Our Blog - London, UK 2024 trip

One great thing about living in France is how easy it is to get to a lot of places in Europe. Living in North Carolina, we would "pop up" to New York City every once in awhile to do a long weekend and catch some Broadway plays. This past weekend, we "popped up" to London for a long weekend and we caught some West End plays. Since we have been to London several times already, we didn't do the normal tourist sights. Instead, we focused on plays and a few walking tours from the London Walks company. They have TONS of different 2-hour walking tours, some of them focused on specific neighborhoods, some focused on something historical (like the Jack the Ripper tour), and others on a specific sight (like the Tour of London or Westminster Abbey).

This trip, we did 3 different walking tours (one on each day below), and 2 different plays (which I will talk about in Day 2 and Day 3 below). We got an early start, and had a colorful "sunrise" coming into London.

After arriving, we caught the new Elizabeth Line service from Heathrow Airport to central London. This is the first time for us on the Elizabeth Line, as it opened in 2022 for Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee year. What I didn't realize was that the Elizabeth Line is not actually part of the London Underground system. Instead, it is a hybrid train/underground line running East-West across the center of London and links quite a few of the train stations along the way. From Heathrow Airport to the city, the Oyster pay-as-you-go card is accepted, which worked great for us. We have Oyster cards that we add money to them each time we go to London. During the first year of operation, it carried over 150 million passengers!! It worked out great for us this trip, since our hotel was a 10-minute walk from one of the stations on that line, so we didn't have to change. Without this line, we would either taken the Heathrow Express (and changed at Paddington Station), or the Jubilee line (and had to change).

Okay, now on to the sights of Day 1 in London, which included a walking tour of the Westminster neighborhood.

Then on Day 2 of the trip, we did a walking tour of the Soho neighborhood and then an evening play.

Finally, our Day 3 agenda included a walking tour of Westminster Abbey and then a quick lunch before an afternoon matinee play.

Nothing much on the last day, just the train back to the airport and an on-time flight home!