(Okay so before you continue to read this post I’d just like to excitedly address that yes all of these photos were taken by me 🙂 ) Yes, thank you thank you . I surprised myself too.
Yes, I traveled to the UK in 2016 and yes I am now just posting this in 2020. I know I’m crap.
London is probably one of the most amazing places I’ve been to so far in my overseas travels, although I have only been to some parts of Europe and some of the countryside in the UK. I’d have to say that London was one of my favourites if not my favourite placee Ive ever been to.
I strangely felt at home as soon as I walked out of Russell Square station and towards our hotel. It was so odd, like I had been there before?
It felt nice to be on the other side of the world but feel like I knew where I was in a sense, and to feel strangely at home.
It was a very strange feeling and I hope I get to go back to London one day and experience that feeling again.
There are so many beautiful sights in London, from the people to the gorgeous buildings, there’s just so much to see. I do feel like I definitely didn’t see everything, but it probably doesn’t look that way if you’ve seen how many photographs I took .
Everywhere I looked I just wanted to capture it. I guess to remind myself , yes I did go to London.. You didn’t dream it.
It was always a dream of mine to go and explore London, see Tower Bridge , go on the London Eye and visit Madame Tussauds. As well as walk along and shop on Oxford and Regent street.
To stroll down Carnaby street and Trafalgar square, and I cannot believe I did those things. I feel so lucky that I was able to travel this gorgeous country.
But how could I not take a million photos, and bask in the large and stunning Big Ben though. This exquisite land mark was so much more gorgeous in person then I could have ever imagined. I am just so glad that I got the chance to experience it in all it’s glory.
I am so grateful that I was able to see all these beautiful sights and especially see London from the amazing London Eye. Because I am now so in love with this big beautiful city filled with wonderment. I am blown away buy all of the beautiful buildings, the architecture in London is just breathtaking, I swear I couldn’t go two seconds without taking a photo of any building I saw.
The reason for this trip to the UK, was that I was asked to go to a wedding with a friend of mine. She was a bridesmaid in the wedding of a girl we both went to high school with, who amazingly and bravely moved from here, South Australia to Wiltshire, United Kingdom.
The wedding was so beautiful, the bride had an amazing day and both the ceremony and reception was breathtaking
The countryside in the UK is a different kind of beautiful compared to the city life of London, there’s a sense of serenity in the surroundings and the people while as kind as the people I met in London they just had more of a chilled vibe than the people I met, and ran into in London. My friend and I stayed in this gorgeous bed and breakfast in Salisbury ,there were only two rooms upstairs that people could stay in and the lady that did the cleaning, washing and cooking actually lived there. The bed and breakfast was so cute with stained glass windows on the ground floor where you walked in was actually a classic english pub.
The countryside in the UK is just breathtaking, all of the greenery and I was so shocked at how small and narrow the roads are! I was actually scared a few times at how close we were to the car in the next lane.
Salisbury was such an amazing little town , with cobbled stoned roads and pavements, they had a cute little outdoor mall area with clothing stores and cafes.
Even though the town area was quite small they had lots of the cutest little shops and stores, and the people that ran them were so crazy nice. There was even a Nandos in the town centre which my friend and I were so happy about. Seen as though since arriving in the UK, we had it pretty much every second night for dinner. It was literally a 5 minute walk away and was good value for money. I didn’t really mind that we had it a lot when we were in London, since we don’t have one in our town ( a small beach town in South Australia).
( the photo above is Kingly Court off of Carnaby Street…. this place was like heaven for a foodie like me. Sssoo many different cuisines it took me 2 laps of this place to decide. It was absolutely crazy.)
So this heaven is called Kingly Court and it was such a struggle to decide what to eat because there was every type of cuisine you could think of to choose from.
From Japanese to Italian, to Korean and German food. So from memory I think I decided on Japanese food, I believe I ordered some sort of spicy noodle and pork buns ? I wish I took photos of this meal that I ate because I it was so amazing.
But because I eat so fast that did not happen haha.
( this is some amazing structure that was near out hotel that we would walk past everyday, I don’t know how many photos I took of this place but it was a lot. )
After our little stay in Salisbury attending a friends wedding, we made the trip back to London on the train with very sore heads and a little worse for wear.
Even though this was 2 days after the wedding we were very tired and excited to relax in the hotel before our European contiki started.(FOR PHOTOS AND A LITTLE BLURB ABOUT THAT ADVENTURE GO TO MY OH EUROPE POST 😀 )
( this little hole in the wall Indian restaurant was I shit you not theee best Indian food I have ever had and probably ever will have. Which makes me very sad because it’s on the other side of the world.
The inside of this place was so tiny that if they had more then 4 people in there they had to rearrange the furniture!
After our 2 week stint in Europe bussing around with 20 other people from around the world, we headed back on the ferry from France back into the UK. We had a couple of days to chill out and get grounded, have some sleep and I believe we did do a little bit more shopping.
By this point I was a little home sick and excited to get back to the chilled out beach town I called home. But those little spouts of being home sick were quickly washed away buy the sheer beauty of the streets, buildings and food that London had to offer.
So we had a few days of more shopping, eating our weight in all the different foods at our fingertips and just enjoying the scenery before starting to dreaded 24+hour journey home to Australia.
The trip back was intense to say the least, for some odd reason (probably because it was cheaper.. ) our return flight disembarked from Gatwick airport.. Which if you don’t know is like an hour and half car ride from London. ..
To be honest I don’t know how we didn’t get kidnapped on this car ride to the airport, because our damn asses decided to have a nap! Like sure, you can just take us anywhere and we will have no idea. WHAT!?
Luckily when we woke up we were at the airport, and not in some crop field in the middle of nowhere.
So the plane flight from Gatwick airport to Dubai was fine, however as soon as we landed we had to legggg it to the terminal we were supposed to leave from to then get on a plane to fly back to Australia. We almost didn’t make it and almost cried but thankfully we got home safely, however this flight was one of the worst experiences I have ever had with turbulence, I thought we were going to crash and die. But 8 hours later I kissed the pillow I had been holding onto the whole time, and was grateful that I was on solid ground and back in my home country.
This trip was one I will never forget and one that has made me realize that I need to see and experience more of the world.
I hope you have enjoyed seeing this beautiful country through my eyes and brain.
Phoebe xo.