When my mom decided to come visit me for a week in London, I had the Herculean task of crafting an itinerary for her trip. A week, in a city this large with such a range of things to do, is not a long time at all.
Things got even more complicated when I realized that she would only be in London over one full weekend and that I would have to go to work every day during the week. I only had one Saturday to properly show her all the good stuff London had to offer. The challenge was daunting. How could we effectively maximize on this Saturday?
In the end, Liebling suggested a huge loop that would take us through London’s most impressive attractions: a jaunt that would take us along the Thames, then south of the river to Greenwich, then up to the centre of the city to check out trendy Soho. Care to see how we documented our epic pilgrimage in photos?
First we strolled from my apartment to the Tower Bridge. I know that the London Bridge is better known, but this one is way prettier.
Then we took some random pictures in front of the Tower of London. And before you ask, no, we didn’t go inside- it may be a World Heritage Site, but it costs 21 GBP ($33 USD) to enter(!) and I refuse to pay that (that’s a bit excessive, no?).
Our next order of business was to take the Docklands Light Railway to Greenwich, site of 0 degrees longitude aka where the eastern and western hemispheres meet. I had been to Greenwich once before with Liebling and thought that my mom would get a kick out of straddling both hemispheres at once. I was right.
Greenwich also has a fantastic view on London, which provided the perfect sappy mother-daughter photo opportunity. Awww!
Of course, no photo tour of London isn’t complete with at least one botched mother-daughter phone booth picture.
After that, we jumped on a guided ferry tour that took us all the way back up the Thames, to Victoria Embankment. It was funky seeing how the landscape and architecture changed over the course of the ride. Our guide also had a spectacularly cockney accent, which made his jokey commentary even funnier.
There’s the Tower Bridge again!
And again!
And a glimpse of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Finally we disembarked and had a kick-ass view of two of London’s most recognizable landmarks, the London Eye and Westminster Abbey. Hello Big Ben!
I then convinced my mom and Liebling to brave the crowds along the Southbank. On Saturdays there are street performers and vendors and it is absolute madness.
We didn’t stick around for long though. Soon we crossed back over the river and trekked over to Soho. We soon found ourselves at the site of the Seven Dials, a really well known intersection near Covent Garden where seven streets converge. As always, a photo had to be taken to document this discovery. (Thanks, Liebling!)
I somehow managed to convince our resident photographer to get in on the picture taking fun.
Exhausted, we trudged along the Strand and Aldwych and then made one last stop before heading home: Somerset House. We were greeted by a garden of lovely fake flowers (huh?) and exceptionally green lawn. The whole setting just begged to be photographed, so of course we did!
Have you ever heard of or been to any of these places in London? Which one is your favourite or the thing you’d most like to see or do?
58 Comments
How fun! I did a similar itinerary with my then BF (now husband) years ago when he was in London for one day from Finland while I was there with my girlfriend for a week. He thought I was crazy running him all around, but he had never been to London and we were able to see the changing of the guard and do the London Eye. He was so exhausted by the time he left but we still remember how fun our day was. We lucked out on the weather too. It was in February but the weather was super mild. I didn’t go with him, but my BF and I really enjoyed seeing the crown jewels. We rode the little people mover 2x so we could oogle over everything twice!
I spent countless hours at the British Museum and the National Portrait Gallery at Trafalgar Square. Borough Market is one of the finest places to sample a range of cuisines and people watch. No trip to London is complete without a visit to the West End Theatre District or Covent Garden.
I love the Southbank!!! It is my favourite place to be in London because it is so crazy with all those performers and loads of people I can’t help but people-watch. At some point I would love to see the crown jewels and take a tour of Buck Palace, preferably when Old Lizzie is not home.
You and your mum are so cute! Good itinerary 🙂 I’d add in Borough Market just for good measure, because it’s my favourite place in London, but on a Saturday it’s a bit too crazy to brave. Never been to Somerset House, but Greenwich and the Prime Meridian are faves. When I visited for the first time as a nerdy little kid, I was ridiculously excited!
