"LONDON", the capital of England is full of history and wonderful places to see. We all grew up watching Dilwale Dulhania Le Jaayenge (DDLJ) every single time it was broadcasted on television. The iconic scene of Amrish puri's dialogue on London and feeding pigeons in Trafalgar square is still afresh in our minds. We all were amazed by the beautiful scenes of that movie and dreamt of visiting it at least once in our lifetime.
Traveling to London for the first time requires lots of homework and planning. You should figure out these things like where to stay? what are the best places to visit? which is the best time to go and under my budget?
Here, I am sharing with you my planning and experiences that might help you as well for your trip.
1) VISA APPLICATION: You can fill the visa application from the UK official website where you have to upload your required documents and your appointment will be scheduled at VFS. In case if you are not able to upload docs, you can get the same done at VFS. (I have applied for priority visa as I didn’t have much time to apply for a normal visa and booked a flight from Etihad airlines). The VISA fee was around 9k in 2019 and Priority visa cost us some 20k extra.
2) Advance bookings: Book your flight tickets, visa, and hotel as early in advance as you can. Booking in advance can save your time, money, and last moment troubles. You can buy sim cards and a travel card in advance to ease things and save your self from the pain of queuing when you visit places.
3) BEST TIME TO GO: Well there is no wrong and right time to visit London, but the best time to visit would be Summers when the weather is very pleasant. I visited in winters (November) and trust me it was as cool as wafting a snow shower and, you can visit London during Christmas when the whole city dazzles with sparkling fairy lights.
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| PICCADILLY CIRCUS |
4) STAY IN CENTRAL LONDON: It can be a bit more expensive to stay in the central part than other parts. However, all sights and tourist spots would be close and you could save your commuting time and money in transportation, which is also costly.
Staying in central London makes visiting London much easier because many of the attractions are within easy walking limits or just a short bus drive or tubes (metro trains).
So, budget-wise it won't make much difference, hence you should prefer to stay in the central part.
We choose to stay in hotel Royal Chulan which is just at a five-minute walking distance from the Bayswater station...
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| Hotel ROYAL CHULAN |
5) Time management: Don't try to see everything, if you are on a short trip of 1-2 weeks. This would not be possible and you will make yourself exhausted and frustrated. Make a plan to visit two or three attractions per day and discover something new in your spare time.
6) Buy an oyster card: Tubes are the best and cheapest way to travel in London. It also avoids getting your time wasted in traffic. It is available in India at the VFS or you can buy it from any store in London.
7) How to explore the main attractions?
Now the big question is how to explore all attractions? There are so many passes to explore all places, you can buy “London Pass or London explorer pass. With London explorer pass you can visit any 7 spots out of 30 listed attractions in 30 days, in London pass you can visit unlimited attractions out of 80 listed attractions. The majority of attractions are common between two except few.
So we decided to buy London explorer pass (10,000 INR) per person and finalized 7 great value popular attractions. I am mentioning few attractions here with their normal prices (without pass) down below :
1) hop on hop off bus for a full-day view (38 pounds).
2) Coca London eye (30 pounds).
3) Sealife Aquarium (30 pounds).
4) Madame Tussauds ( 35 pounds).
5) Tower Bridge ( 9.80 pounds).
6) Greenwich (16 pounds).
7) Cutty sark (15 pounds).
So, if you will just add it up, it is more than 174 pounds (13k), also it saved my time in queuing and ticket buying.
8) HOP ON AND OFF BUS AND RIVER CRUISE:
There are so many ways to explore London. Hop on and off buses (open-top sightseeing buses) is the best way for a complete city sightseeing. You can travel on multiple routes, with an onboard guide and audio commentary in different languages.
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| HOP ON AND HOP OFF BUS |
A river cruise is another my favorite way to see London, so many boat trip options are available, so you have no excuse not to see London from the Thames.
