A Quick Stop in London

We built in a 22 hr stop in London on our way home from France and Belgium. We enjoy London and it feels somewhat home-y since A did her masters degree there. It also gave us the chance to meet up with some friends from work and college.

For old times' sake we took the "pokey Piccadilly Line" from Heathrow (the nickname C gave it when he came to visit A 5 times and we were far too poor to pay for Heathrow Express). It was still fairly slow but at least this time it took us right to where we were going without needing to change lines, the Intercontinental Park Lane.

It was a beautiful day so we walked around Mayfair and down to St. James Park. The Paralympic Games were still going on and it was neat to see some remnants of the Olympic events that had been held in the area.

Olympics ticket queue-ing area near Horseguards Parade venue

We took the obligatory tourist shot with a phone booth and Big Ben before strolling along the South Bank of the Thames past the London Eye and thousands of tourists and street performers. We had never seen London this busy. Granted, when A lived there we did not frequent the touristy spots and days with weather this nice were few and far between but there definitely still seemed to be some Olympics buzz going on.

obligatory London tourist picture

As we walked through Trafalgar Square the whole place definitely still had the Olympic spirit with the Jumbotron showing live Paralympic swimming competition.

huge jumbotron in Trafalgar Square

The theme continued in Leicester Square where medals had been hung in the trees for every Team GB medal won in the Games.

While I'm glad we did not try to go to London during the height of the Olympics it was cool to experience a little of the energy that could still be felt in town.

We met up with three of A's colleagues and one of C's fraternity brothers near A's company's London office in Piccadilly Circus.

We went to Pizza Express, which was a bit nostalgic for us since splitting a pizza and a half bottle of wine had been our big date night splurge when A was a student. Luckily we can afford more wine now and we had a fun dinner with friends. Thanks EF, HF, MK and HC for taking time on a busy weeknight to see us! It is always fun to meet up with friends.

After dinner we went in search of traditional British cask conditioned ale served at cellar temperature. To people who are not beer enthusiasts this is the "warm, flat beer" they have in England. We would disagree with that description and quite like cask ales. Though it did seem a bit funny drinking 20 oz pints of 3.5% alcohol ale coming straight from Belgium with all their strong beer served in smaller specialty glassware.

We had grand plans to stay up late in London to help us adjust back to Eastern time quickly so we would be able to stay awake for our friends' wedding in 3 days, but we found ourselves getting sleepy and only just managed to stay awake until 11 pm closing time. Oh well!

The next morning it was back to Heathrow on the pokey Piccadilly line and breakfast at the BA Galleries First lounge before our flight back to Boston in BA business class.

back to the Piccadilly Line