10 Days United Kingdom Itinerary: London, Scotland, Manchester (Part 4)
Welcome to Part 4 of my travelogue in UK. If you haven't read Part 1, 2 & 3, click on the below links to read up first!
We bid Manchester farewell today, board our Virgin Trains at 955am onwards to London Euston station. This time we booked the first class cabin to try it out. I think it cost us £55 (S$100) for each ticket, and it includes a complimentary meal. We had the option of big breakfast, salmon scrambled egg, porridge or bacon roll. My mom and i took the salmon scrambled egg option and my dad chose porridge. He's a real asian dude, so after many days of western food, he was craving for some porridge/grains/rice. To his dismay, porridge in UK means oats, and not our typical asian kind of congee. When his oats came, he was so disappointed, and he wasn't a big fan of oats either. But since it's been ordered and delivered, he had no choice but to eat it while smelling our freshly scrambled eggs. hahaha! Poor thing!
2 hours later, we've reached London. Since we stayed in an airbnb earlier in London, we decided to try a local hotel for our last 3 days... We booked Judd Hotel which was located within walking distance from Euston train station. The hotel room is TINY!!!!! I've heard that London hotels are known to be small, but this is really the first time i've experienced it. I would recommend everyone to book airbnb instead if you like having a big space to walk around, pack your luggage, dine together etc.
This day was spent exploring London sights as we didn't do that in the earlier part of our trip. We did purchase the London Pass, but it was for the last day and we only purchased the 1 Day pass. So on this day, we planned to visit all the iconic places of interest that is absolutely free and a museum which wasn't included in the London Pass. We left the places that requires an entry ticket but covered in London Pass for the last day to do.. btw, we realized that it's impossible to squeeze so many sights in a single day for London Pass, which is something we regret doing....
We took the Tube everywhere we went in London with the Oyster card we got on our first day. London's metro system is incredibly convenient, so we took the tube everywhere. The fares are not as cheap as Singapore, but it's definitely cheaper than getting a taxi/uber.
First stop we visited was the British Museum. This museum is free entry and it's open from 10am - 530pm. We spent quite some time in this museum as it was slightly more interesting than the other museums that we had previously visited.
Next stop is the famous Buckingham Palace. We didn't plan to go inside the Palace as it costs £25 per entry and it's NOT included in the London Pass as well. Well, to us, a photo outside the Palace is good enough....
From Buckingham Palace, we walked over to Big Ben. It took us about 15min to walk briskly over. You're unable to enter Big Ben if you're not a UK resident, and you have to contact the MP or a member of House of Lords months in advance to secure a tour spot if you fit the criteria. I guess for most tourists, everyone just wants a picture with Big Ben and call it a day...
From Big Ben, it is a short 10min walk to London Eye, and you can easily spot it from far... London Eye is also NOT included in the London Pass, so a picture with it is good for us. Since it was almost evening after we're done with the sight hopping, we went back to Oxford street to do some shopping! Couldn't resist myself to buy unnecessary stuff from Primark.. hahaha, every girl's weakness. We stumbled upon a cool looking place called The Glassblower Restaurant at Piccadilly for dinner. Yummmm, the fish and chips is so good! Total damage for 7 pax is £79.40 (S$141).
Day 9 - London (3 February)
This day has got to be my absolute absolute favourite day!!!! We're going shopping at Bicester Village. If you don't already know, London is famous for having this amazing outlet mall called Bicester Village. They've got literally every brand that i love over here. A tip is to go early, and be ready to be squashed by china tourists. We booked the Express Bus service from Bicester village, which cost us about £20 each? But they had specific pickup points (normally near big hotels), so we had to take a train in the morning to the nearest pickup point. The bus journey was quite long due to the traffic on the road.
Once i reached the village, i zoomed off to the various stores that i wanted to buy stuff from. If you're going Bicester, and want to fully maximize your time spent here, you need to make a mental route of where to go/which shop to go. Eliminate any stores that you're not interested in, and just go straight to the shops that you want to buy stuff from. Trust me, there won't be enough time even so. The Prada shop had a very long queue just to enter, so you should head there first. Btw, they have Miu Miu products inside the Prada store, so you don't have to search for an actual Miu Miu store as there isn't. The shops at bicester are all stand alone, and it's not really like a mall, it's kinda like a village with individual boutique shops. The place is neither big or small, i think it's sufficient. I went crazy here and bought shit loads of stuff that i've been wanting to buy...
