London, My First Europe Vacation

I have never been to Europe before and I am glad that I did this trip to London. We got there on Saturday morning 05/27/2006 after an overnight flight from New York. I did not really sleep in the plane and the next day was terrible. Firstly, it was raining all day long and secondly I was jet lagged. I just stayed home all afternoon making plans for coming days.

London is the largest metropolitan city in Europe. The main highlight of our trip was the London tour in the Original London Sightseeing Tour bus. We visited pretty much all the major landmarks of London like Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, River Thames, London Eye, St. Paul Cathedral, The Great Fire Monument, Tate Museum, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Circus, Leicester Square, Madame Tussauds, Sherlock Holmes Museum and British Museum etc.

Besides that, we also visited historic places like Stonehenge in Salisbury and The Roman Baths and Pumps in Bath, which was an astounding experience. We actually rented a car and then drove to these places.

Quick Tips:

If you are planning on a vacation to London for the first time, I would suggest taking a bus tour that will cost you €17 for The Original London Sightseeing Tour that includes a free boat tour on Thames River. Another tour service called The Big Bus cost €20 with a free boat tour. But I went with the first one. Basically they are same but I realized that The Big Bus tour buses were more frequent as one time we had to wait for like 30 minutes for the bus, while 10 Big Bus tour buses passed by. The boat cruise is fun if the day is beautiful.

One most important thing is to carry with you is your student ID with you at all times if you have one. Most of the places in Europe offers you pretty reasonable discount on places like museums, parks, Stonehenge, Bath, tour buses. You will be saving couple of bucks here and there.

If you are planning to go to Stonehenge and Bath, there are tour buses from Central London that would cost from €39 to €79. Cheaper ones are mostly sold out. There were three of us so we rented a car for €60 including rental charges, insurance and taxes.

Don’t waste 1 to 2 hours of you precious time standing in line to get on the London Eye spending €13. I can give you a better idea. The Monument that is near by St. Paul Cathedral is as high as London Eye. You don’t need to stand on the line and it will just cost you €2. You will get the opportunity to climb 311 steps to get to the top. It is fun and challenging and you get a good view of London from there. You will also be awarded a certificate for successfully climbing the 311 steps.

Do you like ice cream? Try Thornton’s on Oxford Street near Bond Street station (there might be many of them in the city but that is the one I know). London is also famous for fish and chips and an English breakfast. Tipping in restaurants, taxis and any other places are very rare. It is up to you. Restaurants will add 15% VAT on the total bill. It is not surprising for anyone to know that London is a pretty expensive city.

Best Way To Get Around:

London underground trains are the best and the fastest way to get around. If you think you will be hopping on and off around a lot, you should buy a travel card that costs €4.80 pound for zones 1 to 4, or €6.30 for zones 1 to 6. Most of the landmarks lie within zones 1 to 4. Local double-decker bus services are also very easy and convenient and are frequent. Travel card is good for these local buses as well. Just display it to the bus operator while getting on and you are on your way.

If you are new to London and you want to make the most of it, it is highly recommended to take a bus tour that will take you to most of all the landmarks of the city. There are many tour buses you can choose like The Original London Sightseeing Tour, The Big Bus, etc. The one we took was the first one.

Driving in the city is not recommended at all due to high traffic. You need to pay traffic congestion fee of €8 if you enter the city during weekdays. Finding a parking spot is a disaster.

You will find taxis everywhere in the city and definitely they are luxurious and comfortable. At the same time they are expensive.

After a long tiring day of touring London, we decided to go to Kathmandu Inn Restaurant. Located at the heart of Central London, Kathmandu Inn, a Nepalese tandoori restaurant is just a couple of stops from Baker Street when you take a Hammersmith & City line underground train. You can get off at Goldhawk Road station and take a 5- to 7-minute walk west of Goldhawk Road. It is right at the corner of Paddenswick Road and Goldhawk Road.

It just took us 20 minutes to get there from the Baker Street station. The place was simply beautiful and cozy with soothing traditional Nepali instrumental music playing in the background that relieved our exhausted minds and ailing feet. The interior was well decorated with traditional Nepali handicrafts, arts and posters. We were seated in a table and were offered ice-cold water with the menu. I decided to kick off with a beer and asked for "Kathmandu Beer" that reminded me of my native country Nepal.

