden.
My first stop was Glossier. We don’t have Glossier in NZ and we also haven’t been able to get it shipped here (we can get it shipped now though). The store is beautiful on the inside and I didn’t go too crazy in there. I only got 3 things.
Then we walked around Covent Garden, checked out a few stores and vintage shops. We went to Chinatown and had yum cha for lunch because I cannot go without rice/Asian food for more than 2 days.
I saw this place on Tiktok so I had to check out Neal’s Yard. It’s such a pretty alleyway with cute shops.
There are so many beautiful buildings in London! I loved the Crown & Anchor pub. It’s so pretty especially for a pub! Also, there are so many pubs in London. It seems like every corner is a pub…
After Covent Garden, we went back to the hotel and I got ready for the wedding rehearsal at the church. Then we had dinner with the wedding party and their families at Lord Palmerston pub. It was a lovely day.
Day 5
This day was the wedding day. I don’t have many photos from my phone on this day but mine started out early for hair and makeup at Antonia & Liam’s place. I can’t remember name but the hair and makeup artist Antonia chose was so lovely and funny! Getting ready together was nice. It seemed like we had heaps of time and then all of a sudden we were rushing to leave!
The wedding was at St Mary’s Brookfield and the reception was at Bull & Gate pub. It was a lovely wedding and I feel so grateful to be a part of it. I think I took my bridesmaid duties seriously and it was also a good thing that I overprepped. I brought over 2 bridesmaid dresses to have options. The other bridesmaid ended up wearing the other dress so it all worked out!
Thank you Antonia and Liam for having Max and I on your special day. It was the best reason for me to finally travel to Europe and it was so lovely to see my amazing friend get married.
Day 6
This was our last full day in London and it was another glorious sunny day. It was actually hot on this day. We saw quite a few sunburnt people.
We started our day in Camden, checked out a food market and walked up Primrose Hill. The townhouses here are so pretty and colourful and I randomly spotted this door door which had a plaque noting ‘Dr Jose Rizal lived here’. Dr Jose Rizal is a national hero of the Philippines.
Later in the afternoon we took the tube back to Coven Garden. We had drinks at Peachy Queen then dinner at Rosa’s Thai afterwards.
Besides the wedding, one of the main things I was excited about was watching Matilda Musical. I watched it here in NZ but Max hasn’t. We enjoy musicals so watching at least one was on my list of London to-dos. It was by Seven Dials and the musical was phenomenal. It was amazing and we both loved it. The cast, especially the children are so brilliant.
It was such a hot day in London and sadly the aircon in this theatre didn’t seem to be working. That was unfortunate but we still had a great night. Before heading home, we had some ice cream from Udderlicious.
Day 7
This was our last day in London and it was a travel day for us. We checked out of our accommodation and headed to St Pancras.
Our next stop was Paris and we were supposed to catch our train to Paris from London around 3pm. Unfortunately, there was something wrong with the lines that day that caused massive delays across various train schedules. The first 2-3 trains to Paris before our one were cancelled and we waited around 3ish hours at St Pancras in a huge line of people. Thankfully our train wasn’t cancelled but it did delay our arrival to Paris. It was not ideal but it was also out of our control.
It may not have ended as planned but overall our time in London was still absolutely amazing. It was busy and full-on in the end but we had so much fun.
That was our whole itinerary in London. I have a few other thoughts about this part of our trip though:
- The public transport is amazing. The tube is so efficient! I loved the convenience of it. At first I thought it was confusing because there are so many different lines but after a while, it was actually easy to figure out. Some of the lines we took were so loud though! That was surprising for me and thankfully it wasn’t too hot and stuffy when we were there. The tube stations were cleaner that I expected but I can only dream of one day NZ having an awesome transport network.
- The tap water in London is disgusting.
- The smell of weed is quite normal.
- If your train is delayed by a few hours, you can get a refund from Eurostar.
- There are so many pubs!
- Don’t overdo it like we did. We did way too much on our first 2 days in London that we fucked our feet. We had blisters and had to go to Boots for blister pads. We did too much too quickly and our feet suffered from it. We had to keep going though but if we were to do it all over again, we would pace ourselves and remember to snack/eat throughout the day (especially me as I get hangry lol).
- London is such a massive city. There are so many things to see and do. We managed to tick off quite a lot but there are still so many on my list for next time!
Our accommodation: Sonder Camden Road
This is where we stayed during our week in London. We chose this place due to location, being close to the wedding venue so it was easier for us to come back after the wedding. It was also close to tube stations. I liked it but we got a room on the ground level. I think an upstairs room would’ve been nicer and there was also a weird noise that kept us up for a night or two while we were there. It’s also not your typical hotel but it was a nice enough place to stay,. The room itself was big but the bathroom was tiny. Overall, for the price, it wasn’t too bad. We knew we weren’t going to be in the room much during our stay so we only needed a place to sleep. For that reason, this was what we needed.
If you managed to reach this part of my post, thank you! This is it! I’ve come to the end of my London travel recap. I almost can’t believe this was 9 months ago. It has been a dream of a trip and this was just the beginning! We’re off to Paris next! 🙂
Europe Trip blog post links:
My London Tiktoks:
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