The London Trip: Day 3

You may be wondering what we could have possibly done or seen on our third day in London, it sure does feel like we did a lot just in the first two days we were there. But we had a plan, the third day was dedicated to the sights that were a little further outside of London.

If you haven’t read the first two blog posts I made for the first two days we spent in London, be sure to check out day 1 and day 2.

The London Trip: Day 3

Abbey Road

It was a typical rainy London day (you know, gotta get the full English experience), but we made the best of it anyway. Of all of the exciting places we went while in London, Abbey Road was one of my favorites! If you don’t already know, I am a HUGE Beatles fan! I actually have a Abbey Road poster from their iconic album cover hanging on my wall!

In person, Abbey Road is a lot smaller looking than in that legendary photo. In typical English fashion, it told those who are crossing the street at this crosswalk to “look right” as a little reminder that traffic drives on the other side of the road.

Overall, the area where Abbey Road is located seems like a quaint living district. It was really cool to imagine that nothing on that street had really changed since the Beatles were recording their hits there.

We weren’t able to go inside the actual recording studio of Abbey Road, but we did visit the gift shop they have next door!

Westminster Abbey

Our third day in London was “Abbey” themed apparently because our next stop was Westminster Abbey! This was especially exciting for me because this was the location that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge got married! The main reason I became interested in following the British Royal Family was after watching Prince William and Kate Middleton get married.

Although we were not allowed to take photos inside of Westminster Abbey (just like St. Paul’s Cathedral), I snuck some pictures as we were looking for the “way out” (they don’t call it an exit, everything is called the way out in England). This is the courtyard, just look at how green the grass is!

The Trip to Windsor

Did someone say Hogwarts? Being at the train station and looking around you instantly felt as if you were in the Harry Potter films or books. Even the simplest things like a train station are beautiful in England!

Thanks to our London Passes we were able to travel to Windsor for free. It is included in the long list of attractions you can visit if you have the pass. This was one of the many places I was excited to visit because the two most recent British Royal weddings took place at Windsor! Both the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Princess Beatrice and her new husband were married at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.

The train ride to Windsor only took us about thirty minutes. We had to transfer trains to continue our journey both on the way there and the way back, but that wasn’t a problem because the trains come by pretty regularly.

Windsor

One of the lessons we learned while in the U.K. was that everything (especially tourist locations) seems to close at three in the afternoon. As you can see, we already visited a lot of different places on our third day and with the time it takes to travel everywhere we were running a little short on time. When we finally reach Windsor the office for tours of the castle and church would close in about five minutes. Well, in classic Jacob and Sarah fashion, we decided to run out of the train station in hopes of still being able to get a tour.

The train station in right across the street from Windsor Castle which was super convenient, but we didn’t know where the office for tours was located. So we ran in one direction hoping we were right. If you haven’t ever been to Windsor, just know that the town has a lot of hills and there is one located right where Windsor Castle sits. So as we are running towards where we were hoping the tourism office would be, it was faced downhill (of course we would choose to run downhill instead of up at the first glance haha). Unfortunately for us, once we reached the bottom of the hill it only took us a few seconds to realize that the office for tours of the castle is indeed not located there.

So instead of giving up like any normal person would, we decide to run up the hill towards where the office was really located all along. At this point we only had about two or three minutes left to hoof it up the hill and hopefully get a tour. Exhausted and out of breath, we didn’t make it in time for the tours office to still be open. But that is okay because we still got some beautiful photos, and just being at Windsor after watching both of the most recent Royal weddings was such a thrill!

After our failed efforts and Amazing Race style running, it was time to check out the shops that Windsor had to offer! We visited some of the souvenir shops looking for Royal wedding stuff, and the Barbour store behind me in the picture above was a must!

The Christmas decorations they had hanging around the town were super pretty and different than the type of decorations that hung in the city of London. It was a real thrill to find a picture of the new Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Of course, Windsor will always hold a special place in their hearts, and I can definitely see why they are choosing to live in Windsor! It is so quaint and picturesque. Plus, the short train ride to London makes it convenient to get places rather fast.

Fish & Chips

It’s not hard to imagine that after our train ride there and back and all of that running around, we were hungry. The first stop we made once back in the heart of London was to a very Instagram worthy fish and chips shop. This was our first time eating fish and chips while in England, and I much say it was delicious!

The place we ate at is called Golden Union. It is located near Soho where all of the trendiest shops are. There were a ton of neon signs inside this restaurant and they had an electronic jukebox! It was a little cramped for space, but the American in me is just used to everything being spacious. Also, the food was so good! It totally made up for anything I ever thought was too small!

Soho

Continuing our love of all neon signs, being in Soho was so amazing. On our first day in London we dabbled in the art that is Soho, but it was during the daytime and we only spent a little bit of our day roaming around the area. The real magic of Soho has to be experienced at night! With all of the neon signs hanging above and the magic of Christmas time, there is really no better way to experience this section of London!

There was a Bohemian Rhapsody (for the movie that just came out about the band Queen, another one of my all-time favorite bands!) pop-up shop in Soho and a lot of the neon signs above the shop were Queen lyrics! Because I love the band Queen, we couldn’t resist going inside and see what all they had to offer. This denim jacket particularly caught my attention!

Of all of the stores in Soho, I think I might have liked this one the most! The stairs and decor was too much for me to resist! I had to get a photo with these stairs, they were so cool!

That is it for our three days in London! It is my hope that you enjoyed these photos, and that you feel like you know London a little better now. This is just the beginning of our travels so there will be many more blog posts in the near future about travel! Until then, thank you for coming along on this adventure with me!

Much Love, 

Sarah