Exploring Purposefully…

When my oldest child was 9 (and my youngest was 6), it occurred to me that bringing kids who were 8 years old or more to Europe would be really fun. They’d be old enough to keep up on lots of walking, to read the plaques at museums, to be patient and appropriate with travel inconveniences. We decided to plan a trip to Greece (which I’ll cover in another post), and then the question was how to get there as a family of four. I was unwilling to start out a trip with an overnight flight in economy (I cannot sleep on planes and get claustrophobic), and realizing that there are several daytime flights each day between NYC-London was very convenient – we could fly into London, spend a few days exploring and getting past our jet lag, and then continue onto Greece. Then I got the bright idea to take the train from London to Paris for a night (also a subject for another post). So we’d be getting into London at 8pm and leaving 36 hours later. Time to make the most of this short visit (first time in Europe for the rest of the family, and I hadn’t been to London since middle school).

Itinerary details
Days: a Wednesday in April
Lodging: The Clermont, Charing Cross
Travelers: Two adults, two kids

Tuesday night:
We flew from NYC to LHR, landing a little early and thankfully not spending long in security. We got a car to our hotel, and then took a quick walk to appreciate our surroundings. Despite the time difference, we were ready for bed and slept well (I had been getting everyone to bed early and up early for a week to try to minimize the time difference, and we’d woken up at 2am that day to get to NYC for our flight). 

Wednesday:
We had a lovely breakfast at the hotel, and then set out on the Tube to the Tower of London for the opening ceremonies. Finding the station from our hotel was easy, the 20 minute ride was clean and easy, and it was about a 7 minute walk to the Tower, though the entrance for opening ceremonies wasn’t easy to find even with instructions. After the ceremony we stayed for a little over an hour to explore the White Tower and the Crown Jewels. We enjoyed the history and it seemed like something not to miss, but it wasn’t an attraction we needed to stay at all day.

We then grabbed a coffee and got back on the Tube headed for Kensington (about 30 minutes). We had reservations for a lunchtime high tea at Kensington Palace, which was very elegant and fun. My son loves tea (more now since this trip), and we all got to experiment with new flavors (the red velvet was a revelation). We ordered a savory tea tower packed with calories but mostly sweets, so we needed to order a couple entrees as well to make a full lunch. 

After lunch we walked over to the Diana Memorial Playground. Calling this is a playground feels trite, as it’s this whole magical adventure park, with a Peter Pan ship, hidden passageways through shrubbery, and tons of little spots to discover. With slightly older kids, we thought we’d poke our heads in for 20 minutes, but we ended up having to pull them away after 45. 

We walked through Hyde Park, saw Buckingham Palace, and then made our way toward Parliament and Big Ben. We then walked up along the Thames back to our hotel. We did the whole 4.5 mile walk over a couple hours, and it was lovely getting to stroll and enjoy the sights, while also getting to move around following a whole day of sitting in cars and planes. 

We returned to our hotel around 4pm, relaxed for a bit before dinner, and then went to The Clarence for dinner and ate delicious pub food. Another after-dinner stroll, including a stop for some delicious gelato right near the hotel, and off to bed.

Thursday morning:
Very early departure, the hotel packed us breakfast to-go boxes, and we took our car to the train station. We had to go through security like in an airport, but no liquid restrictions, and then sat around for awhile until our train was ready to board. And so ended our very brief but fulfilling trip to London!

Final review
What we did well: 
I was really happy with this itinerary. There were many other things we could have seen but didn’t really have time for, and I think doing the one big historical thing followed by a day of eating and wandering was ideal. Getting to do a special tea for a kid who loves tea was also unique and memorable. 

What I would do differently next time:
It would’ve been a good idea to have indoor plans for rain, though luckily we didn’t need them. My kids were a also little tired of walking by the end of the afternoon, but walking more makes you better at it so I wouldn’t really change that.

Any feedback or thoughts? What would you do for one day in London? Was I a mean mom making my kids walk so much? Feel free to leave a comment!