August 7, 2023 - Day 2 in London
I'm going to be honest with you. Our hotel in London was a disappointment. We try not to let it damper our stay... but you know we're both princesses and certain stuff bothers me. It was dirty. The carpet was dirty, the chair had stains on it... the duvet even had a suspect yellow stain on it. There was no soap in the soap dispenser... it felt old and dirty (you know what I mean right?). Anyway, we decided to live with it because it was only 5 days. Then when we woke up this morning Steve went to have a shower and the shower pan didn't drain. I looked online and could see that they had a higher category of room available for the time we were staying. I went down to the desk to change rooms and hopefully upgrade. The girl at the desk told me there was no space, and I told her that I could see there were rooms online. She gave in and agreed to let me "upgrade to the super room" for an extra 15 pounds a night. She asked me to wait a few hours until the other room was ready and then we could move. As we were sitting in our room waiting, a new hotel customer came into our room with a key. They had given our room to another customer while we were still in it. She was mortified and I was feeling frustrated. I went down to the desk with her (and told her she didn't want our room for sure!) and explained the situation (I think pretty nicely for someone who was about done with them!). The manager happened to be at the desk and was also mortified. Short story long we were moved to the super room (which I will concede is better... but certainly not super!) and at least had a mostly clean hotel room this time. Although I will say that the stains on the desk chair appeared as if it had experienced a lot of action... we put an extra blanket on it and tried to remember not to sit on it!
What did I learn from this? Two things.
1) Don't trust other people's recommendations. This was recommended to us by someone who obviously has different hotel expectations than we do.
2) The copious amounts of research I usually do, continue to be necessary. Research, research, and research some more before you book!
After sorting out our hotel room situation we decided to head out to see some sights. I looked at the hop on hop off bus map to see what they were using as stops as those are usually good recommendations for the main sites to see. They didn't look too far apart so we decided to just walk the route. Ha! When will I learn... it's always bigger than it looks on the map. Despite the distance we had a great day 😀
Our first stop was St. Paul's Cathedral. It was beautiful and enormous. We didn't go inside as it worked out to about $35 Canadian each to go in... and we decided we've seen our fair share of European churches. (If you want to go in for free you can go "worship" during services... but I didn't want to see it that bad!)
The current cathedral was consecrated in 1697. There are references that there had been multiple older cathedrals on this site for hundreds of years. Fun fact: Prince Charles and Lady Diana were married in this cathedral! There is also a large crypt (perhaps the largest in Europe if wikipedia is to be believed!) where many famous people are buried AND you can also host receptions for up to 350 guests. Having a reception in a crypt does appeal to me!
Despite all this greatness we only stayed outside, so here is what it looks like outside!
I'm also going to throw in a few photos of random beautiful buildings we saw. We were actually pleasantly surprised with how beautiful and clean London and Westminster proper were (did you know they are two different cities within the greater London area?). We later discovered that the further away you get from this area, the dirtier it becomes. I do love that they are putting their best face forward for tourists and wish our own city might consider doing the same.
How could I not share this beautiful purple shop below?!
As we continued on our walk we made our way to the theatre district. (Note to self: Stay here next time!) One of the things we were excited to do in London was see a couple of shows. You wouldn't believe the number of choices available. We booked one inexpensive play (20 pounds) each for tomorrow, and then got tickets for the musical "Wicked" the following day. I can't remember exactly how much they were, but it was around 70 pounds each. Not bad for a musical of that calibre! I expected it would be way more in London!
As we walked we found even more beautiful buildings! Many restaurants and pubs have beautiful flowers surrounding their doorways and windows.
We found ourselves in Trafalgar Square and enjoyed looking at the space and listening to some excellent buskers. Fun fact: Did you know Trafalgar Square is considered the geographic centre of London?
We also came across this building which is called the Horse Guards building. It originally formed the entrance to the Palace of Whitehall, which is where English monarchs lived from 1530 until 1698 when it was destroyed by fire.
At last we reached Big Ben. It has been renovated in recent years and I do admit it looks glorious!
Big Ben is actually the name of the bell in this tower. The tower was originally called the Clock Tower, but since 2012 has been known as the Elizabeth Tower in honour of the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II.
Now being utterly exhausted (me... obviously... not Steve) we decided to start our walk back (remember we are staying by the Tower Bridge). We stopped for some photo opportunities on the way... especially if there was a place for me to sit while Steve took pictures!
At last we made it back to our hotel. The last thing I remember as I fell on to the bed was asking Steve to take my socks off for me... that's how tired I was. Luckily, sleep repaired my body and I was ready to go the next day!
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