30 Hours in London

How we spent 30 hours in London, from a walk at night along the Thames, to meeting Jamie Oliver, going on an open top bus tour, watching fire dancers, aerial acrobatics and winning an award!

I hadn’t originally intended on blogging about my recent visit to London. Going to the city was just an excuse to visit Cornwall where I visited the lovely Jane from The Hedgecombers, tacked on to the end of the trip like an after thought. If you don’t already follow Jane, you should – especially her YouTube channel. She’ll make you want to kit up a VW campervan and go adventuring! The Cornwall story is for another day though; this one is just about London.

The reason for my visit to London (my fourth visit to the city, ever), was because I was a finalist for the Best Food & Drink Blog in the Vuelio Blog Awards. London is a long, long way away from my home in Shetland (seriously, it’s cheaper to fly overseas than it is to get to London!), and so I hummed and I hawed about going. It was the end of November, the seas could be rough – would it be worth the time and expense?

Eventually, I decided (with gentle persuasion from a friend of mine, thanks Mike – Inside the Horizon), that this was too good an opportunity to pass up. Besides, there was a chance I could actually win at the Vuelio Blog Awards, so wouldn’t I want to be there for that?

When I left Shetland I had nothing planned for my visit to London other than booking my hotel and going to the Vuelio Blog Awards ceremony. Everything else was left to spontaneous chance.  I love leaving things to chance, letting adventures just naturally, spontaneously unfold.

THE THAMES AT NIGHT 

I had asked a friend of mine who has recently moved from Shetland to the mainland to be my plus one for the event, and she kindly agreed. Our separate trains arrived at King’s Cross Train Station (where Harry Potter caught his train to Hogwarts at Platform 9 3/4) within minutes of each other in the late afternoon. We found each other outside the bustling station, and using Google Maps, made our way to the Farringdon Travelodge Hotel, chosen because it was within walking distance of the Vuelio Blog Awards venue and because it was reasonably priced.

It was dark by the time we’d checked in and freshened up after our journeys, so we went for a walk to the Thames, stopping to admire the Fortnum & Mason Christmas Tree outside The Royal Exchange. The city was wearing its finery for the Christmas season, and there was a festive excitement in the air. Getting used to traffic, noise and all those crowds of people again took some getting used to. I really am a quiet country girl at heart.

We thought the long string of taxis on London Bridge was just an epic taxi rank until we got to the other end of the bridge and saw protest banners. They were deliberately blocking access to the bridge in response to a Transport for London scheme which would ban them from accessing a bus lane in Tooley Street near the bridge. Where buses go, taxis should be able to go, they claimed during the (what seemed to be) peaceful protest.

We crossed back over the bridge and hailed an operating taxi; the delay caused us to be slightly late for the one pre-planned event I had arranged: a Turkey Masterclass by KellyBronze.

MEETING JAMIE OLIVER

This was a last minute event invitation. Truth be told, I get invited to an incredible number of events in London every single week – cooking classes, restaurant events, shows, but given that I live 600 miles (965 km) north of London, I have always had to decline them.

The invitation to attend a Turkey Masterclass at Jamie Oliver’s HQ in Islington popped into my inbox earlier that week when I was in Cornwall, and since I had nothing planned for us the first evening we were in the city, I accepted. As I travelled on the train to the city, another email arrived: there might be a special appearance by Jamie Oliver himself!

And there was!

Just a few hours after arriving in London I was shaking hands with one of my favourite celebrities! I think I managed to muster up a goofy-grinned hello, as he thanked me for coming to the event. I totally fangirled.

The Naked Chef was one of the first two cookbooks I bought, 19 years ago, when my eldest son was a baby just starting to eat solids. I thought that was as good a time as ever to actually learn how to cook, and this well-thumbed cookbook still sits on my bookshelf, along with a rather extensive collection of other books.

It was a fabulous evening, learning all about how to cook turkey and why we, as consumers, should be buying quality birds instead of cheaper rapidly grown ones. There was Prosecco, and Jamie served us our dinner – roast turkey on a brioche bun with the most gorgeous coleslaw.

Also attending the event was the lovely Fiona from London Unattached and Gary from the Big Spud, two bloggers I’ve known about for a very long time. Gary’s blogged the recipe for the KellyBronze Turkey Rolls with Winter Slaw we enjoyed – seriously, you need to try this with your leftover turkey.

HOP ON HOP OFF OPEN TOP BUS TOUR OF LONDON

After a good night’s sleep, we were up early and ready to explore the city. As I mentioned previously, we hadn’t arranged anything in advance. We were just going to wing it and see what happened.

My friend had gone on an open top bus tour of Glasgow with her daughter recently, which they really enjoyed, and she suggested perhaps that’s what we could do for the day. I’d never been on a bus tour like that before, anywhere, ever, so I agreed.

