London July 21-23

We had a long weekend for Belgian national day and decided we needed to get out of town for a few days.  We have run out of creative ideas for 3 day weekends, so we are playing the greatest hits album. Back to London! We did not do a great job planning as there have been a few other things going on that we need to plan for, but we figured we would just show up and see what happens. Thursday dinner was Wahaca (again) in East End. It was fun to see all of the finance crowd out and about for their after work drinks. On Friday morning, we returned to a breakfast place we struck out at last time: Breakfast Club. A classic English breakfast hit the spot. The weather was nice so we decided to hit a park we hadn't seen before. Hyde park is a massive green space capped at one end by Kensington Palace and the accompanying gardens. We rented city bikes to take it all in efficiently, but for some reason they really don't like you riding through the park, only around the outside. So we ended up ditching the bikes after a half hour and strolling through the pretty park. The afternoon was dominated by attempts at baby clothes shopping at all the hot spots (Harrod's, Regent and Oxford streets), but it turns out London isn't the place for bargain shoppers. We also took a break from shopping at the famous Dominique Ansel for Molly to try their "cookie shot" creation (a shot glass made of chocolate chip cookie and filled with milk). Dinner was a great pork steam bun or four at Bao in Soho.

A HUGE breakfast

Kensington Palace

Hyde Park

The Kensington gardens

Cookie shot!

On our next morning, we returned to Bill's where we had enjoyed breakfast before.  Although we didn't have a run in with the Queen this time, the food was still really good.  After breakfast, we headed to Coveant Gardens to check out the street performers and shops.  As the typical London rain started to settle in, we searched for some indoor activities.  We headed to the London City museum to check out their exhibit about urban living before visiting the British library.  The library of course had tons of old books but the coolest display was one of the original versions of the Magna Carta.

Coveant Gardens

Books everywhere!

Before catching the train home the next morning, we spent our time wandering through a few of London's markets.  We stumbled upon a really cool organic farmers market that we decided would be our go-to if we lived in London.  For lunch, we hit the Southbank food market and had nachos and a London take on the po boy.  We strolled the river walk to get back to our hotel and pick up our bags before a return to Belgium.  We had another great weekend in London, one of our favorite city trips in Europe.