My first day in London was what I considered my bonus day. I had planned out everyday pretty extensively, but I wanted to have this first day be pretty flexible since I wouldn’t know how tired I would be. It turned out that I actually slept pretty amazing on the plane so I was able to do a lot this day, but it would come back later to bite me in the butt.
The journey to the hostel was intense. I arrived in Heathrow around 11 am, but Heathrow is a bit of a ways from London City. There is an expressway but I didn’t even want to know the price, plus I thought I would get the travel card so that I could take the metro and bus around as well. I think in the end the travel card was maybe not the way to go because this cost me $25, while an average metro trip is about 1 pound and I never actually used the bus with the metro is so slick. Plus to get to my hostel, Wombat City Hostel London, it took 1 hour and 12 minutes.
I took the Elizabeth line to Whitechapel and then Windrush to Shadwell. From here it was another 12 minute walk to the hostel which isn’t terrible except it was beginning to rain and my umbrella was packed away in my suitcase. I feared if I opened it everything would get wet so I was better off just booking it through the rain. I did get quite wet. At this point it was about 1 pm and check in wasn’t until 2 pm, but I figured it was worth a shot to see if they were ready for me. If not at least maybe I could leave my luggage there and go explore. They were ready and I got to go up to my room and dry off before seeing the city.
I met one of my roommates who is a teacher from Virginia that just moved to teach in Prague so she was waiting on her visa. I would meet up with her and the rest of my roommates in the hostel bar for comedy night later in the evening after she left me a note on my bed when I arrived back at the hostel. It ended up being quite a full day for me.
I took the metro from Tower of London to Temple for my first Rick Steves walks. If you are unfamiliar with Rick Steves audio guides, he has his own app, Rick Steves Audio Europe and it is one of my favorite resources for traveling around Europe. For many major European cities he has audio tours on this app that take you around the major sites explaining their history and significance. He also has them for some museums and churches in these places as well. For London I started with “Historic London: The City”. This walking tour covered the neighborhood surrounding St. Paul’s Cathedral that would be considered the old city. Here there are many historical buildings that date back to the 1600s, so walking around, you feel transported back in time. It is also the financial district of London, it is referred to by many as “The City.” This part of London is located east of Westminster and Camden and west of Tower Hamlets which is where you will find all the towering skyscrapers and where my hostel was located.
The tour began at Church of St. Clement Danes and the beautiful Royal Courts of Justice building. From here I walked east towards Prince Henry’s Room, which was my favorite stop, with some other stops to gaze at the Twinings Tea shop and Temple Bar Monument. Prince Henry’s Room was a half-timbered building from the Tudor era. Why is it called Prince Henry’s Room? Well it was the office of King Charles I’s son, Prince Henry. It is one of the older buildings in this part of the city due to the Great Fire of London in 1666. The coolest part about this building is the entrance to the little alley that will bring you back to Temple Church, which is named after the Knights Templar from the Crusades in the 1100s. You can go inside which Rick suggests, but it does cost a bit to visit, so I opted out of it because it was only my first day in London and I needed to save my money for other things.
After this you come back onto the main street which is called Fleet Street. Here is the location of many publications as well as taverns where those corporate workers come to grab a pint and chill out at the end of the work day. From here I walked past the Church of St. Dunstan, another survival of the Great Fire, which Rick Steves told me all about. Eventually I had to cross the street where I found #165 which is an alley way that leads into 1700s London. It was only mildly sketchy but that might be just because I convinced myself that London was such a dangerous place and it was my first day there.
Here I discovered who the writer Samuel Johnson is from seeing the Dr. Johnson house. You may have seen on my UK page that I use his famous quote: “When a man is tire of London he is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford.” You can visit the inside of the hosue as it is a museum, but again I was trying to stick to free activities today. I did get to see the statue of Hodge the cat at the other end of the square, so I got all I needed.
From here I continued down Fleet Street some more seeing Ye Old Cheshire Cheese Tavern and St. Bride’s church. I didn’t spend much time at the tavern, but I did thoroughly explore the church. It took me a while to realize this was a church of England church and not a Catholic church. Here was my confusion, first off, many of the Anglican and Church of England churches closely resemble Catholic churches with their altars and pews. Second, it is named after the Irish saint, St. Brigid. Saints are a catholic notion as are the Irish predominately Catholic. And this church had a lot of Irish influence. It was even holding a Celtic calm. This church was free to enter and even included a museum in the crypts. Here you can learn all about the history and significances of the church. The most important thing you need to know is that it was the inspiration for the first tiered wedding cake. It was a well worth stop and a great way to get out of the rain.
