London, Once Again

I had to travel to London for business on a Friday at the end of February, so Robin decided to join me for a quick three-day mini break.  We flew from Schiphol to Heathrow Thursday evening after having a nice dinner at the Lowlands restaurant in the airport.  We took a combination of the Piccadilly and Jubilee lines to get to our hotel, the Hilton Canary Wharf. The Hilton was a mere 5 minutes walk to my meetings the next day and I was interested in seeing more of an area of the city which was just starting to be redeveloped when I lived in London in the late 1980’s.

While I worked, Robin finally visited the Tower of London, after missing it on all of her previous trips.  After work, we met up at the hotel and we took the tube to La Chapelle, a one-star Michelin restaurant in East London.  We had a fabulous meal with matched wines in a beautiful restored girls’ school chapel.

Saturday the plan was to visit my old stomping grounds, South Kensington.  We visited the Science Museum where we took in a number of exhibits, including the Leonardo da Vinci and Julia Margaret Cameron shows.  I was also enable to explain to Robin a bit more of what I do for a living using the various steam power engines as examples.

After the museum, we walked through Imperial College where I did my PhD in Chemical Engineering in the late 1980’s.  Many things have changed on campus but other things not so much.  I was able to navigate us around the buildings; the photo above is the front of the the building my office was in. We then took a quick stroll around the Royal Albert Hall and decided to have lunch at the restaurant there, Verdi .  We split a tasty garlic prawn appetizer and a pizza.  Heading out again, we walked through South Kensington east towards Harrods.  Harrods is another place l hadn’t visited in 30 years and we enjoyed our walk through the food halls.

Heading back to the hotel, we decided to have dinner near the hotel. We tried the Big Easy first, but a 45 minute wait convinced us to find another restaurant. We hadn’t had Indian in a long time and found Chai Ki to be a great modern Indian restaurant. Once again, we split a number of dishes and left the restaurant full but not stuffed.

Sunday we decided to visit the Museum of London Docklands.  Both Robin and I found it to be a great little museum with a number of interesting exhibits.

After the museum, we hopped on the tube back to Heathrow and had dinner at Gordon Ramsey’s Plane Food before flying back to Amsterdam.  Once again, London does not disappoint as a travel destination.

Camera: Sony DSC-RX100
Lens: Zeiss 18-100mm f/1.8-4.9
Focal Length: 10.4 mm
Exposure: 1/100 sec at f/4.0
ISO Speed Rating: ISO 125

Barry Cott Written by:

Barry is one of the driving forces behind Station Studios. An avid photographer and outdoor enthusiast, when he's not traveling, he calls Port Stanley, Ontario home.