So this morning I woke up today feeling like I wanted a more leisurely day. I didn't want to go through the hassle of making my way back to the tourist area to visit the Globe. So I didn't. That's what's nice about traveling alone, I can do whatever I want for an itinerary and change it last minute to suit my mood. Today my mood said it wanted to wander around, get little gifts for friends and find somewhere to have a REAL English tea. So I made a reservation for myself at the Brown's Hotel (one of the top recommended places for a true English tea). It wasn't until 12:30pm so I showered, changed and then checked out of my hotel. They had a luggage room to keep my bag for me (for free) while I wandered the city because my train didn't leave until 4:30pm. So I started out with breakfast. The British gentleman who stamped my passport on my way into the UK recommended Gregg's for cheap, good pastries. It was similar to a local version of a Dunkin Donuts. I had English breakfast tea and a lemon custard and rhubarb donut. It was delicious.
After this I just wandered south on Tottenham Court Road until I got to the Charing Cross area. I walked past a lot of cool little shops, and bought a few touristy gifts for people. I also got a selfie with the new HP play that is coming out, without tons of people around since it was earlyish on a weekday morning.
Behind the theater is the Soho district of London (the original Soho, though no one is quite sure what it stands for). This is the area where the main part of the PRIDE parade was held and it was, at one time, the seedier sex district, though most of those shops have been replaced with more modern bars and nightclubs. It was pretty quiet this morning but it was still fun to walk through.
Continuing west through Soho you get to the super ritzy part of town, Bond Street and Dover Street. This is where my tea hotel, the Brown's Hotel was located, but I was a bit early so I had a wander around some of the little arcades and streets. These boutiques were fancier than the fanciest store names that I've heard of. Lots of jewelry, watches, mens leather shoes, and fountain pens.
After wasting a fair amount of time I decided to head to the hotel, though it was only noon. Fortunately I was able to get seated early and enjoy my fantastic tea and pastry setup. So its around £48 per person if I remember correctly but that is unlimited tea, pastries, sandwiches and scones. I was not able to eat everything they brought me but it was all delicious. I had a white needle and rosebud tea to start followed by a green jasmine tea. For the food we had 3 different kinds of finger sandwich on the bottom plate (egg and cucumber, roast beef and cucumber and salmon and cucumber...which I skipped). The second tier had little bread buns with curried chicken or cream and mince (not 100% sure on that description of the second one, but it was really good). Then the top tier was the desserts. Wimbledon started today so they had a brand new dessert to commemorate that. The two tennis balls are white chocolate truffles with a white chocolate ganache inside, a lime curd bar to the right (going clockwise), green sponge cake with cream and jelly center and chocolate racket, a strawberry and basil tart, and a chocolate macaron with raspberry filling. All the desserts were very well made. I preferred the strawberry/basil tart and the macaron. After this came the scones (2 regular and 2 raisin) with clotted cream and berry jam. I was stuffed at this point but it finished with some fresh strawberries with cream on top. During this whole time in the tea room there was a live pianist playing. The music was very soothing and occasionally I recognized songs (all Elton John). Absolutely worth the money. Everything was fantastic and the server/hostess was really nice and talked to me during her down time, even offering to take my picture since it's hard to do that when you travel on your own.
It was around 1:30pm when I was finished so I needed to head back in the general direction of the hotel since I planned to walk. Nearly due north of the hotel (and slightly west) by 35m walking is the Sherlock Holmes Museum, located at 221B Baker Street (of course). I thought it would be cool to at least walk by there to see the outside. It was a fun trip up the streets to get to Baker Street. I love seeing the tiny twisting roads and old pubs.
When I made it to Sherlock's House I went in the store and decided that I had the time to look so I bought a ticket and got in the line to wait for entry into his house. It's a tiny, narrow, 4 1/2 story house so they can't let many people in at once. The good thing is that it's quite small so it really only takes 10-20m TOPS to look through it. Once you go up from the ground floor to the first level you see his study and bedroom areas. The second level has little memorabilia, like the hat and pipe, and an office of sorts. The next level after that had wax figures re-enacting famous scenes from his different cases, with little book excerpts that describe each one. And the top half-level was a little storage and bathroom closet. It was all quite cute. And then of course there is the store downstairs that sells all sorts of fun memorabilia. I'd say it was definitely worth it, especially over the Globe, I'm glad I chose this.
The man in the picture with me was the "bouncer"/ticket checker and he and I had a great conversation about the BBC series SHERLOCK and how much we like it, and our favorite parts/episodes. He was quite fun to talk to. Once I left the museum I had to get back to my hotel to pick up my luggage and then get to the train station. It was another 30m walk to get back to my hotel (around the Euston Station area) and on the way I passed Madame Tussaud's wax museum. I've never really been into visiting the wax museums, I know they have them all over. I find it quite creepy honestly. But here's a pic of the outside.
