Tourists in London

Last weekend, we went on a coach trip to London to see The Lion King in the Lyceum Theatre. We booked the package through Ticketline UK and the trip included coach travel to and from London (as well as coach travel to our various destinations over the weekend), theatre tickets, and bed and breakfast at the Guoman Tower Hotel. If you want a stress-free weekend break where everything is taken care of for you, I'd highly recommend this option!

We left Cardiff at 8:45am on Saturday morning and stopped at Reading services on our way to London for an obligatory sandwich stop and toilet break. It took us a while to get through central London due to standard traffic jams and a few accidents, but we eventually arrived at our hotel at around 2pm. Tower Bridge was quite literally on our doorstep!

As our rooms weren't ready for us when we arrived, we went for a walk to explore our surroundings. In addition to Tower Bridge, the Tower of London (with the impressive Shard building in the background) was also within walking distance of our hotel. We called to Wagamama for a quick lunch then walked back to the hotel to get settled into our room before leaving for the theatre. 

When we got back to the hotel, we discovered that there'd been a mix-up with our room which meant we didn't actually have one assigned to us. However, we spoke to very apologetic manager who offered us a new room and upgraded us to an executive suite, so we couldn't complain too much. We had an hour to ourselves before getting back on the coach to get to the West End, and I mostly spent that hour admiring the view and the rainbow outside our window!

The coach driver picked us up outside the hotel at 5:30pm and took us to the West End where we were the first drop-off. The show didn't start for another hour and a half so we went for a walk to Covent Garden and happened to stumble into Venchi...

I went for a combination of salted toffee and white chocolate and it was SO GOOD. We wandered around a very busy Covent Garden, with our ice cream, sorrowfully noting that the Disney Store has disappeared from the main square, then headed back towards the theatre ready to take our seats.

The Lyceum Theatre is such an impressive building, both inside and out, and I was so excited about setting foot in there to see the acclaimed show I've wanted to see for years. We were seated in the Grand Circle which meant many many stairs up followed by many many stairs down to our seats in row C, but we were really pleased with the view we had of the stage (and the many flights of stairs were good for my Fitbit stats).

There just aren't enough superlatives in the world to describe how good the show itself was. I was completely blown away by the costumes, the set, the choreography and the general goosebump-inducing music the whole way through, and I'd see it again tomorrow if I could. I loved the show's take on Rafiki in particular, and Timon and Zazu were also firm favourites. The transition from young Simba to adult Simba was cleverly done, and the extra scenes added to the show which don't feature in the film didn't disrupt the flow at all. I loved every second of it!

Once I managed to tear myself away from the tempting merchandise stand, we walked back to our pick-up destination and the coach took us back to our hotel via a few other pick-ups s in various parts of the West End. After admiring the nighttime view from our room, we promptly fell asleep ready for a busy Sunday of sightseeing.

After a lovely breakfast at the hotel on Sunday morning, we were back on the coach by 10:30am ready to be dropped off at the Haymarket for a day of exploring, sightseeing and shopping. Although it was supposed to rain heavily all day, London obviously didn't receive the memo. We made the most of the sunshine and blitzed all the famous sights in the area, taking lots of photos while we were at it. We walked to Trafalgar Square then to Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament...I've visited this area with work recently but it's been years since I was an actual tourist in London!

After taking in all the sights, we walked back to Covent Garden and did some shopping. We did mostly browse rather than shop, but I can never resist purchasing something small in Ted Baker when I'm in the area. We also went into M&M's World in Leicester Square for the first time which was possibly even more impressive than its New York equivalent. On an unrelated note, I did feel as if I was playing Monopoly bingo when I looked at all the street/area signs around me!

All shopped and sightseeing-ed out, we sat down for an hour to have our lunch then made our way back to the pick-up point via a few more shops, including a quick stop at Ben's Cookies. We were completely exhausted by this point and I fell asleep on the coach almost immediately.

We arrived home at around 8:30pm on Sunday evening. It was a lovely full weekend and we managed to fit loads in alongside our main objective of seeing The Lion King. I definitely want to book another theatre trip soon as they're pretty addictive... I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we'll manage to get tickets for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child one day. 

Have you seen The Lion King in the theatre? What did you think? 

