London
30 June – 7 July 2023
My husband and I had both been to London before, but this trip was specifically driven by the idea of attending Wimbledon. We both love to play tennis and also really enjoy watching it. Our hopes of seeing Roger Federer compete for the title once more were dashed when he suddenly retired. What a bummer, but that didn’t deter us. Once we booked our tickets for Wimbledon, everything else fell into place. We knew we wanted to spend at least three weeks overseas, and our trip ended up running twenty-six days. This post only covers London. I’ll do separate write-ups for the other places we visited.
Windsor Castle
We flew overnight on a direct flight to London, which got us in around lunch time. We took an Uber/Bolt from the airport to our hotel. This is a good time to talk about the traffic in London. In a word: horrendous. It takes forever getting into and out of London. Anytime you can feasibly travel on the tube or by foot, do it. It took us over an hour to travel less than 20 miles.
That ties in with the first place we visited, Windsor Castle. We got settled in and checked out the area around our hotel the day we arrived. The following morning, we had tickets to tour Windsor Castle. It is essential you book your tickets ahead of time. We saw many people being turned away at the entrance because they didn’t have tickets.
This outing was one of the very long and frustrating trips trying to get out of London. Windsor Castle is 20+ miles outside of London and again it took us more than an hour to get there by Uber/Bolt. Besides the annoying car trip, Windsor Castle was very interesting and really beautiful. You do have to wait in different lines while touring different parts of the castle. It was definitely worth seeing though. Unfortunately you aren’t allowed to take pictures inside. So you can only see what the outside looks like.
The photo above is a shot overlooking one of the gardens at the castle. It blew my mind to learn that this is both the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world, dating back more than 1,000 years. So much fascinating history. It has been home to 39 British monarchs, and now serves as the final resting place for Queen Elizabeth II.
During our week in London, we stayed at The Savoy. It was a beautiful hotel with an amazing staff. The breakfast that was included each morning was incredible. We did run into an issue with there not being heat in our room and unfortunately it was unseasonably cold for a few days while we were there. Otherwise it was an incredible stay and its location was perfect for us.
Royal Air Force Museum
On our second day in town we headed to the Royal Air Force Museum. For this trip we took the tube and it was an easy and quick journey. My husband is fascinated with aircraft and WWII, so this was right up his alley. He had the opportunity to sit in the cockpit of a Supermarine Spitfire. He loved every minute of it. That night we had dinner reservations at the Savoy Grille, which is a Gordon Ramsay restaurant. Unfortunately it was very disappointing. My husband’s filet came out completely raw. So I sat there eating my Beef Wellington while his steak was sent back, then by the time his properly cooked steak came out I was done with my meal and I sat there and watched him eat. On our last trip to London we had an Incredible meal at Gordon Ramsay Restaurant. This was nothing like our previous experience.
Mabelle Ortiz
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Luis Miles
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Supermarine Spitfire
Our third and fourth day in London were spent attending Wimbledon. This is something we were really excited about. Truth be told, this turned out to be a little bit of a disappointment. On our second day it rained non-stop, so we felt like we missed out on being able to roam around the outdoor courts. Thankfully, we had Centre Court tickets on the second day, so at least we still got to see plenty of tennis. Wimbledon is a beautiful tennis center. We did get to see Roger Federer being honored by the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton. So that was cool. We also saw some movie stars while we were there too. We got a good look at actors Tom Hiddleston, Jack Huston and Will Coulter.
We did get to see some amazing tennis. My favorite match was between Coco Gauff and Sofia Kenin. It was a pure battle. It was a slugfest, and I hated that one of them had to be eliminated. I also got to meet my favorite chair umpire on day one. His name is Mohamed Lahyani. I just love that he’s always smiling and really seems to love his job. We also got to see Andy Murray get a big win at home. On our way back to the tube, we got drenched in a torrential downpour. I guess we should have expected it, we were in England.
The following day was pretty relaxing and slow paced. We went on a tour of Royal Albert Hall and wandered around a bit. The tour was pretty fascinating. So much of London’s history is tied to Queen Victoria and her husband Albert, Prince Consort.
The South Coast
I’ve always really enjoyed British movies and TV series, so I’ve heard mention of The White Cliffs of Dover, for what seems like forever. The southern coast of England was a place that’s we’d never been to. We booked an all day tour that took us to Canterbury, Deal and The Cliffs of Dover. This tour was crap, there’s no way around it. We got to Canterbury, and the main attraction there is the Canterbury Cathedral, England’s first cathedral dating back to 597 AD. We arrive and our “supposed” tour guide gave us sparse directions to the cathedral and said we needed to be back to the van in 2 hours. We thought we were going to be guided to the different tour locations, we were wrong. So we wander around trying to follow his “directions”, finally get there and the cathedral is completely closed due to an official function. Total and complete waste of time. Of course, our “guide” didn’t give us his contact number, so we just had to wander around until he came back with the van. When we told him the cathedral was closed, he didn’t seem to really care.
Our next stop was the small seaside town of Deal. This was our designated place to get lunch. He only gave us 45 minutes which left most people scrambling. Thankfully, my husband and I had burned up a good hour in Canterbury eating an early lunch. The little town was interesting, with some really cute restaurants and shops. It’s safe to say that British beaches are very different than the beaches we’re used to in the U.S. There was no sand to be found, only rocks.
Our final stop before heading back to London was The White Cliffs of Dover. This was what I was most looking forward to. The cliffs are famous throughout history for many arrivals, crossings and invasions. They’re absolutely beautiful and you could spend an entire day hiking along them. This is what really pissed me off about this tour. We only had an hour at the cliffs. So we wasted 2 hours in Canterbury and saw nothing, but had to rush to try and take a stroll along the cliffs. I was fuming on our long, tedious drive back to London. Despite this, I did enjoy finally seeing the cliffs with my own eyes. Far off in the distance you could see the coast of France. I would have loved to have 2-3 hours to walk leisurely along the cliffs. Needless to say, that tour got a very bad review from me, and surprise, surprise they never contacted me afterwards.
Wrapping up London
It was a bummer that our week in London ended on such a disappointing tour, but I think we more than made up for it during our nightly strolls. This was my favorite part of staying in London. Once the sun went down and the tourists thinned out, we’d go for a walk. We saw so many beautiful places this way, and it was nice because we could enjoy them without all the crowds. We walked a lot around the Parliament and Big Ben area, and also around the Tower Bridge.
Of course, I have to talk a little bit about the food before I wrap this up. We were really surprised by how accommodating many places were with my husbands intolerance of dairy and gluten. The breakfast restaurant in the Savoy went out of their way to provide him as many options as possible. We even found an all Dairy & Gluten-Free restaurant called Indigo that was just a couple blocks from our hotel. It was fantastic. So many delicious options. When in London, you can pretty much find any type of food you desire. There is no shortage of different cuisines to pick from, and you can spend a little or a whole lot if you want to.
Here we have a salmon poke bowl, fish-n-chips, a traditional English Breakfast, mango Crème brûlée, a plate of German sausages and the famous Strawberries & Cream at Wimbledon.
Overall, we had a fabulous time in London. With just a few minor issues, it went off without a hitch. London is definitely a town I would recommend visiting. There is so much history, great food and incredible architecture to enjoy.