I mentioned yesterday that we stayed at the Waldorf in London, which was an excellent central location for many of the touristy things we planned on doing in the city.  We started our day by heading to Covent Garden, just around the corner to check out the mix of flea market, street performers, pubs and high end shops.

 
We walked through streets lined with pubs, boutiques and candy shops.  Sometimes I felt like I was in Epcot Center.  We made our way through Trafalger Square and past the National Gallery, where the London Symphony Orchestra was having an open air rehearsal for a concert that night, and then on to Piccadilly Circus (which I realized is just Time Square London style).  For just spending on day in London we couldn’t have had better weather.

 

The National Gallery

 

Tube stop at Piccadilly Circus

 
We kept moving through St. James Park and the Horse Guards Parade, relaxed for a bit at Westminster Abbey and then walked out over the Thames to check out Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.  At this point, we were close enough to Buckingham Palace too that we decided to take a walk over to it.  I recently added a Canon 70-200mm telephoto lens to my kit, and I’m glad I did.  I would have never been able to get the pictures of the royal guards at Buckingham Palace without it.

 

Playing around with long exposures at St. James Park

 

Horse Guards Parade and the London Eye

 

The North entrance of Westminster Abbey

 

Big Ben!

 

Long exposure looking north up the Thames

 

Royal Guards at Buckingham Palace

 

After walking and sightseeing for hours, we were famished.  One of the things I definitely wanted to do in London was get to a few pubs as well as have some fish and chips.  We dropped into a pub near Buckingham Palace for some food and a few drinks.  I loved the cask ales that you could get.  Definitely not as cold as in the US, but tasty and also a real pint!  Oh, we also ran into the Horse Guards!

Later that night we met up with friends at Porterhouse on Maiden Lane for drinks.  They have a great outside section and the inside of the bar is treehouse like, with plenty of craft beers on tap.  Indian food was on the menu for the night, and Punjab did not disappoint.  If you’re in London and want some good Indian food, make sure to check this place out.

The next morning the rain began and put a bit of a damper on our day.  Luckily we found an amazing cafe for breakfast, Kopapa.  I think it’s rare when you visit a city for just about 48 hours to pick good places to eat every time, but we did just that.  So ends the London experience!  A quick train ride and we were back in Paris that night, ready to spend the week touring the City of Lights.

I’ve been very lucky to have a good friend of mine living in Paris for the past 7 years.  Before he moved over there, I didn’t travel much outside of the US, maybe Montreal once or twice.  Being able to visit Europe almost once a year for the past 7 years has been an amazing thing,  and I’ve been able to use Paris as a jumping off point for other destinations.  This last trip was no exception.  We flew into Paris on a nonstop from JFK late Friday night, arriving around lunch time Saturday (for those curious, we flew XL Airways France.  I was a bit skeptical as they were a low cost carrier, but the experience was completely fine and the flight times couldn’t be beat).  After a crazy arrival party and getting a bit of sleep Saturday night, we woke Sunday, had an excellent Parisian brunch of croissants, pain au chocolat, baguette and eggs, and then headed to the train station to grab the (very fast) train to London.  I was super excited to see London, as I’ve never been there before.  We were also staying in a nice central location at the Waldorf in London’s West End where we could walk to almost everything we wanted to see.

Arriving at St. Pancras train station in London

 

The first night there we had two goals — the London Eye and dinner.  We made 8 pm reservations for the London Eye online for the “champagne experience“, this includes priority boarding as well as a glass of champagne.  If you’re heading to London and want to go up in the Eye, I highly recommend the priority ticket (having champagne while you gaze at Big Ben doesn’t hurt either).  We literally walked over there at 8 pm and they took us right up.  The views from the Eye are stellar, and the Eye itself isn’t so bad to look at either.

Looking out of our capsule, the Parliament Houses and Big Ben are down to the right

 

Looking North up the Thames

 

The London Eye takes a half hour to make one revolution.  We boarded at 8 and were off at 8:30, perfect timing to make our 9:30 reservation at Rules, the oldest restaurant in London.  I highly recommend this place.  We had some oysters to start, I had rabbit for a main and then, probably one of the best desserts I’ve ever had, sticky toffee pudding.  On my first bite of it I had one of those, “how did I never know about this?!” reactions.  We turned in late that night (jet lag was still taking its toll) and woke the next morning for a full day of touring the city.  Lots of pictures, so I’m going to save them for the next post 🙂