A Quick Trip to London

 London

Since the last blog was about the most Portuguese village in all of Portugal, it's only fitting that we now move onto the most English village-on-steroids in all of England. Welcome to London!

In order to cover all of London you'd have to write a book, as there's just so much to say about the place. I'm not going to do that for two reasons 1) I don't feel like writing a book about London 2) I don't know enough about London. We happened to be down there for one night and the two days either side of said night (that's how days and nights work by the way). The main purpose of the trip wasn't to go sightseeing, but because we were going to a Dwarf Metal gig (yes, you read that right) with the main performance by Windrose (Digy, digy hole!). As we don't go down to London all that often, we wanted to make the most of it and do a few touristy things that we haven't done before and this is what this blog is going to be about. First we'll head over to the Sky Garden, then onto Leadenhall Market, then a brief mention of the Bank of England Museum with a bite of pizza and we'll then finish off at the top of The Shard. Let's go!

Sky Garden

As the name suggests, the idea is that it's a relatively tropical (bring a jumper as it can get a little chilly anyway) garden at the top of one of the taller buildings in central London. It's spans over the height of 35th to 37th floor levels and has an outdoor viewing terrace to the front with a brilliant view over London. The thing to point out at this point is that the terrace isn't open during all of the opening hours of the Sky Garden and at times it will be shut due to adverse weather (I imagine it wouldn't be much fun getting blown around by the wind at that height). Therefore if you want to step out onto the large terrace then book your tickets for between 10am and 6pm. 

As with a lot of these places now, you go through nearly airport like security when you enter the building, you then get into a lift which takes you up to the 35th floor. When you walk out you're greeted by the wonderful view through the glass front. Once we had a quick look around, we decided to join the queue for the drink and pastry combo which wasn't too long at that time in the morning. 

Dotted around the place are tables, chairs and a few sofas so there's a decent amount of space to grab a seat. I imagine it fills up quite quickly in summer / season though. You can sit where you can see in the image above which is the 35th floor, on the 36th floor which only has a couple of benches amongst the plants and then on the 37th floor which has some more seating. The view is very good from up there with glass pretty much all around. You will easily spot the Tower Bridge, HMS Belfast (the warship), The Shard and many other London landmarks. You can see The Shard on the horizon to the left in the image below.

There are a couple of bars (more like bar counters) up there and I think a restaurant. If you're thinking of going to one then do check the opening times online, but the main counter to the front I think is open throughout the day. Keep in mind that you will pay a premium for anything you buy up there.

Overall I would say it's definitely worth visiting as the view is brilliant, it's something different, but I don't think you'll be spending hours up there. I would say an hour up there will do most people and some will be on their way sooner than that.  

The Sky Garedn Winge

We booked a slot for sunrise which was an act of self-harming if I'm honest. We headed there the day after the Windrose gig ...  The gig finished just after 11pm, we made it back to the hotel for 30 mins past midnight and we had to be up at 6am the following morning to make it in time. Anyway, we made it just about awake and as a part of the sunrise package we booked we were entitled to a pastry and a hot drink, which sounded quite nice. For our hot drink and pastry it was a hot chocolate for both of us and I saw some muffins so wanted to get one of those, except a muffin apparently was too luxurious to be included within the combo so I ended up with a pain au chocolate instead. If you go for the same then don't expect too much as they're just standard pastries that you may get from a supermarket, in fact Aldi (or Lidl, never remember which one it is) sell much better quality ones. The hot chocolate was however by far the worst hot chocolate I have ever had the misfortune of drinking in my life. If you make yourself a hot chocolate, drink it and rinse the mug out afterwards, the hot chocolate up there tastes like the water that you rinsed the mug out with afterwards and is probably about the same temperature as well. Saying it was bad would be an understatement, so save yourself the ordeal and don't order a hot chocolate whilst up there. In fact, do yourself a favour and don't order anything, because you don't have to. All over the place there were signs dotted around that you don't need to buy anything in order to sit down and enjoy the view. Therefore I suggest this cunning plan ... go to a shop in advance and get yourself a drink you like (bottled ideally to avoid any issues taking it in) with a snack or two of your choosing. Then when you're up there, have something you will enjoy! You're welcome!  

Leadenhall Market

It's one of those places where old meets the new. Here you have this old market place dating back to the 1321 (America was discovered in 1492 for reference for example) surrounded by these massive modern buildings. You'll see sights like this all over London but what makes this one so nice is how well preserved it is.

It's not the sort of place I would recommend you go out of your way to visit, but if you can go through it on your way somewhere then you won't regret it, maybe even sit down for a bite to eat or a pint. It's not far from the Sky Garden and we visited it on our way to the Bank of England Museum.