Food wise, there isn't much options. There's a chinese noodle store in the middle of the village, very clever of them... There's a coffee place where you'll find majority guys inside, y'know waiting and guarding the ladies' shopping goods....
The latest bus departure for the Express service is 5pm, so we had about 5hrs to shop? There is tax refund counter there, but it is soooo packed with tourists and the bus was leaving soon. We did our tax refund at the airport anyway but the queue was long as well. However, as we had anticipated it already, we went early on our last day...
These are our shopping hauls from Bicester Village. i would go back again any time to continue shopping. :D
Since it was our last night, I had to meet my friend, Stephanie, before i left. I met Steph during my uni placement at Australia, we worked together on Fitzroy Island Resort and she is such a darling! Ever since she left Fitzroy to go back UK, i've been wanting to visit her. Just nice i'm visiting London and she's around too, so we met for dinner and drinks that evening.
That is us above (in the middle row), taken in January 2014 at the countdown party for NYE at Fitzroy island. And below is current (2017!).
It was our last day today, and we had to make the most out of it!! We had breakfast at the hotel in the morning, and set off for Borough market straightaway. Borough market is kinda like an organic, fresh local produce market. You'll find many specialty products here, some can be quite pricey, but you won't see them at your regular supermarket. it's good to have a look around... it was pretty quiet in the morning when we went, which is good for us!
Oh yes, my bro and i saw this specialty meat shop and we knew we had to try one of the meats. Since the today's specials is Crocodile burger, we went for that! The meat taste is quite gamey, but it doesn't taste too bad. None for xinni though, as she was pregnant at that time... baby claire was still kicking around inside her then. heh.
After borough market, we started on our 1 Day London Pass sightseeing trip. From borough market, we walked over to Tower Bridge and Tower of London. But, we couldn't miss the London Bridge! Actually London Bridge didn't look like what i had imagined. I thought it would be very grand and nice, but it was quite a run down bridge that cars pass by every day. The nice looking structure that is a bridge as well, is actually the Tower Bridge... not to be confused with the London Bridge...
Standing on London Bridge, taking a photo of Tower Bridge at the far background..... :B
Tower Bridge and Tower of London is within walking distance from one another from London bridge... But it was drizzling when we were walking over :(
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| Singapore's Henderson Bridge being featured here as one of the Great Bridges in the World |
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| Of course, not forgetting Sydney's Harbour Bridge! |
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| It's glass! and the road below is an actual functioning road! |
After Tower Bridge, we walked over to Tower of London, which is a medieval castle housing the Crown Jewels. I think many people get confused over these 3, i myself got confused before coming here too.
We took the Hop on Hop off bus to get to Shakespeare Globe Theater. The bus comes at intervals of 30min i think, i can't quite recall. But when we got to the Shakespeare theater, we missed the tour timing and the next one was in the late afternoon. Since we didn't have enough time to spare, we just walked through the theater ourselves and browsed through the exhibits quickly before leaving to catch the next HOHO bus.
Caught the HOHO bus and since there wasn't enough time to visit another exhibition/museum, we took a downtown trip on the top deck of the bus and looked at the museums from far. hahahaha!
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| Westminster Palace which we didn't have enough time to visit. :( noooooo |
Anyway, if you bought branded goods in London, it's best to pack them in a separate luggage, and you have to bring them to the tax refund counter. Some will open up your luggage to check the items that you bought, some won't. It depends on the item that you've purchased. So do remember to have everything with you before you queue at the Tax refund counter, or you'll be wasting precious time.
This is our itinerary below for 10 days. If you want the excel version, feel free to drop me a message with your email, I'll gladly send it over to you.
London was really amazing and it's great to be doing free and easy trip, which allows greater flexibility in the schedule and time spent at different places. Hope you guys enjoyed my blog post on my 4-Part London trip!
xoxo,
Chye
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