We had pre-arranged with our private cab driver to pick us up early from our hotel and drive us the 45ish minutes to the Shannon airport. This ride was even worse for me than the busses a few days earlier, but I think that was more food poisoning related than anything else. Our flight from Shannon to Heathrow cost us about $75 each, and landed us in London around 10:30am. We checked into the Airways Hotel Victoria London , where we would be staying for the next three nights, and eventually be joined by the same friend we started the trip with.
I love London. This wasn’t the first time I had been there, and of all of the places I’ve visited, it’s still one of my favorite cities. I picked the hotel based on cost and distance from an underground station, and this one was within walking distance of the Victoria station. The London Tube Map app has not left my phone since I first downloaded it in 2013, and our first order of business was to buy day-by-day Oyster passes, because if you can get to the underground, you can basically get anywhere you could possibly want to be.
Like we did in Rome and Paris, we spent the first day getting an overview of London from a hop-on-hop-off bus tour . This took us to places like Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, the Tower Bridge, Big Ben, and the London Eye. Our bad luck actually continued in London because there were massive labor marches going on throughout the city that caused huge traffic jams, so we ended up walking rather than waiting on the bus where the poor tour guide was running out of things to say to occupy us. Most of the things to see in London are from the outside or are free, but we did spend the $45 to take a loop on the London Eye, something I hadn’t done the first time I was there. At some point, we made sure to eat and Nando’s, because we had been told that’s a must-do while in London.
Remember how I love London? Most of it is because of cultural and historical things I find fascinating, like the Tudors, the Beatles, and Harry Potter. We spent the morning of our second day in London getting out to Levingston for the Harry Potter Studio Tour , which cost $49 each, and that we had booked quite early. From London, you take the Euston train to Watford Junction, and then a bus from there to the studio; although it is recommended you get to Watford with plenty of time before your tour time. It’s a self-guided tour, with the option of an audio-tour or just walking along and looking at sets, costumes, props, and everything else. You could do it in a few hours, or, if you’re like me, can easily spend the entire day there, which we did. I had done the tour the first time I was in London, and was pleasantly surprised that some of the exhibits had changed since I was last there. Spoiler alert: I think I actually cried the first time I went, it was so exciting to me.
Anyway, back to London. The friend we started the trip with joined us that night, as she was going to take the tour with us the following day. We had pre-booked a $133 tour through Evan Evans that would take us by bus to Salisbury, the Stonehenge, and Bath. It had an 8:30am check in, an 8:45 departure, and got back to London at 7:30, and included the bus and entrance to all three sites.
Our timing was actually quite good on this tour. It was the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, and they actually had the original copy of it at Salisbury. Neither Ashley or I are big history people, but we both recognized the significance of being able to see the original copy of that. We pulled up to Stonehenge and saw a group of people wearing white robes in a circle right next to the rocks. We weren’t allowed that close, and usually nobody is, but we happened to be there on the day of the summer solstice, and it was a local group of druids who were performing a solstice ceremony there, which was cool to see. There wasn’t anything super significant about the timing in Bath, but being able to walk through the original buildings and baths was very interesting.
The next day, we ended our trip by flying from Heathrow back to Chicago for $773 each. We left London at 12:15pm, and arrived in Chicago at 2:55pm. For Ashley and I, we ended up with about a day home before we turned around and drove to New York City, and the overnight flight to combat jet lag doesn’t work quite the same on the way home.
Total cost for London (including transportation there, but not food/taxis/souvenirs/etc): ~$650
Total TRIP cost: ~$2,180 (not counting food, taxis, purchases, etc.)
It was a whirlwind trip and half the time we didn’t know what country we were in or what language was spoken there, but we loved it. Like any trip, you live and you learn, so we’re going to wrap up our Euro-trip series with a “what we would change” post coming soon!