The Bank of England Museum

This museum won't be of much interest to you if you're not interested in finance related things (shocker, I know). To be honest I wasn't that fussed about going but it turned out to be quite interesting. The displays will explain to you how physical money came to be, you will see how the British currency has changed over the years (the look of the notes), it will show you how to spot a fraudulent note and some other physical money related things. If you ever watch medieval themed shows / dramas etc. you will no doubt be familiar with gold and coins being moved around in large heavy chests. You will find a few of those here and I was very surprised at how complex the locking mechanisms were in those, pretty cool to see. Apart from money, history of money and the bank, you will also find out some more about slavery and how that ties into those. All of which was fascinating, but when I went in I was hoping for one thing in particular, and I wasn't disappointed. Gold!

We're in a bank after all and for me a bank vault needs to be full of gold bars. I was therefore hoping that one would be on display as I don't think I've ever seen one live before. We made our way around the place and towards the end there it was, in a perspex cage. There were other smaller bars on display as well but this was the crown jewel, the main full sized one. The cool thing is that not only was it there, you could also touch it (germs rejoice) and try to lift it a little! 

This museum won't take you all day, but you can easily spend an hour there. Oh, I didn't take a picture, but there is a small safe set up for you to have a go at cracking it as well. We didn't manage so I either it's broken or we'd made $hit bank robbers. 

Pizza Time  

If you're kicking around that part of London then we can definitely recommend the pizza at Pixxa. You can eat in, eat out, buy a whole freshly baked pizza or just a few slices ready on the counter if you want a quick bite and dash. They have vegan and veggie options as well, but the main thing is that it was delicious!

Tower Bridge

If you're in London you need to go and see Tower Bridge, it's the law. If you want to make the most of your visit to the bridge then follow the link here and check out the lift times. This way you can guarantee that you will see the bridge rise. 

The Shard

It's the tallest building in London standing proud at 309.6 meters and at this point I should paste in an image of it. Except I can't, because I completely forgot to take a proper one. Therefore for reference scroll back up to the Sky Garden section and look for the tall pointy structure on the horizon visible in the distance on one of the images (4th image down in that section, you'll see it to the left). In case you're wondering what the Sky Garden building looks like, here it is as viewed from (nearly) the top of The Shard. It's the white building that I would say reminds me of one of those standalone air conditioning machines you can get and plonk in your living room.

Despite being the tallest building in London, The Shard doesn't make the list of the tallest 100 buildings in the world. During this trip we were told by some man somewhere (can't remember where exactly, so essentially some bloke in London) that London is having an issue with buildings now sinking down due to the geology under the city and the sheer weight of the skyscrapers being built. Having just done a quick search online, it seems to be a thing but saying it's a big issue seems an exaggeration. None the less, maybe a mix of those things is the reason why a taller building hasn't yet been built in London (at the time of writing in 2023). 

Anyway, once you've made your way through the security check at the bottom you will head into the first of the two lifts which will take you towards the top. According to their website it is 95 storey tall but you will "only" go up to the 72nd floor which is open to the elements. 

If you liked the view from the Sky Garden then you will definitely like the view from up here!

Ok, it doesn't really make the shortlist of the tallest buildings in the world, but it's still pretty damn tall. I mean, building site cranes are pretty tall things and being up here  towards the top of the shard makes them look like Lego kids left on the carpet ... They're the red things in the image below by the way.

I keep on saying "from nearly the top of The Shard" because you can't actually go up to the very top. Not that I would want to, as it seems a bit more falling outy kind of place up there from what you can see from the highest viewing platform. I imagine that's the last place you want to be when it's a bit windy at those heights!

We went up The Shard for sunset and it was a good time to be up there, but next time I would go up when it's properly dark at the end of the day as I imagine the view of London lit up will be quite spectacular from up there. If you're thinking of where to go for a bite to eat around there then I highly recommend a small Vietnamese place not far from there (they also do take out). It's called Caphe House, prices are good, portion sizes are great and it was delicious!

Summary

For me London is a great place to visit every now and then. I definitely wouldn't want to live there and prefer our small Quinta in Portugal any day of the week. With that said, if you're heading over for a city break over there, I doubt it you will be disappointed, there is just so much to do and see. What I have described above (plus we went onboard HMS Belfast, but I didn't take any images there) took us a whole day to see properly. We left our hotel by Canary Wharf around 6am and we got back to the car to leave London around 10pm. It's a full day, but a good one if you follow in our footsteps. For me the highlight was The Shard, followed by the Sky Garden (just don't get that horrific hot chocolate!) and then the Bank of England Museum (I got to touch a real gold bar, so I was happy...). The food was great at the pizza and the Vietnamese places, we had a brilliant time. Can't wait to get back to Portugal now though ...