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THAMES RIVER |
9) Museums and gardens:
Visiting London is not cheap, but they’re so many things that we can do completely for free. London has many famous museums all around the world that can be visited for free. British Museum, Natural history museum, National Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum, Science museum, Museum of London, and many more.
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| NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM |
London is full of beautiful parks and gardens from smaller to royal. You can spend your whole day roaming around in these gardens like Buckingham palace garden, hyde park, Kensingtons garden, Italian garden, etc.
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| Kensington Garden |
10) Famous food and Indian restaurants:
If you are comfortable with European foods and would prefer to eat like People of London, you will have many options like fish and chips, English breakfast, pies, etc. however if you are a Vegetarian like me, you can try many Indian restaurants such as Taste of India, masala zone, Indian room, Mumbai square, Dhaba@49, etc. Personally, I liked the Masala Zone amongst all others.
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| Masala zone thali |
You can also go for Pizza hut as they were offering unlimited lunch buffets. You can also try their hot chocolate (Yummy).
11) Shopping and gifts:
London is a very expensive place, and if you are a high-end shopper it is the right place for you. You can find almost all the designer wear and famous brands here. But if you want to shop in the budget, you can try H&M, Oxford Street, and Primark. In Primark, you can find a variety of things and that too at amazing prices.
12) List of must-go places :
1) London coca cola eye: London eye, on the south bank of river Thames, has a height of 443 ft and it was the world's largest Ferris until 2006. Here, you would get the bird's eye view of the entire city and also click selfies of yours. Trust me when I was at the highest part of the Ferris wheel I got butterflies in my stomach and amazed by the beautiful view. You won't be scared by the height as it moves very slow and it is quite spacious.
London Eye
2) London aquarium: Aquarium takes you to the magical underwater world where you can see different varieties, color & size of fish, sharks, sea turtles, jellyfish, penguins and much more.
LONDON AQUARIUM
3 ) Changing of the guard ceremony: This is one of the high-value free things to do in London which you must not miss. It takes place in Buckingham Palace, a royal iconic building of London. To watch the change of guard ceremony on the forecourt of the palace at 11 am, you must come early and get a place easy to peek inside the court. The ceremony lasts for 45 mins.
CHANGING GUARD CEREMONY
4) MADAME TUSSAUDS: Madame Tussauds is one of the best wax museums, I have ever seen. Here, you will find different wax replicas of famous personalities. You can hug them or try your different poses and click photos.
They also had a few other theme-based arrangments like an alien: escape den kind of scary with blooded aliens with creepy sound effects, Marvel Superheroes & Star Wars zone where you will enjoy 10 min 4D Marvel movie in the planetarium. This will be a wonderful experience for marvel fans like me.
The best part was "the Spirit of London ride" where you can enjoy a black cab ride witness in the historical & cultural events and transformations in London in the last 500 years.
5) TOWER BRIDGE: A famous landmark of London which you might have seen in various movies as well as in paintings. Here you can experience the spectacular view from Glass Floor across the high-level Walkways when you visit Tower Bridge!
TOWER BRIDGE
This permanent feature offers you an incredible birds-eye view of London, from 42 meters above the River Thames. Look down to spy those famous red London buses and pedestrians whizzing over the Bridge while river vessels sail under it – and possibly experience the magic of the bascules raising beneath your feet. Where you also click some memorable photos of the spectacular view.
GLASS FLOOR
6) GMT: Greenwich Meantime, is the famous Royal Laboratory is also known for its maritime history. Greenwich meridian is where hemisphere meets, an imaginary line used to indicate 0-degree longitude. The Greenwich meridian also serves as the basis for the world’s standard time zone system.
GMT LINE
7) Shakespeare's Globe London is also famous for Love and Romance, as William Shakespeare plays a lot of plays and writing in London. Shakespeare's Globe is a theatre playing his famous plays and drama.
SHAKESPEARE'S THEATRE
so, enjoy your London trip...
Click the link for some other tips for abroad trip:
https://travelsandpetals.blogspot.com/2020/07/ready-steady-and-go.html
