How To Spend Three Days in London AKA A Three-Day (72 Hours) in London Itinerary

There was a time bloggers just posted about trips and vacations. I tried that a couple of times and it was almost physically painful. That said, I want to try that for this vacation I'm currently on (Current me popping in parenthesis through this. Note to say this was THREE whole months ago haha but I'll leave the tenses as they are, as usual, for better flow. Something else you should know about this trip is that it's three countries/cities but London is the first stop. The others to come). So I'm writing in real time. If I get bored of having to transcribe the events of the day every evening, then that's where this stops. There also won't be that many pictures. Sorry. (That sounded curt but I really do mean the apology; sorry for not adding as many photos. Getting the pictures from that long ago is a lot of work).  I still feel a type of way about my photos just being out there in the ether. Plus, organizing pictures is a whole other chaos.

Anyway, we arrived in London from America at about 10AM local time. The six hours and change flight was pretty uneventful. Praise God. From the airport, we headed down to our hotel—about an hour's drive. Our hotel was smack dab in Trafalgar Square. I was particularly exhausted (from literally working till the very minute we left) so I just jumped into bed and slept. I woke up, took a shower, and we headed to our hotel's rooftop for complimentary drinks. Yay, for a nice view of London.

We went back to our room, rested a little and went out for food. The concierge recommended Fumo London, a nice Italian restaurant with such amazing aesthetics. My food was really great. My sister didn't enjoy hers as much. Plus she has this weird likeness for Nando's. So yeah we finished at Fumo and went to Nandos, and yes, I ate again. I will say Nando's in the UK is miles better than what we have in America. By the way, see here for food photos from the trip. 

Then I remembered, I forgot my [very specific] mouthwash. If I don't use it, eating is a painful endeavor, so I never travel [or go anywhere for that matter] without it. Except, again, I worked right till the minute I left home for my flight so planning for the trip was a lot. We went on the hunt for the mouthwash. Of course, they didn't have in all three drug stores we went. But at one of them, the pharmacist recommended a replacement. And it worked[—or so I thought]. As we walked that evening, some weird rain started to randomly fall. The weather in London is exactly as yucky as has been advertised.

It was then time for Broadway. I love Broadway. We saw The Lion King. It was PERFECT. The show was phenomenal, colorful, brilliant. Man, people are creative. Ice cream, popcorn UGH sooo good. The entire experience was just amazing. (This single event would be my most favorite moment of the entire trip but I didn’t know at the moment it happened. Isn’t that life?) Anyway, that was from 7:30 till about 10:30 or thereabout. So we headed back to our hotel.

And there it was: day one.

Then day two came.

We woke up late. The chronicle of every vacation. Not so late as to miss our appointment but late enough that I couldn't exercise. It wouldn't matter as you'll see. Anyway, we headed to Cafe Nero where my sister got coffee. She didn't like it; she said it was watery. Then we walked all the way to Westminster Abbey. Okay, I didn't like we were charged so much to see a church. But it's filled with so much history and apparently costs a lot to maintain. I should say I'm not as enamored with the whole royal thing as most people so if you're sensing that throughout this post, you'll be right. There is just a lot about monarchy that doesn't sit well with me. Moving on. We walked to Buckingham Palace and when that was done, we realized we still had some time before our afternoon tea.  So we did some more walking and went to do some touristy shopping thing. Then came time for afternoon tea. Y'all. It was SO expensive. It's super fancy and all, but definitely not worth the hype. I actually don't imagine actual Londoners do that sort of thing [I checked with my British colleague and she gave a polite smile and response about how it's the sort of thing you do with your grandma on Mother's Day. Y'all lmao). In any case, it's good to try it, of course,  but I wouldn't recommend it for a second time.  I will post a video of it and link here once I do.

When we were done with all that tea and scones and biscuits, we walked for about 30 minutes to Daunt Bookshop. I don't know what's  special about it but I LOVED the experience. There is something about walking around in the midst of books. I know I swore off buying books for a while and yet, I walked away with four books. I remember saying nonsense like "I wanna buy books from home countries of my friends to pay homage." Excuses. Excuses.

Anyway, we then walked around some more and it was getting to time for dinner or at least to make decisions about dinner. We randomly found a nice looking restaurant, and asked we could walk in. They said if before 6:30, sure, but if not, then it would be difficult to accommodate us without a reservation. We told them we'd return around 5:15 reservation? They said sure. It was still about 4:30 then, so we walked around Oxford circus, walked into some shops, and it was time for dinner. When I say dinner was AMAZING! Just unbelievably GOOD. The name of the place was at Furos London. Yoooo. Sooo good. I always say I had the best pasta of my life in Florence. This was a VERY close second. The food tasted like sauce my mother made. We had Spaghetti all Arrabiata and Spaghetti allo scoglio. Just perfect. Even the tiramisu was so good, we ordered seconds. This was probably the second best moment of the trip. [It was so unexpected. It also goes to show the importance of spontaneity on vacation. We simply had no time to research where to eat and such but ended up just loving our food.] 

Anyway, we then walked back to the hotel. Later that evening, I had to go see my dear dear friend. We had planned to meet at Wagamama so off I went for a second dinner. I had never had a good food experience at Wagamama so I was skeptical. But my friend said it's actually pretty nice and sure enough...it turns out I had been ordering the wrong thing because I thoroughly loved my food that night. 

After a LOT of laughter and catching up, it was time to leave. So I headed back to my hotel. 

So it was: day two.

Day three came. We started with a walk to Vapiano. Anyone just remotely familiar with the restuarant scene in DC and Chicago may know about Vapiano before they disappeared during the pandemic. I was hit with an awful sense of nostalgia and decided we HAD to go. It was a fail [and this is why I despise nostalgia with everything in me. It's unreliable, deceptive].  My sister had bolognese and it wasn't so bad. But my Arrabiata [or whatever travesty they served me] was awful.

Afterwards, we went shopping. The weather was sooo awful that it really dampened my mood. I was cold, and it didn't help that it was windy, raining. Gosh, London's weather lived up to every bit of its reputation in such an uncanny way. Anyway, we hit different stores, bought some things, and hit local grocery chains as well. We then headed to Thai Square for dinner and the food was marvelous. London is such a great food scene. My friend (another one) met us there and it was a lovely evening of chit chat and catching up. Lucky us, we had just seen in Nigeria in December but it was so great to catch up nonetheless. We walked back, stopped at a souvenir store, and then headed to our hotel. I forgot to mention we had now moved to Waldorf hotel. 

Then day three ended.

Day four:

Our last day in London! We relaxed  and slept in this morning as we prepared to leave London for Paris. We walked to a nearby cafe called The Black Penny. The coffee was soooo tiny haha [oh boy cue the Americans love everything huge joke. It's alright, I can take it]. Anyway, we went back, checked out. and it was time to head to the train station. Paris here we come.

I have been to London before (hence why there weren't as much typical touristy things?) but this was the best trip by far. London is such an amazing place: it's diverse, vibrant, colorful, and just fun. [If you can just ignore that AWFUL weather. Lord]. 

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this? Have you been to London? Did you like it? Where is your favorite vacation spot? To spare you from scrolling endlessly, I broke up the trip. So stay tuned for the other cities on this tour/trip/vacation!

Love,

I