After settling into our hotel we left to do some exploring.
Our hotel was pretty close to Notting Hill so we followed the navigation on my phone to walk over to that area.
The houses were beautiful and colorful!
Finally we made it to the area we were most excited to explore.
We made a stop at the Biscuiteers shop.
This store seriously has the cutest storefront.
It was just as cute inside. They had just about every shape of cookie you could want.
They are very pricey. But you kind of have to get one!
Picking out some biscuits!
Our next stop was The Notting Hill Bookshop!
I couldn't get a great photo of the store front because there were about thirty drunk people standing right in front of it (and sitting on the ground right there) but I got as good of a photo as I could.
If you have seen the movie Notting Hill, you will remember this bookshop as the one that Hugh Grant works in. It was so cool to go there!
After that we walked along Portobello Road where they were just starting to clean up the Portobello Market.
We went in a few more little shops and bookstores as we walked along.
At this point it was still just early evening so we hailed a cab (I wasn't sure which tube stops went where yet even with all of my research..) and went to Harrods.
This place was so HUGE and so fancy.
We walked around most of the departments. I am not a high end shopper so it was really interesting to see all of the expensive brands of clothes, perfume, and jewelry.
We found the memorial to Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed.
We walked around the huge food court that has pretty much anything you could want to eat.
We decided we would get our dinner here to go and take it back to our hotel.
My favorite place was the children's section.
They had so many cute things.
I put our hotel into my phone and it wasn't far (so we thought) and we decided to walk.
We followed my phone and it took us all over the place. We definitely saw a lot of the non touristy part of the city as it took us through neighborhoods. It was a cool walk but then soon we got to the destination.
It looked EXACTLY like it should. A bunch of tall white buildings surrounding a small green park.
But it wasn't it.
We were so confused.
We tried to put it in my phone again and realized we were in the wrong place and had a few miles between where we were and where we were supposed to be.
We walked some more.
We even walked right past a church.
We were getting so lost. Pretty soon we were on a busy road again and were very close to Kensington Gardens. We could see the Prince Albert Memorial (don't know why I did
We went into a store and asked a girl for directions. She wasn't sure but she was really nice and looked it up on Google maps and printed it out for us.
But the printer ran out of ink and so we couldn't read the map.
Ahhh.
So we walked some more and started to walk through the park but then it started to get pretty dark and we were a little nervous about getting lost in the park when it was dark so we decided to try to catch a taxi.
But we couldn't find a place where they were pulling over.
Finally I saw a taxi at a red light so I ran over to him and asked if he could pick us up. He pointed to a place for us to stand and said he would come back around for us.
He was really nice.
He didn't know where the hotel was but I told him what happened with the navigation.
He told us that there was a 1-8 Kensington Gardens Square and a 1-8 Kensington Square Gardens.
Our hotel was Kensington Gardens Square and apparently I had put the other one into my phone.
Crazy that they had such similar addresses and looked the same!
But we safely got back to our hotel and I swore I would not leave the hotel the next day until I knew exactly which tube stations to use!
We settled back into our room and pulled out our food from Harrods. I was hoping it would still be good after our long walk and it was.
We both had a roasted chicken and avocado sub. My mom had soda. I had water.
It was really good.
Then we had some hedgehog biscuits my mom bought at Biscuiteers.
Souvenirs for the day:
I bought the Queen and hedgehog biscuits and the little royal chocolates from Biscuiteers to take home to my family. I worried they would be stale and hard by the time I got home to share them with them but they weren't. Even the gingerbread was still soft and tasted great two weeks later.
I bought the little bear Christmas ornament at Harrod's.
And from the Doctor Who Experience I got a Tardis key chain to use as a Christmas ornament.
Today felt like such a big day and the stressful situations added to that.
We were exhausted. But we were so happy.
It was so cool to be in London and we were looking forward to our next couple of days seeing more of the city!
Up next: Tower of London!
2 comments:
It was stressful getting lost and wondering if we would ever find our way "home". But the things we saw and the places we went were so much fun! I am glad we got to see the Prince Albert Memorial while we were in Kensington Gardens even though it was not right in front of us. Harrods was amazing. The jewelry section even had armed guards...I had never seen that in a store before. And I so wanted to get a scarf there but the ones I liked were 500 to 1500 pounds...so I decided to pass. But, like you, I did buy a Royal Guard Tree Ornament. Now my "wish I would of" is that maybe I should have splurged and bought a scarf! Oh well. But yes, it was a great day!
Yes. That was stressful but now we can look back and it was a very cool night!
I know, I wonder if I should have bought things at some of the notting hill shops too. But maybe we will go back someday...
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