Then we decided on trying some appetizers. We ordered lamb momos (juicy lamb dumplings), aloo achar (potatoes mixed with onions, cucumber, garlic and ginger paste, spices and herbs), and chicken choila (juicy spicy chunks of boneless chicken sautéed with spices and herbs). It was awesome. I could not just stop eating those momos one after another. Combination of beer and chewela blended perfectly. FYI, you might find choila a little too spicy as it is supposed to be but you can ask them to make it mild.

And then it was time for dinner. We finally decided to order some shrimp masala (shrimp in a thick spicy sauce), mushroom (forgot the actual name), daal makhani (buttered lentils), and some naan (bread). Everything was so good. I still remember the taste of those lamb momos and choila.

By 7 am the next morning we were all pumped up and excited to make our most memorable trip to Stonehenge. That was also one of the main reasons for us to plan our vacation to London. A couple of weeks before our vacation, I was watching a documentary on National Geographic channel on the historic Stonehenge. Different scientific and mythological assumptions made by scientists and journalists about this one of a kind landmark in Salisbury fascinated me.

We got our rental car from the London Heathrow airport. I was so excited that I didn’t even bother to think about how left hand driving experience would be. For a while I was nervous but a while later it didn’t really matter much. I was driving at 70 mph on M4 (Motorway 4). Yes that is what they call there in England for Interstates. FYI, there are no speed limit signs on those Motorways. Cameras are installed everywhere. So you need to careful on how you drive. I hope I didn’t get any speeding tickets. We reached Stonehenge in an hour and half, which was pretty good. You will find a lot of parking at Stonehenge and it is free. If you don’t find a spot then you can park in the open fields.

Entrance fee to the Stonehenge is 5 pound 60 pence regular or 4 pound 40 pence with a student discount. Audio tour is free. You will receive an audio device that operates in 4 or 5 different languages. Obviously there are instructions on how to operate them. Significant spots at the site are marked with numbers. You can punch those numbers in the audio device to listen to information about that spot or item.

Stonehenge at Salisbury is said to be 5,000 years old, and is the third one on earth. The one in Salisbury is very unique from the other two because of the stones stacked up on top of the other stones. There are questions on how, why and from where those stones, weighing tons, were brought to such a deserted place. It is still shrouded in mystery. Two kinds of stones are found in Stonehenge; sarsen stone and blue stone. Sarsen stones are the largest of all. The amazing thing about the smaller blue stones is they are warm even in the winter.

There are restrooms, a café, information center, and a souvenir shop in the vicinity.

Our next destination was Bath. We had heard about it a little bit and it is supposed to be of historic value. To take advantage of our rental car, we decided to make our way to Bath, a small town 40 miles north west of Stonehenge. We were on our way on A36 (a local road) in minutes.

The drive to Bath was interesting but scary. A one lane, two-way, narrow, and extremely curvy road had a speed limit of 50 miles per hour. All sorts of vehicles—trucks, 18-wheelers, tour buses—were running at relatively high speed. Besides that, driving up and down the hills was fun. The route was scenic. Once in a while, when you approach small towns, you will also find some vehicles parked right on the pavements with half of its body on the one lane road. This was totally insane. Then there were these ancient Roman-style houses lined up on the other side of the hill. And there were so many of them that formed the town of Bath.

Hundreds of thousands of people visit the town of Bath every year for its beautiful Roman architecture and culture. The most popular sites are the Roman Baths and Pumps, Abbey Church, Pulteney Bridge, Royal Crescent, Royal Victoria Park, The Circus Building, etc. As we reached the city center, I was surprised to see so many tourists from all over the world walking up and down the city with a map in their hands trying to locate these spots. It is recommended to buy a small map of the town of Bath for £1 or £2 so that you don’t miss anything.