Weekend in London

Don't be too shocked, but I've decided to take a break from blogging about Florida and present you with a blog post on the weekend I spent in London recently. I went to visit my best friends from university - Liz, Fee, Kirsty and Jenna. We hadn't all been together since our Fake Christmas back in January so it was definitely an eagerly anticipated weekend. It was also the first time I'd seen everyone since getting engaged so we had lots to talk about!

I got the bus from Cardiff to London Victoria on Friday evening after work and arrived in London at 8:50pm. I managed to read for two hours on the bus... I'm totally engrossed in Cross and Burn by Val McDermid. After Liz met me at the coach station, we went to Subway while we waited for Kirsty to arrive. Any excuse! We both had the Spicy Italian, which has to be my favourite Subway option of all time. It's also the most calorific, but calories don't count when you're on holiday. Calories definitely don't count when the five of us get together... we love food.

On Saturday morning, we headed to the V&A Museum in Kensington to meet Fee and Jenna. I'm slightly ashamed to admit that I had a hot chocolate and a scone with clotted cream and jam before 10:30am in the museum cafe. The scones were just too tempting (and massive). After our rather large morning snack, we wandered around the museum for a few hours while catching up on each other's news. The V&A is chock full of pretty things... I especially liked the jewellery section as I'm a fan of anything that sparkles. And it's free!

We went to London Bridge in the afternoon as Kirsty had some vouchers for the London Dungeons so we thought we'd see what the queues were like. After half an hour or so of rain just after lunchtime, the rest of the afternoon was surprisingly sunny. We had a lovely walk along the river with some beautiful views of the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and the London Eye. There was also lots of wedding talk, obviously... I think I've now chosen my wedding colour after gathering opinions over the weekend. All will be revealed in a future post.

The queue for the London Dungeons was too long so we decided to stop for a coffee break instead. We went to the Eat coffee shop, and I had the most amazing 'Chocolate Chiller' drink. I know I'm easily pleased, but it really was that good. We also sang 'happy birthday' to Fee as it was her birthday in a few days and gave her all her birthday presents. All Fee's birthday presents from me were purchased from New York and Florida... well travelled gifts! 

After doing some more catching up in Eat (and setting a date for this year's Fake Christmas!), we headed across the bridge to Covent Garden. This resulted in more beautiful views...

I don't think I've ever been to Covent Garden before... I've been to London quite a few times and have been to the London Bridge area before, but I don't think I'd ever walked across to Covent Garden. It's a lovely area with a mixture of shops, restaurants and bars, and I think it must look absolutely beautiful when the Christmas decorations are up. It even had a Disney store! There were loads of people milling around, and it was generally a lovely atmosphere. 

After wandering around the shops, we met Liz's boyfriend and went to search for some food. We ended up in Nando's as everywhere else had a massive wait... Nando's never disappoints so it's always a good option when you're in a big group. I had my usual lemon and herb chicken wrap, chips and grilled halloumi. After eating ourselves silly, we went to the Punch and Judy for a few drinks then got the last train back to Liz's house. A lovely day was had by all! 

Sunday was always going to consist of lots of eating before going back home to the diet... I had a bacon roll in London Victoria's Wetherspoons in the morning, then we shared some nachos, then I had a Sunday roast at the Shakespeare pub. I probably didn't need to buy a big bag of Skittles for the bus home, but I still did. A bus journey isn't complete without some kind of sugary snack.

Even though I was looking forward to seeing Neil, I was quite sad when I left the pub to catch my bus back to Cardiff. The five of us aren't all together very often, so it's always a great weekend when we do all manage to meet up at the same time. We all live quite far away from each other (Cardiff, Minehead, Milton Keynes and London) so unfortunately we can't all meet up as often as we'd like. I love reminiscing about when we all used to live together, some of the strange acquaintances we had back then, the unforgettable nights out, some of the equally eventful nights in, and our questionable ex boyfriends. You can't beat a good catch up with brilliant friends.

Some photos from back in the day... I couldn't find a photo with all five of us!

After such a lovely weekend, I'm now even more excited about catching up with everyone at Fake Christmas in January!

What did everyone else get up to last weekend? Did you eat as much as I did?