All in all I'd say my trip to London was a success. Honestly if I had only done Harry Potter and nothing else it would still have been a success. But I was able to visit pretty much everything I had planned on. Swapping the Globe for Sherlock was even better than my original plan, and a few food places that I had picked out as options didn't end up happening, but I hadn't really planned on a fancy afternoon tea experience, so I'm ok with how that all turned out. I definitely plan to come back and delve even deeper into the slightly less touristy areas, and explore outside the city like Windsor Castle and Stonehenge, as well as travel to Scotland and Ireland. I'll probably need 2-3 weeks for that trip. And I'll need Jacob too! Now that I've been there I pretty much know my way around the city, so basically...I'm a pro! Only 2 more weeks of work left (9 days!!! not that I'm counting or anything...) and my dad arrives this Saturday. Can't believe this trip is coming to an end! Goodnight for now.
After this I just wandered south on Tottenham Court Road until I got to the Charing Cross area. I walked past a lot of cool little shops, and bought a few touristy gifts for people. I also got a selfie with the new HP play that is coming out, without tons of people around since it was earlyish on a weekday morning.
Behind the theater is the Soho district of London (the original Soho, though no one is quite sure what it stands for). This is the area where the main part of the PRIDE parade was held and it was, at one time, the seedier sex district, though most of those shops have been replaced with more modern bars and nightclubs. It was pretty quiet this morning but it was still fun to walk through.
Continuing west through Soho you get to the super ritzy part of town, Bond Street and Dover Street. This is where my tea hotel, the Brown's Hotel was located, but I was a bit early so I had a wander around some of the little arcades and streets. These boutiques were fancier than the fanciest store names that I've heard of. Lots of jewelry, watches, mens leather shoes, and fountain pens.
After wasting a fair amount of time I decided to head to the hotel, though it was only noon. Fortunately I was able to get seated early and enjoy my fantastic tea and pastry setup. So its around £48 per person if I remember correctly but that is unlimited tea, pastries, sandwiches and scones. I was not able to eat everything they brought me but it was all delicious. I had a white needle and rosebud tea to start followed by a green jasmine tea. For the food we had 3 different kinds of finger sandwich on the bottom plate (egg and cucumber, roast beef and cucumber and salmon and cucumber...which I skipped). The second tier had little bread buns with curried chicken or cream and mince (not 100% sure on that description of the second one, but it was really good). Then the top tier was the desserts. Wimbledon started today so they had a brand new dessert to commemorate that. The two tennis balls are white chocolate truffles with a white chocolate ganache inside, a lime curd bar to the right (going clockwise), green sponge cake with cream and jelly center and chocolate racket, a strawberry and basil tart, and a chocolate macaron with raspberry filling. All the desserts were very well made. I preferred the strawberry/basil tart and the macaron. After this came the scones (2 regular and 2 raisin) with clotted cream and berry jam. I was stuffed at this point but it finished with some fresh strawberries with cream on top. During this whole time in the tea room there was a live pianist playing. The music was very soothing and occasionally I recognized songs (all Elton John). Absolutely worth the money. Everything was fantastic and the server/hostess was really nice and talked to me during her down time, even offering to take my picture since it's hard to do that when you travel on your own.
It was around 1:30pm when I was finished so I needed to head back in the general direction of the hotel since I planned to walk. Nearly due north of the hotel (and slightly west) by 35m walking is the Sherlock Holmes Museum, located at 221B Baker Street (of course). I thought it would be cool to at least walk by there to see the outside. It was a fun trip up the streets to get to Baker Street. I love seeing the tiny twisting roads and old pubs.
When I made it to Sherlock's House I went in the store and decided that I had the time to look so I bought a ticket and got in the line to wait for entry into his house. It's a tiny, narrow, 4 1/2 story house so they can't let many people in at once. The good thing is that it's quite small so it really only takes 10-20m TOPS to look through it. Once you go up from the ground floor to the first level you see his study and bedroom areas. The second level has little memorabilia, like the hat and pipe, and an office of sorts. The next level after that had wax figures re-enacting famous scenes from his different cases, with little book excerpts that describe each one. And the top half-level was a little storage and bathroom closet. It was all quite cute. And then of course there is the store downstairs that sells all sorts of fun memorabilia. I'd say it was definitely worth it, especially over the Globe, I'm glad I chose this.
The man in the picture with me was the "bouncer"/ticket checker and he and I had a great conversation about the BBC series SHERLOCK and how much we like it, and our favorite parts/episodes. He was quite fun to talk to. Once I left the museum I had to get back to my hotel to pick up my luggage and then get to the train station. It was another 30m walk to get back to my hotel (around the Euston Station area) and on the way I passed Madame Tussaud's wax museum. I've never really been into visiting the wax museums, I know they have them all over. I find it quite creepy honestly. But here's a pic of the outside.
All in all I'd say my trip to London was a success. Honestly if I had only done Harry Potter and nothing else it would still have been a success. But I was able to visit pretty much everything I had planned on. Swapping the Globe for Sherlock was even better than my original plan, and a few food places that I had picked out as options didn't end up happening, but I hadn't really planned on a fancy afternoon tea experience, so I'm ok with how that all turned out. I definitely plan to come back and delve even deeper into the slightly less touristy areas, and explore outside the city like Windsor Castle and Stonehenge, as well as travel to Scotland and Ireland. I'll probably need 2-3 weeks for that trip. And I'll need Jacob too! Now that I've been there I pretty much know my way around the city, so basically...I'm a pro! Only 2 more weeks of work left (9 days!!! not that I'm counting or anything...) and my dad arrives this Saturday. Can't believe this trip is coming to an end! Goodnight for now.
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