We both travel to London regularly for business so we try to add a couple of vacation days to a business trip when our schedules align. It’s also one of our favourite international cities. We’ll admit that it can be too busy and sometimes grungy but it the city always feels alive to us. It’s easy to get around in for a city of it’s size thanks to the Tube, Black Cabs and Ubers. It’s also very walkable which is our preferred mode of transportation. We love the pubs on every corner, the shops and the wide variety of food.
This trip was in January of 2020, before the world was turned on it’s head with COVID-19. Both GMac and CMac had business meetings in the UK for the upcoming week and we left on Friday to get a weekend away together before the business week started.
Each time we travel to London for pleasure we try to explore a different part of the city.
Getting There
We’re almost always coming into London via Heathrow airport. Occasionally we’ve come in through Gatwick but that’s been the exception. It’s relatively easy to get into the city from the airport and include your usually options of Black Cab/Uber or public transportation.
- Black Cab/Uber – The most expensive option (£45 – £75) to get into the city but it can be the fastest point to point. It’s more economical if you’re travelling with a group.
- Heathrow Express – Express train from Heathrow to Paddington station, runs every 15mins. Approximately (£37 round trip but fairs vary and are more expensive one way). More economical for one than a Black Cab/Uber but more expensive than the Tube. It’s really convenient if you’re staying around Paddington station but if not we don’t find it any faster than the Tube on it’s own.
- The Tube – The Piccadilly line runs from Heathrow into the heart of London. While there are a lot of stops along the way and it can feel like a milk-run it’s very economical (£6 although can be cheaper with Oyster card) and convenient for dropping you off in most locations in the city.
Over time we’ve gravitated toward the Tube as our preferred method of getting into the city. It’s very reasonably priced and it’s been reliable for us.
Accomodations
We’re both Marriott rewards members and tend to stay in Marriotts for business travel. We like their hotels and there are usually a range of options in the cities we’re travelling to. It’s helpful for accumulating hotel points for use on vacations. For this trip we choose to stay in an area of the city that we hadn’t spent much time in before – the south bank near Waterloo station. We stayed at the Bankside Hotel, Autograph Collection. The hotel was excellent and we’d highly recommend it. The room was modern and breakfasts in the morning were very good.
In other trips we’ve stayed in South Kensington, Westminster, Saint Pancreas and Paddington. All of the locations we’ve stayed in offer good access to the city either through the Tube or walking. We’ve stayed in South Kensington for the majority of business trips because you can get some good deals on hotels in the area.
Exploring the City
Since we were on the South Bank we took the opportunity to explore the area around the hotel in more depth. We spent much of the first day in London walking along the Thames along paths and sidewalks. As with most areas in Londons there are lots of shops and pubs you can find along your travels. The highlight of the day was the Borough Market which we hadn’t previously been aware of. It’s a warren of shops, mostly food related, that spans a few blocks. We enjoyed wandering the area and tasting some of the foods in the market. The Bourough Market is just south of London Bridge we walked across since we were in the area.
For the evening we stuck to the South bank and enjoyed some of the local pubs and a local restaurant. Overall a great night.
On day 2 we decided to do what we normally do, just walk and explore. Since we had spent most of day 1 on the South Bank we headed across the Blackfriar bridge and aimed ourselves for the British Museum. London has some great museums but we’re not really museum people. This day we felt we needed to hit one London tourist spot so we chose the British Museum. It also gave us a good walking target for the day and brought us through Covent Garden. Covent Garden is a spot we hit regularly while in London, it’s got a good selection of stores for shopping along with restaurants or pubs. It’s fairly central so usually if we’re walking above we’ll end up in Covent Garden at some point. If you’re in London we recommend it.
We ended up at the British Museum around noon. As we mention above we not big museum people and tend to try to hit the highlights when visiting. CMac says this is one of GMac’s most appealing qualities. We were very thankful that the British Museum gives you a ‘highlight tour’ and recommends 12 objects to see while in the museum. We jumped all over that and made our way through the museum with efficiency in mind. Being fair to the museum, it was well laid out and featured a great selection of historical artifacts. You really could spend a full half or full day there if museums interest you. For us, an hour was good and we left feeling like it was time well spent.
The British Museum was a good distance from our hotel so by the time we meandered back to our hotel it was evening. We grabbed supper at a pub and had a quiet night. We had a week of work ahead us with some travel in the UK so we needed to get ready.