London 2025

We had no issues on the Ryanair flight from Tenerife, and we had good luck with connections from London Stansted Airport. After the convenient Stansted Express, the Central Line delivered us to Shepherd's Bush. We bought a few grocery items at a Sainsbury Local store and set up in our 3rd floor flat. It looked good. Although it was south of Goldhawk Road in Hammersmith, it was a shorter walk to the Shepherd's Bush  tube station, so we considered it to be in Shepherd's Bush.

Courthauld Gallery was the first on my list as it has an excellent collection, but it had been under renovations the last time we visited London in 2020, so we likely hadn't been there since the last century when we lived there. I purchased on-line tickets the evening before. The Central line opened in 1900, but it has been improved since then. The Central line runs frequently, often every 3 minutes, so it was our gateway to Central London.  We had a bit of time to check out the skating rink at Somerset House. A tiny queue at the Courthauld developed just before 10:00am, but as it turned out, we were the only visitors who had pre-purchased tickets, and we immediately climbed the stairs to the wonderful collection of impressionist paintings. It took a while for other visitors to drift in. We stayed at the museum for a little over an hour and it was not busy, but on the way out, we could see that school groups were arriving.

It was a day for walking as we cruised through busy Covent Garden, Trafalgar Square onto the  National Gallery that was in full swing when we arrived. We went through a few art periods, but focused on the impressionist rooms, that were appealing to many other people. We stumbled out onto Trafalgar Square and then went for a jaunt along the river. We crossed over Waterloo Bridge to the South Bank and made our way to the Tate Modern. The former power station with the Millenium Bridge leading into it, screams coolness. However, each time we have been there, we have found the ground floor Gathering Ground an interesting space with grand art creations, but we found the balance of exhibits  disappointing.  We pressed on through busy, trendy Borough Market, on a late Tuesday afternoon in December.  We crossed back over the river via London Bridge, walked past the Monument, and the Aldgate tube station.

Sheila's  cousin lives near the Circle line, so we took it east for a lovely evening and then we returned west to Shepherd's Bush later in the evening. The heating in the flat was acting up. The smart system must have learned a previous guest's habits, because it kept unexpectedly  raising the temperature. The AirBnb host reset the smart thermostat and we didn't have issues after that.

Our flat was slightly out of reasonable bus range for Central London, so we jumped at the opportunity to catch  the C1 to the Kensington museum district. When we arrived at the Natural History Museum at 9:45 we were surprised that there was almost a thousand people waiting to enter at 10:00am. We had also neglected to procure free on-line tickets. Some of the visitors standing in line were all dolled-up young women taking selfies in the queue. Perhaps, we had stepped into an alternative Instagram world. We stepped into the magnificent great hall by 10:25am and went straight to the large mammal room. Later we walked through the popular dinosaur section, then admired stuffed birds before reaching the volcano section. Stepping out onto Exhibition Road was a relief from  the crowds. 

We pressed on and took the 360 bus to the Pimlico tube station and walked over to Tate Britain. By contrast, there were much fewer visitors and we satisfied on our art appetite. We used to live in Pimlico and opted to walk through the area over to Victoria Station. We had eaten at an Itsu on our previous London visit, and we spotted one in the station, the food was very good but the atmosphere was lacking.  We took our third bus of the day, the 148 from Victoria Street back to Shepherd's Bush. We bought some ready-made meals and goodies at Waitrose and returned to the cozy flat for a couple of hours.

We were at Oxford Circus by 6:00pm and walked with all the shoppers along Oxford Street, then to the Phoenix Theatre on Charing Cross Road.. We had good seats in the stalls for the Stranger Things, The First Shadow production. It was a younger crowd than most West End shows and we enjoyed it. The tube was packed on the return journey after 10:00pm.

We had realized that on-line tickets were the way to go, and made reservations for the earliest available entry of 11:00am at the British Museum on a Wednesday in December. Slightly earlier entry was not a problem and we made a good stab at seeing many of the key collections and even bravely visited the Egyptian mummy section.  We were astounded by some of the individual pieces throughout. 2 1/2hours later, we made our way towards High Holbourne and an enjoyable lunch at the Itsu Japanese restaurant. There was a short queue to enter Sir John Soane's Museum, with staggered entries. We made a quick tour of the collector's house and learned about how the collection has been managed since Soane's death.  We scooted home on the Central line for the afternoon. 

In the late afternoon, we made our last foray into Central London for the Christmas lights. We walked for about 2 hours along Oxford Street, New Bond Street, Mayfair, Piccadilly and Regent Street. There were a lot of people out. We were quite impressed and don't remember so many lights and so much glitter 30 years earlier when we lived there.

We had an afternoon flight from Heathrow, so we made a leisurely walk to the Hammersmith tube station, stopping at Gail's bakery for coffee and goodies along the way.  It marked the end of a fantastic 2 1/2month trip.