I’ve done all of these things in London, too, with the exception of making it out to Greenwich. Even though I’ve spent almost 3 weeks total in London in recent months, I’ve done hardly any sightseeing there other than what you’ve listed here! (Though I HAVE been inside the Tower of London, and also visited Westminster Abbey and made a brief stop outside Buckingham Palace.) When I’ve been in London, I’ve often been staying with friends who have taken me to some of the less-touristy areas of the city – probably why I’ve fallen so in love with it!
you guys look so alike! gorgeous pictures!
Great post! Looks like you caught London in the most perfect sightseeing weather!
That picture of you and your mom in Greenwich is adorable 🙂
Good ideas! I’ve been inside the Tower and we loved it! Our guide was hysterical and I’d go back because we didn’t get to see all. I’d love to go to Greenwich and straddle the lines! This will help me add things to me “be a geeky tourist” list when I get into London!
Maybe we can go together when you get here!
My mom and I did 12 hours in London while she was in Paris two weeks ago (love the Eurostar)! We did a slightly different itinerary and I wish we’d had ridden the ferry but didn’t have time. London is just too big!
That’s the thing with London- so much to see but everything is so spread out! Argh!
I have just been to the London Eye and saw the Tower of London from a distance. I am not paying £22 for going inside but I never tried when I went there before. 🙂
I think just snapping the pic from outside was enough for me 🙂
Love this!!! Supercharged sightseeing!
We figured we didn’t have a lot of time so we’d pack it all in!
1. I’m so jealous of the beautiful weather! When I was there it poured rain.
2. I was there for less than a day so thanks for all the ideas of what to do on my next visit!!
No problem! Hopefully next time you ll be luckier with the weather.
Some great sites to see. The only other place I’d have tried to seewould be Camden. The markets there are good fun to walk around and you can get some great food as well.
I really like Camden but often am too lazy to go up there- it’s far! But I definitely will include it next time!
What a cute post! London was my first trip internationally on route to Essex (don’t ask!) and we really only had a day or two to see it. We took the double decker bus to see the highlight of the sights. I loved Tower Bridge and Buckingham Palace for their extravagant exteriors. Walking around was fun too. The second time around, Top Shop was my favourite sight. 🙂 I think I need to be in London for more than a weekend.
My city is looking good! So happy you and your mum enjoyed yourself.
Hey, I love your blog!!!!!!!!!!!! And I love London…
I’ve been there twice, just on two short weekend trips while I was living in Spain. I got to see Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Leicester Square, Hyde Park, Victoria & Albert Art Museum, Science Museum (awesome!), Tower Bridge, and the Tate Modern all within those two trips. Tasted an English breakfast, shepherd’s pie, and fish n chips! And I partied in London as well!!!!!!! Each time makes me want to come back… Your post makes me want to go back and visit Greenwich, because I’ve never been there, nor have I been to the Somerset House!
I didn’t know that.
After going over a number of the articles on your web page, I seriously like
your way of writing a blog. I bookmarked it to
my bookmark site list and will be checking back soon. Please check out my website as
well and tell me what you think.
Hello to every one, it’s truly a good for me to pay a visit this website,
it consists of valuable Information.
I am sure this paragraph has touched all the internet viewers, its really
really pleasant article on building up new web site.
Why users still use to read news papers when in this
technological world all is presented on web?
Thanks very nice blog!
great submit, very informative. I ponder why the opposite experts of
this sector don’t notice this. You must proceed your writing.
I’m sure, you have a huge readers’ base already!
Undeniably believe that which you stated. Your
favorite reason seemed to be on the net the easiest thing to be aware of.
I say to you, I certainly get irked while people
think about worries that they plainly don’t know about. You managed to hit
the nail upon the top and also defined out the whole
thing without having side effect , people can take a signal.
Will likely be back to get more. Thanks
I have been exploring for a bit for any high quality articles or blog
posts on this kind of area . Exploring in Yahoo I
ultimately stumbled upon this website. Reading this info
So i am satisfied to convey that I’ve a very just right uncanny feeling I came upon just what I needed.
I so much without a doubt will make sure to don?t disregard this
web site and provides it a glance on a relentless basis.
It’s awesome to pay a quick visit this web page and reading the views
of all colleagues regarding this paragraph, while I am also keen of getting familiarity.
