Our third and final full day in London was more successful (and dry) than the previous day. It was our day to take it at whatever pace we wanted and cross off any remaining things we wanted to see or do. We started off with a quick croissant + coffee breakfast from Caffe Forum right by our AirBnB. Pretty standard offerings, though they hadn’t had their truck delivery that day so they weren’t offering a lot of their normal foods. After breakfast, we headed to the one place Tim had at the top of his list for London – Abbey Road.
We got there mid-morning and while there was definitely people there, it wasn’t overly crowded. You could almost tell when the tube stopped because people would either be heading out or arriving. Since we didn’t have a set schedule for the day, we waited around a little bit for Tim to get “the shot.” #fanboy It was actually pretty hilarious to sit and people watch. People would just walk right out in front of cars (FYI: it’s a busy intersection with no stop sign). We checked out the souvenir shop (didn’t buy anything) and then headed back to the tube and went to Trafalgar Square.
The pigeons are mostly gone from the Square, as feeding them is no longer allowed. My mom has pictures from a visit there in the early 90’s with pigeons everywhere. I get why the city would want the pigeons gone, but the Square is just kind of boring otherwise. From there we walked down “The Mall” towards Buckingham Palace. We actually caught part of the Changing of the Guards ceremony by complete chance. We had no idea what time it took place. (11:30AM, btw) We found a pretty good spot on Constitution Hill road near the Canada Gate and was able to watch the band march by. So that was a really neat thing to stumble upon because I didn’t get to see the event last time in town.
From there we walked down Birdcage Walk road to see Westminster Abbey. I felt the need to channel my inner Kate Middleton for a moment. We didn’t go in, but the outside of the Abbey is beautiful. We grabbed lunch from a place called EAT (a quick-service chain, but got great reviews) before heading to the National History Museum. Free museum with real dinosaur bones? Yes! Holy smokes, there was a ton of people. Free museum + dino bones + dreary weather = busy. It didn’t stop us from seeing the dino bones and the life-size model of a blue whale. HUGE!
There was one last thing on my London to-do list that I had to make sure we did before leaving – get tea! Well, buy some to take home anyway. I don’t think I would have been able to convince Tim to go get afternoon tea with me, so instead we headed to Fortnum & Mason so I could pick some up. I purchased some loose tea in a lemon flavor and then bags of a berry tea. I’m happy to report that both are delicious. And because there was the tiniest Laduree store a couple blocks away, we picked up some macarons. I can understand why the store has a lot of hype around it, however some of the flavors were complete duds (pistachio, vanilla). The chocolate macaron was my favorite.
At that point in the day, I was tired! So we went to back to our flat to drop stuff off and regroup before heading to dinner at Franco Manca near the Earl’s Court tube stop for pizza. The pizza was really good. It’s neapolitan style (my favorite) with a sourdough crust. Apparently you have to request the pizza to be sliced, otherwise it’s up to you to cut it up to eat. (Had this same experience with a place in France.) We ended the evening with gelato from Oddono’s and then a couple pints at the Zetland Arms pub. We were heading to Paris the following day!
– m.