I have to admit, that this wasn’t my first time I’ve been to London. And because of that, I did not visit most of the typical tourist stuff again. Okay, I did walk by some of the hotspots again, like the Knights Bridge, Westminster, Castle, Buckingham Palace or Soho district- but I did only that: walk by, look at the beautiful and old buildings, took some pictures and went on. So I don’t have more in detail tips for you here, but hopefully some of my pictures can give you a good overview (if you have never been to London but want some impressions)
In this blog entry, I will post some pictures and will write some impressions for each piece. Hope you enjoy!
Flying to London from other european countries is rather cheap. There are several airports in London and so many airline options. The one I flew to (and not for the first time either) is London Stansted Airport. It is located a one hour drive north of London which may sound rather far, but there are good options to get a transfer to the city center.
I booked my trip only one week before takeoff from Frankfurt International Airport via Ryanair for a total of 71 Euro. For both ways, that is. If you book much earlier you can get there for like 20 Euro at this time of the year. On my way back I talked to the guy sitting next to me on the plane and he got such a deal.
London Stansted, boarding
Ryanair has a new luggage rule since beginning of 2018 – if you book the economy class you can still bring a 10kg luggage with you – but you can’t take it with you into the cabine. Right in front of thee airplane, before you take the stairs into the cabine, you have to put your big luggage into a wagon standing there. And they will put it into the cargo space! If you don’t want that, you have to pay extra and updgrade. While this looks like a pure cash crab, it isn’t. It is also to speed up the boarding process – I read that Ryanair had some problems lately with take off in time. Because it took the passengers so long to storage all their luggage and because there wasn’t enough space in the cabine for all of it. I did not pay extra and just took my little camera bag with me. I would only pay extra if I had something really valuable in my big luggage or if I really need to hurry up and don’t want to wait for luggage claim. But even here, I didn’t have to wait for long – it is last in first out – so your bag should be among the first on the conveyor belt.
Earlier I wrote the flight did cost me 71 Euro for both ways. But once you arrive in Stansted how to get to the city center? There are two easy options: Bus or train. Both are good options here. Stansted Express, that is the name if the train, goes every 15 minutes and costs around 15 Euro for one way and takes appr. 50 minutes to Liverpool station in London. Bus costs 10 Euro and takes round about one hour.
View through the window of Stansted Express
From Stansted to City
I took the train and it was very convenient! Once you arrive in Liverpool station, you can take the London Underground to get around in the city and start exploring.
Do you like travel adventures, getting there, planes and bus rides or is it more of a hassle and you are glad to finally arrive in your chosen destination?
On Sunday afternoon I went right into the heart of London: Soho. At Underground Station Oxford Street you can jump right into the middle of the action. And boy, I didn’t expect so many people here on a cold, cloudy sunday in January. The streets were packed with people. Shopping, souveniers, dinner and nightlife all concentrated in one district. I wouldn’t want to live here close by – far too much trouble for my liking. But it was just what I wanted to experience for one day.
I went down Oxford street looking for a restaurant and some shopping places to get a post card for Maike – she collects postcards from friends everywhere. And I hadn’t had food all day so I was very eager to find a good meal. 🙂
Disney Store, Oxford Street
My first stop was at the Disney store though. I wanted to see if there is anything I could use for my action figure photography project. Another thing I really like doing. But I was rather disappointed here. The store was much smaller than I anticipated from looking at their web site before and mostly had stuff for little kids (doh!).
Street Food
This little street food stand looked like it survived from christkindelsmarkt.
Cub on Oxford Street
Be careful when crossing streets in London. Driving on the left side is really dangerous for tourists and passengers from most other countries. Britain is not the only place in the world driving on the „wrong“ side though! Did you know that out of 221 countries in the world, 59 have left-hand traffic? (Remember me, when I blog about my New Zealand adventure)
Steakhouse Oxford Street
The Angus Steak House on Oxford street was the winner of my restaurant lottery. A good steak is the best food in the world in my opinion and so I went here for dinner. It was a very good choice – not only because the food was real good, but also because the stuff had a very nice british humor. When I sat down the waiter came over to me to get my order. As soon as I spoke to him he realized my German accent and startet talking broken, but good german to me. He asked me if I want to order a steak and fries. I said yes, that is exactly what I want. Then he asked me if I also want a salad as a starter. I told him no, don’t need a salad. He stared at me for a second and then yelled: Oooh, I’ll tell your mom!
I had a good lough. Great guy.
Five Guys Oxford Street
Soho
These pictures here show some places along Oxford street in Soho district. So much going on here I liked it. And just when I thought it couldn’t be much more crowded, I stumbled upon a giant asian gate on the middle of a close by road. It was the famous Chinatown Gate close to picadilly circus. And there were even more people!
One of the Chinatown Gates
All those people were either looking for a good asian restaurant, some asian grocery stores or lissening to one of the many street artists there.
Chinatown Street Artist
Those two guys over here did some awesome cover songs. What a voice. And they played there for hours. I just couldn’t walk by…had to stand still for minutes listening.
Chinatown Artist
China Restaurant
I nearly regretted going to that steak house before – some of these chinese Restaurants looked really comfortable and interesting. Next time I will try one of these for sure.
Pokemon Flavour in a chinese grocery store
There were also several stores with special asian food. I don’t know whats inside these pokemon cans though. But they look cool.
China Restaurant Open
If you don’t wanna visit a real restaurant there, you can also go into one of the many snack bars there. This one had some chinese bakeries and sweets. Delicious!
Delicious Cakes
Chinatown Street
Fresh Fish
Restaurant Chinatown
I can only recommend this part of London! But that’s hardly an insider tip – giben that Soho is the part were most tourists will go for the nightlife in London. 🙂
The Docklands, located in the eastern part of London, are probably not the first place a tourist would go, if they are visiting London. I bet there are a decent amount of people who visited London several times already and were never there. That means unless your airport is the London City Airport which is located right in the dockland district or if you visiting ExCeL. This really huge exhibition centre is also located there.
End of January an american friend and myself went for a four day trip to London. Since we had an event coming up at ExCeL we choose a Hotel close by for the whole stay.
Here are some pictures of our hotel and the surroundings:
Docklands, East London
We picked „The Good Hotel“ for our stay. Because, who doesn’t want to stay in a good hotel? 😉 And it turned out more than just good! This hotel has a very nice stuff and interior. The rooms we stayed in were pretty small but absolutely clean and in good condition.
The Good Hotel, Bridge Entrance
This is another view on the Hotel. As you can see it is located ON the water. You need to go over a bridge to get to the entrance. In the background you can see the Emirates Skytrain.
Simon Rau Fotografie 