{england: london}

(other posts on the trip)

After the Warner Brothers tour, we finally drove back to Heathrow to drop off our rental car and then hopped on the train to London. We were there for most of the trip (Monday night through Saturday morning) and couldn't wait to spend time in the city again.

We stayed in two different neighborhoods—Notting Hill and South Kensington—and both of our Airbnbs were great. We also spent the night at the ritzy Milestone Hotel in the middle of the week (since we decided last minute not to go to Paris) and it was fun to pamper ourselves for a night. I should note here that all of our flights, the hotel, and the rental car were paid for by credit card points. Take advantage of that if you can!

We planned our time in London really well. We knew our only completely sunny and warm(er) day would be on Tuesday—our first full day in the city—so we decided to start far out and make our way in. After some breakfast at our flat (first photo below), we took the tube to the Tower of London and walked from there. We ended up walking 13 miles that day! I'm so glad we took advantage of the weather and spent most of the day outside. The city was so beautiful that day.

Throughout the week we didn't have set plans and instead just did anything that caught our eye. London has so many amazing (free) museums, so on the chillier/overcast days we took full advantage of them; we visited eight! My favorites were the Imperial War Museum and the National Gallery. We skipped all tours except Kensington Palace, since we both had never done it before, and it was definitely worth it. The current exhibition is about Princess Diana's fashion, so it was a great time to visit.

Very last minute we also attended the D&AD Awards on behalf of my agency. I hadn't brought anything fancy to wear (we packed in carry-ons), but thankfully Zara and Top Shop saved the day. The ceremony was very cool to be a part of and the entire experience was especially rewarding.

I love this city. Public transportation is easy to navigate, the people are nice, the architecture is beautiful, and the history is abundant.