The Roman Baths and Pumps, The Abbey Church, and the shopping center are right at the city center. Entrance fee to the Bath was £11 for adults but with student discount it is £8.50. So guys, don’t forget to carry your student ID card with you while visiting Europe. They also have different fees for children and family and joint saver tickets. An audio tour is included with the entrance fee. You will be given an audio device that narrates the history of the site. The water in the bath is still warm. Water from the bath is drained out from the Roman drain to the river Avon. It has been well maintained by the government to preserve it historic value.

A little further towards the river Avon is the Pulteney Bridge built in 18th century. This one-of-a-kind bridge is famous for the shops on both the sides. The Royal Crescent museum, the Circus buildings, and the Royal Victoria Park are about 10 minutes walk from the bridge to the north.

There is a big municipal parking right below the Royal Crescent Museum that is pretty reasonable. If I remember right, it was £2 and change for 4 hours. There is hourly parking here and there but it might be more expensive than the municipal parking. It is safe and is usually in observation by police.

The best thing we did to get around in London was to take The Original London Sightseeing tour bus. It was bright and sunny day, we got to the Baker Street station to meet one of our cousins. We met near a huge statue of Sherlock Holmes, right outside the station. Right next to it was a small booth that runs these tour buses. We had a nice and filling breakfast at Café Uno near by on a cross street and headed straight to the booth. We bought our tickets for £17, which is usually good for 24 hours. This also included a free boat tour at the Thames River.

We got on the top of the bus and hooked our headphones provided by the bus into the receiver. The first thing was the Madame Tussauds that was right next to the booth. Then the bus moved towards busy Oxford Circus passing the Communication tower and then to the Piccadilly Circus. At the center of the circus, there is a famous aluminum statue of Eros, which is one of the London’s landmarks. Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus are mostly filled with business and shopping places. You might get lucky to meet some celebrities at the Leicester Square—that is just couple of blocks from Piccadilly Circus. We got the opportunity to see a premier of Poseidon.

Next stop was the Trafalgar Square, another popular spot in London, built to commemorate the Battle of Trafalgar. There you will find the National Gallery and the famous fountain where tourists feed the pigeons in their hands. However, you are not allowed to feed the pigeons anymore.

From Trafalgar Square, we decided to take a walk towards Big Ben. On the way we also visited the Prime Minister’s residence and The Horse Guards. Big Ben and Westminster Abbey were just couple of minutes from Trafalgar Square. If you walk towards the Big Ben you will find the River Thames and across the river are the London Eye, Aquarium, and County Hall. And if you walk towards Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace is about a 7 to 10 minute walk from there.

We walked to the Buckingham Palace after the Thames River Cruise. I didn’t find anything fancy about the palace except for the architecture and the sculptures. You can also watch the changing of the royal guards there if you got lucky. The ceremony will take more than 30 minutes.

We got on the tour bus again and then visited Nottinghill Park, Hyde Park, the Marble Arch, and finally to Piccadilly Circus again. At the Leicester Square you can buy tickets to some museum for a discount of only a couple of pounds. We bought the tickets to Tower of London for £15, which usually cost you £18 at the counter standing on the line.

Well, we had a great time touring around London in this tour bus and I think the free Thames River Cruise made it worth paying £17 per person.

One of the most memorable adventures we had was to climb 311 steps of The Monument. It was built between 1671 and 1677 by Christopher Waren to pay tribute to the Great Fire of London in 1966.

It cost you 2 pounds per person and the experience is thrilling. You don’t need to stand in a line for hours like you do to get on the London Eye.

Narrow steps go round and round the tower. There are windows like spots in every maybe 20 feet where you can sit and relax whenever you are tired. It might get dizzy for those who fear height. But once you get to the top, you will not believe what you just concurred. The view form the top of the tower is just magnificent. You can see Tower Bridge, Thames River, some cool buildings, St. Paul Cathedral, tiny streets of London, other side of the Thames River where many of the landmarks of London like the City Hall, Tate Museum, etc., are located. It was worth it 2 pounds for the experience you get.

Most challenging of all is to climb down the stairs. It gets dizzier because you are looking down the steps and if you stare at the steps for a long time it gets blurry. So be careful. Once you hit the ground, you will be surprised to receive a certificate for climbing the tower successfully. This certificate contains brief history of the tower and you can print your name in it and frame it.