Home Sweet Europe (for 5 days in London) Part 1
Swiss cottage is an incredibly nice neighbourhood, there are no cottages by the way. It’s served by the Jubilee line and two rail corridors border the north and south, and not much else if your looking to get into central London and is home to what I think are the most expensive homes outside of central London. Seriously I checked online and the price was 8 million pounds (~14 million CAD) for a 3 bedroom townhouse (called a row house in Britain) across the street from the hostel I stayed. Add in a good hour walk to the Thames and riding the underground was my modus operandi.
For reference here’s the hostel I stayed in (which is actually a converted mansion, the beautiful wooden frescos are preserved inside and the dormitory style rooms I stayed in are cramped and not as good looking.):
And these were the $14 million townhouses a few steps away (This style of architecture is very common in London, and the small fourth floor, the top floor, were historically used by servants.)
Trafalger Square was my first real stop in London, although I first got lost getting there and ended up wandering around Piccadilly circus for a while.
You can see Admiral Horatio Nelson standing on top of his column, the blue thing in the top right is in fact a giant blue rooster, I have no idea why that was there.
The national art gallery, I heard it was great but sadly didn’t have the time to go. After that I met up with a guy I met at the hostel and we strolled down the Mall (don’t be confused by the name it’s not an actual mall) and walked around Buckingham Palace. The Mall is separated from Trafalgar square from a giant marble arch, one of the many giant arches in London.
And everyone likes to knock on the weather of London, and yeah it does rain a lot, but the sunsets after a thunderstorm cleared away were truly gorgeous.
M. Y. Z. 