London - United Kingdom

My shortest blog entry to date, which is ironic, given I could have written the most about this epic city.

I stayed at The Paramount Hotel - so far, the oldest, smallest, most expensive shoe box of a room, with no air-con, no little fridge, and no frills - but a pretty darn good location to compensate - Kensington, London. ($734AUD for 4 nights 😬)

I clocked up my daily steps around Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Kensington High Street and a few other spots close to my stay on Day #1. Days 2 and 3 I bought a 48-hour ticket on the hop-on-hop-off bus (WELL worth it) - the commentary running through the complimentary headphones tells you where you are as you go and gives plenty of fun and interesting history about London town - and I got to see all the main spots I wanted to see in this iconic city. Excellent. On the afternoon on Day #3 here for me, I was done with the bus and stopped at the V & A Museum and ended up spending a couple of hours in there - amazing! I can't even say what the best bits of London were, as I enjoyed it all.. even the weather was great!

I loved the accents, the terraced houses, the corner pubs, the red buses, the old post-boxes, the 'Royal stuff', the underground tube, and the familiar feeling that most likely came from the fact everyone here speaks 'proper' English. Everyone I spoke to was super friendly. I had dinner on my first night at Jimmy's Grill in Kensington and the food and the service was so good, I went back for dinner on my last night here. (I'm sad to report that I can no longer link this one, as it has permanently closed 😥 - perhaps the handsome cook gave away too many free dinners?!) I struck up a conversation with him on the first night and he'd told me it was his Uncles' joint and that he was working there to make extra money while he studied law. He loved the sound of a woman my age traveling the world on her own and insisted on giving me a free dinner!

Other highlights were perhaps eating lunch outside in the beautiful section of Hyde Park dedicated to the peoples' princess - Princess Diana. I also have to rate my visit to Harrods - especially the INCREDIBLE food arena there. As I stood outside the posh department store waiting for the hop-on-bus to come back around, I chomped my way through the BEST chocolate brownie I've ever had in my life - eating it straight from the bag and smiling to myself, wondering how many of the upper-class regulars ever use their free will for such an experience.

So many pics below. 10/10. No notes. Everyone has to do London at least once in their lifetime. Now taking to the skies out of Gatwick, for Paris. My last European country to visit this time around.

London Town