Europe Adventure: Day Two and Three- Hotel Hilton London Paddington and Paddington Station

As I said in the last post, we decided to splurge a little and stay at the Hilton hotel at Paddington Station for our first night. It really was so worth it. At that time of night, with how tired we were, it was such a lifesaver to not even have to leave the station to get to our beds. 

Later in the trip, when we were back in London,  we happened to walk right by the outside of the hotel so I grabbed these pictures since I didn't have any of the outside. 

It was a beautiful hotel inside and out.

Somehow I didn't have any pictures of the walkway to the hotel in the station or of our room. Don't know how that happened! So I grabbed these next two photos off of Booking's page....

Hilton entry in the station:

(photo from booking.com)

The twin room:

(photo from booking.com)

The rooms were a good size and were very comfortable. 

The beds were fantastic and we had an awesome night of sleep. 

Of course, we were completely exhausted to begin with. But it really was so comfortable. 

We slept in until about 8:50 so that was amazing. 

The next morning we had Zone bars in our room because there was not a free breakfast at the hotel.

I enjoyed looking out the window down to the street below. There were so many people, buses, taxis, and cars speeding by.

 We spent some time getting ready and then we went down to Paddington station to explore a little and find Paddington Bear.

I took this photo out of a window in the hallway. You can see the top of the station.

This is the grand staircase in the hallway...

The lobby...

They had a Paddington statue in the lobby. I actually took this photo on our way back in later. I stuck the little bear I bought for Maddy into the photo.

Paddington Station. 

It was very cool.

We were going to go shopping in the Paddington shop first, but when we got there it was closed for refurbishment. They had a sign telling us where to find a pop up store in the station- basically a little cart. 

We decided to go find the statue first. 

We found him!

I had to get a few photos of Paddington with Jennifer Rain for Maddy. 

My mom, Jennifer Rain, and Paddington just hanging out...

There were a lot of people hanging around getting photos. Mostly kids with their parents. It was so fun to see how many people love Paddington. 

After this we found the pop up store and did a little shopping. I thought I had a picture of the cart but I guess I didn't. They didn't have a huge selection but I was able to get a few things. 

I bought a Paddington Bear for Maddy, a Paddington pencil for Abi, and a Paddington bookmark for us to use when we are reading Paddington books.

After shopping we went to a ticket kiosk and bought our train tickets to take us to Bath. 

We only had a little bit of time before we would need to catch the train so we went back to our room, grabbed our bags and went to check out. 

We were just in time to make our way to our train. 

Again, we were kicking ourselves for having so much luggage to drag through the station. 

My mom saw some people pulling their luggage along flat on the ground (as opposed to leaning) and she did that as well. I tried it and was surprised at how much easier it was. Then I did something stupid and decided to see if I could do it with the bags in front of me, pushing instead of pulling. 

I then proceeded to completely trip over my bags in the middle of the station. Haha. 

Next up: Train and Bath