The next stop on my walking tour was St. Paul’s Cathedral. It was awkward timing because by the time I got to the cathedral I had about 45 minutes until the evening song I wanted to attend. It felt like not enough time to finish the last few stops of the tour and then come back, so in the end I never did get to see the other stops and monuments on the way to London Bridge. To me that felt ok though because they weren’t places up high on my list and I would walk London Bridge the next day anyway.
I settled for spending this in between time relaxing at McDonalds for some water and a bathroom. Then I walked over the to the cathedral entrance where I walked towards the altar to sit in the chairs set up for the evening song. They were quite adamant on making sure that people were there for the service which I really appreciated. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that there were actual members of the congregation there to worship. In the summer when I went to mass at the churches in Italy, it felt like most of the people were there as intrigued tourists. There were some people who were just like me though who came to see the cathedral for free and every once in a while I caught someone on their phone, but for the most part I felt like everyone there was active in the service.
While the choir was a bit quiet and hard to follow with the given program, it was still a peaceful service that I enjoyed. As a Catholic I often find it difficult to worship in Protestant services because they don’t have the same kind of tradition, but I didn’t feel that way about this service. It felt very familiar and real to me. Then there was the cathedral, which was beautiful! If you are unfamiliar with the cathedral it is an Anglican church. It is a rebuild of the old historic church that sat here after the Great Fire. This version was built by the well known architect Christopher Wren who has many deesigns through out. London. It is quite significant for its role as being the head of the Diocese of London, but don’t get it confused with Westminster Abbey where all the royal services take place. The cathedral was built in Greco-Roman style, but the inside in unlike anything I had ever seen before. You really aren’t supposed to take pictures if you are there for the service, but many other people took pictures so I snuck in one for you. I am so glad I had planned this service because I was about to skip the cathedral because of the entrance fee. I think it really is something anyone should include in their itinerary to London.
Now it was 5:45 pm and I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with the rest of my evening. It was completely dark and I was nervous about walking around in the dark by myself so I wasn’t going to finish the walking tour. It also felt too early to go back. I had wanted to do some shopping to get a trench coat, but I kept going back and forth about it because the nearest Primark was on Oxford Street which wasn’t super close. I decided I would check out Zara and Mango at the shopping center near the cathedral, but they all were a bit more than I wanted to spend, so I sucked it up and took the metro to Oxford Street to visit my favorite store! By metro is wasn’t actually too bad when considered how big London is. It was an 11 minute ride from St. Paul’s to Tottenham Court Road. The only issue is that it would be a bit more difficult to get back to the hostel from here, but that was a problem for later.
I got my coat, a London t-shirt, and a scarf (because I forgot one) all for less than 50 pounds. Now I thought it was a great time for dinner. I had seen a bunch of places to eat around the cathedral, but not quite as many here on Oxford Street. My ambition to explore was dwindling so I walked around the block and settled on a cafe that had crepes for dinner. The place was called Crepes, Coffee, and Chai. It was super cozy and was a very welcoming place for my first sit down meal in London. I ordered the Alsace Galette which had bacon pieces, onions, egg, and cream from the Alsace region of France. It was delicious and super filling. I hung out here for a bit before I decided I probably should head back to the hostel before it gets too late. This was where my day got a bit rocky.
I left around 7:30pm and I was going to take a mix of metro and bus to get me as close to the hostel as possible, because I was uncertain how safe the surrounding areas of the hostel would be at night with it being my first night there. Now I wouldn’t stress it at all because I never had any experiences that made me feel unsafe, well anymore unsafe than I would feel in a city at home. I did stress a bit though when I couldn’t find where the bus stop was. In the end I just decided to walk the rest of the way because it was only 20 minutes and the more time I spent trying to figure out where I was, the later it was getting. I discovered that when you are in the area of London with all the skyscrapers, your phone cannot tell where you are which makes getting directions really difficult. I was finally able to get enough of a sense of where I was to walk that last bit back. I was quite nervous at times, but in the end everything was ok.
I got back to the hostel around 8:15pm and headed straight down to the bar to meet the people that would make my trip. This was just the start of an amazing trip. I wasn’t entirely sure what to think of London after this first day, but soon the city would grow on me. Continue reading my London series to see how London made its impact on me!
The Journal of Wanderlust 