Adventures in London- our pre Long Haul mini break.

As has become our tradition- when we venture off on a long haul adventure, we like to arrive in London a day or two early to have an explore.

This time we travelled to London early morning on a National express coach and spent the morning taking in a walk published in a book Keith received for Christmas “Exploring the Elizabeth line”. Having spent the last 12 year following the creation of the Elizabeth line, it’s wonderful now to be able to explore it- the trains are spacious and modern and the stops take hardly any time to reach.

Our walk from Tottenham Court Road to Farringdon took in plenty of nooks and crannies and also went past Dr Johnson’s house. Somewhere to visit another time!

We enjoyed a Thai lunch and then made our way to the city where we had tickets for Jeff Wayne’s War of the worlds immersive experience. As huge WoTW fans we enjoyed the experience- it was something different and used virtual reality to enhance the experience. The story told well through brilliant set, enthusiastic actors and atmospheric lighting. Occasionally we put on VR (virtual reality) headsets for a fully immersive experience. It was certainly a fun way to experience some phenomenal music, but I’m not sure I’m that into immersive experiences if I’m completely honest and a lot of the time felt like a bit of a Wally!

Following our War of the worlds experience, we travelled across town to Battersea Power station, which has just recently reopened as a very cool place to hang out. The former Victorian power station is now home to shops, restaurants and bars and happened to have a light festival, so we enjoyed a meander around, marvelling at the wonderful renovations, particularly the brickwork.

After a couple of drinks in the Battersea brewery, We headed back to the hotel at Victoria and had a great night sleep.

Next morning, we’d paid for late check out, so we walked back over to Battersea, this time to give the new chimney lift a go.

Wow – just wow. The glass elevator climbs high inside one of the chimneys up up and even further up. The view over London was terrific but the whole experience was really one of the best we’ve had in London for a long time. Well worth the £20 price tag.

The inside of Battersea power station now hosts shops and restaurants, and has been renovated beautifully, keeping the building’s heritage alive with original bits of machinery and sympathetic design inside.

From here we nipped for a beer on the embankment at our favourite pub- The Tattershall Castle, which serves drinks with the best view in London we think! After checking out of our hotel, we started on our journey to Heathrow. Via South Kensington for our traditional pre long haul pint at The Hoop and Toy and a delicious carb fest at Pierino’s, one of our favourite Italian’s and somewhere that routinely don’t mind us turning up with a lot of luggage!