53 Hours in London

I was in London this past weekend (if you read the running blog, you knew this). It was a mix of old and new. I stayed in the neighborhood where I used to live (Fitzroy Street), and even got my Tesco digestive cookies at the same Tesco Metro I used to go grocery shopping in (which incidentally, has gotten much larger from when I was a student). It was a walk down memory lane.

There were some new things this trip. I went running at around London Bridge and ran through Borough Market. It’s a good thing it wasn’t open, because I would have stopped my run and gone eating instead. Still that was fun to see, as was the food stalls near the London eye, and the London eye, for that matter.

The biggest thing was I did not do Afternoon tea at the British Museum, which has always been my go-to. I branched out and tried something different. GF and I met from tea and walked to Charlotte Street Hotel. The setting was nice, not as light and bright as the museum, but it was cute – it had character. As GF pointed out, part of the decorations were jars of what looked liked pickled herbs and vegetables, the jar behind my head was pickled crabs!

As for the tea itself, they had the standard sandwiches, like smoked salmon and cream cheese, and some different ones, like chicken and pickled pumpkin (That was interesting because it was a mix of savory and sweet – the pumpkin was really sweet in my opinion) and a sausage roll with apple. The scones and clotted crème were great, the other pastries were ok.
They had a really nice selection. GF got a peppermint and lime iced tea which sounded refreshing, but I went with the bog standard English Breakfast.

If I had to choose a food theme for this trip, it was fish and chips. I had one of those every day (chips on Saturday, fish on Sunday, and fish and chips on Monday). I did get one good curry in, but I think the next visit should be an Indian food visit. And yes, I'm already planning a next time!