#Travel_Tuesday: London
Our last leg of the 2019 Europe trip with the family ends in London. We flew out of Berlin into London arriving 27 December. While I was prepared for more wet winter weather, surprisingly, London was dryer than Berlin. In London we have relatives who live here as well as meeting up my sister and her family who was also on holiday in Great Britain.
Of course, sticking to our grand plan for this trip – which was to see the Christmas parades in our 3 chosen cities and eating our way through Europe – we did very little of the touristy thing. We didn’t plan to see the London Bridge, Big Ben or even where the queen stays. We decided to take the road least travelled and embarked on an exploratory journey of one of the greatest cities in Europe.?
We had few people to meet in and around London as we were preparing one of my girls for her coming studies here. Even then, we still had time for do everything on our checklist. From the airport, we took a train out into the area where our Airbnb was and dropped off our luggage by early afternoon. The suburb was typical out of central London but the houses seem new with the occasional tall apartments blocking the view. What was more interesting to us was the rows and rows of shops where people of all nationality seem to be trading their wares. We could smell food as we walked down the main street in Tyburnia and Paddington. We opted for Garfunkel’s which was not far from our apartment and had a hearty all day breakfast and an order of pancakes.?
Our Christmas fair destination would be Hyde Park, where the open area was transformed into a brightly lit winter wonderland. The crowd was amazing, with thousands of people queuing to get into the fair. We had a good time in the fair but the food was not as great as the one in Berlin. However, we did have our fill of the wine, beer and variety of food. We were entertained by live music in the fair and London being such a melting pot of cultures, we were treated to different types of food.
We finished quite late into the evening and finally rested fully satisfied with our Christmas fair in London. The next morning, we travelled by underground to various areas of interest. One of which was the Borough Market where we knew once again, we will be able to savor good food. We had paella, seafood, some fruits and tasted some cheese in the market. After that, we walked the streets of London enjoying the crisp cold weather, doing some window shopping before we met our friends and family.
Travelling during winter is refreshing and as long as we are bundled up nicely, we are safe from the elements. However, like all our trips, proper planning to places to visit in each country will make the journey more productive. After this trip, the whole world was locked down until recently. I hope that my travels will resume as there are so much in this wide world to see.
Till then...
#traveltuesday