The great thing about bus tours, I’ve discovered, is that they’ll drive you around the scenic parts of a city, and if you see anything you like you can just hop off, go exploring, and then hop back on the next bus, repeating as often as you wish. I absolutely loved the idea, so we headed back to King’s Cross to look for a bus. 

The weather, despite it being the end of November and much of England suffering flooding due to the rain, was gloriously sunny and dry. It was crisp, but not unpleasant to be sitting on the top of an open bus with one headphone in listening to the rather interesting audio commentary, the other ear free to listen and chat with my friend.

The first bus to come along was a Golden Tours bus, and we paid our £32 per person fare for a 24-hour ticket at the door. This ticket includes a walking tour (you can choose between a Royal Walking Tour or the Beatles Walking Tour) as well as a Thames River Sightseeing Cruise if you’re interested. 

We were on the #68, the Grand Tour (orange route) which took in as much of the Central London as they could possibly fit in. Departing from King’s Cross we passed by The British Library, The British Museum, Charing Cross, the Royal Courts of Justice (and a hunger strike protest camp), St. Paul’s Cathedral (pictured above) and Pudding Lane, where the Great Fire of London began in a baker’s shop in 1666.

Geek alert: I spent a considerable portion of this bus tour pondering if I’d climbed up the sides of the buildings I could see in the video game Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate. I’d definitely syncronised and elegantly swan dived in a ‘leap of faith’ off the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

We hopped off at London Tower so we could get on the Thames River Sightseeing Cruise. The cruises depart every thirty minutes from Katharine’s Pier, just next to Tower Bridge, or Westminster Pier next to Westminster Bridge, so there’s enough time to grab a snack and drink from a coffee shop while you wait.

During our half hour cruise, we saw famous London landmarks including the Shard, London Tower, HMS Belfast, Big Ben (eerily silent due to renovations), the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye.

Geek alert again: Part of the reason I wanted to do the river cruise was to be on the Thames, like in the Assassin’s Creed video game. Sad, I know. 

We hopped off the Thames river cruise at Westminster, walked across the (absolutely mobbed!) bridge, grabbing a virtual geocache on the way, and hopped back on the next bus to continue the tour.

Next, we travelled back over Westminster Bridge, past Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace and the Marble Arch next to Hyde Park. 

As the bus stopped for traffic lights at the junction, my eyes scanned the park. This brought so many memories back to me. My first ever visit to London was in February 2003. Funnily enough, I was up for another award then too {Edit: I’ve just spent the last hour going through old photos, which started with going through old London photographs on my external hard drive – I now feel old, and I need to remember to take more photographs of my children. It matters.} and my first husband and I spent five nights in the city, doing all the touristy things, an awards ceremony and the Hyde Park anti-war protest. We were two of the million people who protested in London that day. We watched US political activist Rev. Jesse Jackson deliver a powerful speech to the crowd, and I marvelled at how safe and content I felt in a crowd of a million.

From here, the bus continued on through Paddington, down Marylebone Road and through to Euston. We hopped off the bus where we began our tour at King’s Cross, six hours after we’d started it.

RADICAL BOOKSELLERS & A HAIR SALON EXPERIENCE

From here, we popped into the British Library (did you know that they house a copy of every single book published in the UK, or so said our bus tour audio guide) for a cuppa and bite to eat (and browse through the gift shop!). 

It was around this time, mid-afternoon when I started moving from tourist mode into ‘I have an award’s ceremony to go to, I should probably think of getting my hair done!’ mode and so we went on the hunt for a hair stylist who might be able to work some magic on my ginger dreadlocks.

“Less wild cavewoman and more Lagertha,” I requested of the woman at the desk at the Rush King’s Cross Hair Salon. “Come back in half an hour, we’ll sort you right out.” I was promised.

So we went for a little wander and stumbled across a radical bookstore, as you do. Housmans has been a radical bookseller since 1945, and browsing its extensive range of mind-broadening literature I felt rather ignorant and uneducated. Note to self: sort that out. Fewer video games and more books.

VUELIO BLOG AWARDS

After having my hair styled in a rather fabulous Nordic style braid up-do (and sprayed generously with gold glitter) we made our way to the Vuelio Blog Awards at the Bloomsbury Big Top. I felt like a gold-gilded Cinderella heading to the ball, even more so because we had early flights/trains the next morning so we made a plan to be home by midnight.

Much to my surprise and delight, I won the award I was a finalist for! You can read all about the awards ceremony here, but this experience was definitely the icing on a rather fantastic cake. 36 rather epic hours in London, for sure.

Now I realise that not all of you are going to meet Jamie Oliver and win an awards ceremony the next time you visit London, but if you take anything away from this rather meandering blog post it’s to give open top bus tours of a city a go. They’re jolly good fun.

Have you had any crazy adventures while you visited London? Where would you recommend I spend more time the next time I’m there? Let me know in the comments below!

PIN THIS TRIP TO LONDON FOR LATER!