A Quick Trip to London, England
Taking a quick break from the holiday content, I finally have had some time to sit down & write all about my trip to London this summer! If you missed my blog all about the Eras Tour from earlier this summer, you may not know that back in June, I took a super quick trip back to London, England! I was so lucky to have gone with my husband on our honeymoon last year (read that recap blog here!), but there were definitely something major touristy things we missed out on since we were mostly there for some family business.
Long story short, my dear friend sold me her second ticket to the Eras Tour in London this summer, and since I was laid off from my job at the time, I made this trip a very quick one, and headed back to London for 2 and a half days (I told you it was quick) to make up for all of the lost tourist time in 2023, and see Taylor Swift! Not only was this a return trip to London for me, but it was also my very first solo trip; my husband didn’t feel like coming all the way to London for such a short time with me, so it was time to get brave and figure out travelling abroad on my own!
Day One: Checking out the Tourist Spots
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about myself now having travelled to London twice, and done almost the exact same flight from the year prior, it’s that I’m too old to take a red eye, but if I do, I’ll rally all day to beat the jet lag! I did this last year, and I did it again this year. I landed in London at around 10am local time on June 20th, met up with my friend and hit the ground running! Since we were staying right near Wembley Stadium, it took us some time to get there from the airport (it’s about 1 hour on the tube from the airport to Wembley).
Once we were all checked in, showered, and ready to go for the day, we quickly went to the Eras Tour merch stand, got our merch & headed out for the rest of the day to sight see. Thankfully my friend and her partner were super cool about hitting up the touristy spots that I missed last year! Our first time: Big Ben & the London Eye!
This may sound silly, because of course a building is going to be huge, but I don’t think the size of Big Ben really hit me until I saw it – it’s massive. Like, way bigger than I thought it’d be. Same with the London Eye! And in case you were wondering, no I most definitely did not go in the London Eye; I’m not big on heights, so no, thank you! It was super cool to see though, and I’m glad I finally got to see both; they’re both one of those “once you’ve been there and seen it, you don’t need to see it again” kind of tourist stops for me. After this, we walked up the River Thames, and made our way over to Buckingham Palace!
The highlight of making our way over to Buckingham Palace was not only accidentally stumbling upon Trafalgar Square, but walking up The Mall and seeing the palace at the end of the street. It’s crazy to think about how many people line this street when there’s a royal event happening! Once we got to Buckingham Palace, there was one thing I noticed… In contrast to seeing Big Ben, I must admit, Buckingham Palace is much smaller than I thought it’d be for some reason? It was still really cool to see, but of course, was very busy! It’s also really cool to look around and see Queen Elizabeth’s crest still on everything lining the palace.
Did you think we were done with day one yet? I told you, I take a red eye & then I hit the ground running! After Buckingham Palace, we decided to take our chances and make our way over to The Black Dog pub to see if there was seating (spoiler alert, there wasn’t); and in case you didn’t know, this is the pub that’s rumoured to be the pub Taylor wrote The Black Dog about, hence why there was no seating the day before the first London Eras Tour show! Since there was really no seating at the pub, we made our way over to a food hall to grab some dinner, and then made our way back to the hotel since we needed to get a good night’s sleep for even more sight seeing in the morning before the Eras Tour the next day!
Day Two: Hyde Park & The Eras Tour!
One thing about London is that there’s lots of swans in Hyde Park, and despite me being absolutely terrified of birds, I really wanted to see them since we don’t have them where I live and I think they’re beautiful (from afar). After I had a little sleep in until 10am that morning, we grabbed some breakfast, and headed over to Hyde Park to see the swans, and enjoy the morning before we had to head back to the hotel to get ready for the Eras Tour!
Not only were the swans so incredibly beautiful, but the ducks were super adorable too! You can definitely tell that these birds are very used to people because they were not scared whatsoever… me, on the other hand was terrified to be approached by them (but not terrified enough to not take photos!).
Since we didn’t have a ton of time before we had to get ready for the Eras Tour, we made our way back to our hotel, with a quick stop at Primark to buy yet another suitcase for me because I didn’t have enough room to bring back all of my goodies that I bought (in typical Emily fashion), and then it was time to get ready to dance the night away with Taylor Swift! After the concert, I was on such a high, I struggled to get to sleep… I’m pretty sure I didn’t fall asleep until like 3am and then I had to be up at 7:30 to get breakfast before heading to the airport to head back home! But alas, it all worked out, exhausted as I was, and I made my way back to Canada safe & sound!
I hope you enjoyed this rather lengthy recap of my very quick trip to London this past summer. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to share all of the details of it with you, but I’m happy I finally had some time to sit down & write it all out. I’m thinking I might need to make a spring/summer trip to London a yearly thing… what do you think? 😉
