We flew from Amsterdam Schipol Airport to London Heathrow on July 7 late evening. We met up with my parents at the airport who had flown in from Kolkata about 2 hours earlier and were going to be with us for the rest of the Europe trip. It was pretty late at night around 11 pm and we took a cab to the nearby Renaissance Heathrow Hotel where we were going to stay the night. I had researched about free public buses to the local hotels around Heathrow but it was very late at night (some buses don’t run this late) and we didn’t want to wait any more to change buses to get to our hotel.
Since the Renaissance Heathrow hotel is very close to the terminals, I didn’t anticipate the cab fare to be much. It turned out to be 20 GBP which is pretty steep considering how short the travel time was. Also the cabbie was pretty rude. Not a good start to our London trip.
Day 1:
We took the free public bus from the hotel to the main London Heathrow Bus Station. London has a very comprehensive public transit system and a little bit of research and understanding would go long way in saving lots of money. I had researched extensively regarding the London Oyster card and came to the conclusion that the “Pay as you go” option on the Oyster card was going to be the best option for us instead of any sort of “Unlimited Travel Pass”. We purchased a regular Oyster card for each one of us and loaded it with 15 GBP on each card.
There are many transportation options out of Heathrow to central London. The fastest is the Heathrow Express (expensive) that goes non-stop to Paddington station. There is also Heathrow Connect that also goes to Paddington station. Instead we opted for the London metro which was the better value.
The only metro line out of Heathrow Airport is the Piccadilly Line that ends at Picadilly Circus. We took the Piccadilly line and then changed to Bakerloo line at Piccadilly Circus to get off on Lambeth North, which is the closest metro station to the Days Inn Hotel, where we were staying for the remainder of our London trip.
After freshening up at the hotel, we got back on the metro to the Charing Cross station which is the metro stop for Trafalgar Square, a London attraction commemorating the British victory over Napoleon. The National Gallery (art museum) is also located at the Trafalgar Square.
It was pretty crowded at the Trafalgar Square. There were a lot of tourists as well as local kids on school trip.
After about an hour of people watching and taking pictures we decided to visit Piccadilly Circus next. Although, it is pretty close and within walking distance to Trafalgar Square, we ended up taking the metro to the Piccadilly Circus station.
Coming out of the Piccadilly Circus station, you are greeted by this huge crowd of Londoners going about their business and swaths of tourists milling around. We were pretty hungry by this time and were pretty happy to see a Tesco Metro store nearby. One of the best ways to avoid having a huge dent on your dining budget is scouting grocery/convenience stores for sandwiches/hot-dogs/pizzas which cost a fraction of what it would cost at a restaurant. We ate our lunch sitting amid crowds of people at the Piccadilly Circus intersection.
After our lunch, we got back on the metro and took the Piccadilly line to Knightsbridge metro station which is close to the world famous Harrods store as well as within walking distance of Hyde Park.
We really didn’t have shopping in mind, we were just there for some window shopping. Also my parents wanted to see the Princess Diana memorial at the store. They are fascinated by the English royals!!
Next we walked to the Hyde Park which is only about a 10 minute walk from Harrods. We just walked around and appreciated this green space in the middle of this bustling city.
The weather had turned for the worse by this time and it started drizzling and our time at Hyde Park was cut short. We did come back here on Day 3 of our trip as our last stop before we flew out to Zurich.
By this time we were pretty tired with all the walking that we were not really used to. We took the metro back to the hotel and decided to take a couple of hours nap and get out again later in the afternoon.
After a couple of hours rest, we walked from our hotel to the Westminster Bridge. From the Westminster Bridge, you get a great view of the London Eye, Big Ben and Palace of Westminster (UK Parliament) all from one place. Right next to the Westminster Bridge, along the banks of Thames was the London Eye. We then walked over the bridge by the iconic Big Ben and then on towards the Palace of Westminster. Right opposite of the Palace of Westminster is the Westminster Abbey.
After taking a lot of pictures we kept walking towards Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately by the time we reached the palace, it was quite dark and had started raining. We decided to come back here on our last day again before we left for Zurich. It was back to hotel with metro again. While doing all this sightseeing, we completely missed the 7-1 thrashing of Brazil by Germany in the 2014 World Cup semifinal game :(.
Day 2:
After breakfast, we took the metro to St. Pauls Cathedral.
After spending about half an hour here, we walked to the Milennium Bridge, which is just across the street from the cathedral. We decided to do part of the South-Bank Walk from the Millennium bridge to the Tower Bridge. Even though it was a weekday, we were surprised by the number of tourists and local Londoners walking the Queen’s walk. I would definitely recommend doing the full walk from Westminster Bridge to Tower Bridge.
After crossing the Tower Bridge over the Thames, we came up to the Tower of London. None of us had much interest in going inside, and looking at the huge crowd outside, any remaining interest in going in was all but gone. We walked around taking some pictures from outside and then took the metro back to the hotel.
By this time we were tired and hungry so we went back to the hotel. Before going to the hotel, we had the famed Fish & Chips to go from a local restaurant. It was good but nothing spectacular.
We ended up oversleeping our nap and by the time we woke up in late evening, it was time for the second World Cup 2014 semi-final between Netherlands and Argentina. We did some delivery from a local Indian restaurant and went to bed after the game.
Day 3:
We had a little bit of time before heading out for the airport for our flight to Zurich. We decided to visit the Buckingham Palace first because we only saw it late in the evening on our first day and it was raining. After that we decided to spend a couple of hours at the Hyde Park which is close by.
We took the metro to the Green Park station which is the closest metro stop for Buckingham Palace. Walking across the Green Park we arrived at the palace.
In front of the palace is the Victoria memorial.
We ended up staying for about an hour and a half and then walked from the palace to Hyde Park Corner. On the way we passed the Wellington Arch.
Also on the way was the Australian War Memorial. This is definitely one of the best war memorial architecture I have seen (another one is the Vietnam War Memorial I saw during our Washington DC trip). The wall is filled with names and some of the names are bolded in such a way that in big picture we see the superimposition of some of the battles in which these soldiers fought.
After arriving at the Hyde Park corner we walked inside the Rose Garden and spent about an hour there.
Pretty soon our time in London had come to an end it was time to go to the airport. We came back to the hotel, picked up our luggage and took the London metro (Picadilly Line) back to the airport.