I’m gone to inform my little brother, that he should also pay a
visit this webpage on regular basis to get updated from newest news.
There’s definately a lot to learn about this topic.
I love all the points you’ve made.
Excellent article. I certainly appreciate this
website. Keep writing!
Hey this is kinda of off topic but I was wondering if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you
have to manually code with HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding know-how so I wanted to
get advice from someone with experience. Any help would be enormously appreciated!
What’s up, its nice post about media print, we all understand media is a wonderful source of facts.
With havin so much content and articles do you ever run into
any issues of plagorism or copyright violation? My website has a lot
of exclusive content I’ve either created myself or outsourced
but it seems a lot of it is popping it up all over the internet without my
authorization. Do you know any techniques to help stop content from being
ripped off? I’d certainly appreciate it.
I love what you guys are up too. This sort of clever work and exposure!
Keep up the good works guys I’ve included you guys to blogroll.
Wow that was unusual. I just wrote an extremely long comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn’t appear.
Grrrr… well I’m not writing all that over again. Anyways,
just wanted to say wonderful blog!
I am in fact delighted to glance at this web site posts which carries tons of valuable facts, thanks for providing these information.
Quality articles is the crucial to interest the viewers to go to see the website, that’s what this web
site is providing.
An outstanding share! I have just forwarded this onto a colleague who has been conducting a little research on this.
And he actually ordered me breakfast due to the fact that I discovered it for him…
lol. So let me reword this…. Thanks for the meal!! But yeah, thanks for spending time to discuss
this topic here on your web site.
This is very interesting, You are a very skilled blogger.
I’ve joined your rss feed and look forward to seeking more of
your wonderful post. Also, I have shared your web site in my social networks!
Woah! I’m really loving the template/theme of this blog.
It’s simple, yet effective. A lot of times it’s hard to get that “perfect balance” between user friendliness and appearance.
I must say that you’ve done a fantastic job with this.
Also, the blog loads extremely fast for me on Firefox.
Excellent Blog!
My brother suggested I might like this web site. He was totally right.
This post actually made my day. You can not imagine simply how much time I had spent for this information! Thanks!
Hiya! Quick question that’s completely off topic. Do you know
how to make your site mobile friendly? My web site looks weird when browsing from my iphone 4.
I’m trying to find a theme or plugin that might be able to correct this problem.
If you have any suggestions, please share. Thanks!
Hello there I am so thrilled I found your blog page, I really found
you by error, while I was researching on Aol for something else,
Anyways I am here now and would just like to say thank you for a marvelous post and a all round
enjoyable blog (I also love the theme/design), I don’t have time to read it all at the minute
but I have bookmarked it and also added your RSS feeds,
so when I have time I will be back to read a great deal more,
Please do keep up the superb job.
This website was… how do I say it? Relevant!!
Finally I have found something that helped me. Thanks!
It’s enormous that you are getting thoughts from this
post as well as from our argument made here.
If some one needs expert view about blogging
then i suggest him/her to pay a visit this web site, Keep up the pleasant work.
Excellent blog here! Also your site loads up very fast!
What web host are you using? Can I get your affiliate link to your host?
I wish my website loaded up as quickly as yours lol
I seriously love your website.. Excellent colors & theme.
Did you create this site yourself? Please reply back as I’m attempting to create my own personal site and would love to learn where you got this from or exactly what the theme is called.
Thanks!
Hey there! Someone in my Myspace group shared this
website with us so I came to give it a look.
I’m definitely loving the information. I’m book-marking and will be tweeting this to my followers!
Excellent blog and outstanding design and style.
Hey there! Quick question that’s completely off topic.
Do you know how to make your site mobile friendly?
My web site looks weird when browsing from my apple iphone.
I’m trying to find a theme or plugin that might be able to resolve
this issue. If you have any suggestions, please share. Many thanks!
Excellent article. Keep writing such kind of info on your site.
Im really impressed by your site.
Hello there, You’ve performed a fantastic job.
I will certainly digg it and individually recommend to
my friends. I am sure they’ll be benefited from this website.
Wonderful views on that!
I was just telling my friend about that.
Comments are closed.