Thursday was our day to visit Windsor which was a 4-5 hour experience so we didn’t plan much else.
When I was researching, I thought it would be fun to go to Little Venice and explore the canals, have breakfast, and rent bikes and ride around.
We made plans to meet at 8:45am and at least try the breakfast part.
Dad ended up meeting me because Cindy had a bit of a head cold which had popped up the night before. Her priority was Windsor and she didn’t need to go watch us eat anyway. So Dad came down and said, “Are you ready for an adventure!?”
He loves exploring and he wanted to go try the Underground. Cindy is not a huge fan (germs, crowds, etc) and while we had used it once last night, Dad and I were more ready to go try and figure it out.
He had his Underground map and I had my Google Maps and we set off!
Before we left, I walked outside and it was sunny! I was shocked. The doorman said, the rain is done for the day! I ran back upstairs to get my sunglasses and dropped my umbrella off. Then we set off.
Luckily, it was the same place we had gone to the night before so there wasn’t much guesswork. We did have to change trains two times though but we made it to where we needed to go.
We walked outside to incredibly dark clouds and were wondering how a 15m underground train ride took us to a different weather zone. Creepy!
But the canals were nice to walk around.
They had these adorable little boats with restaurants, bookstores, and other things. I wish I could have found the bookstore boat but it was early and nothing opens until noon! Except for this cute cafe.
We wandered around some of the pathways. The breakfast place actually opened at 11am so we headed that way.
We got to watch super cool, very long and skinny, boats give rides through the canals. We found our breakfast place just as it started to rain.
Cafe Laville was lovely. Very delicious omelettes and Dad had a full breakfast with sunny side up eggs.
We hung out here for a bit and enjoyed the ambiance. After a half-hour it started to get pretty busy.
London definitely brings in people from all around the world. It was fascinating seeing everyone and the languages they were speaking.
We then made our way down to a different station and headed back to our hotel. Dad grabbed a picture of me with the train and sent it to Ryan. His main comment wasn’t about the train but how CLEAN the station was!
We had a little time in our room and then met downstairs at 12:25pm to meet our driver for Windsor.
Very nice guy but he hated Meghan Markle and it was super annoying. I was also suffering from a few hours of sleep and my eyes just wanted to close the whole ride there (which was about an hour).
We arrived and it was a gorgeous day! Once we started walking around I caught my second wind.
The walk through the town was perfect. Our guide was very interesting and informative (beyond his hatred for Meghan!).
He had a bunch of great stories but times he’d been there and all the history, as expected. He also knew some shortcuts, which was nice!
I didn’t know Eton College was so close, that William and Harry just walked back and forth some days. Very gorgeous view. Expected why they built their castle there!
I enjoyed seeing all the dining rooms and table settings. Learning about the fire in the 90’s was interesting too, and to see how they rebuilt.
We browed through the shops and Cindy got some postcards.
Then we happened upon a changing of the guard! So cool to see them marching up the street.
We did a quick browse through some shops on the way back to the car, which was fun. They had an adorable street faire which would have been fun to stay around. Our driver had his whole story of why he hated Meghan for the way home and I just closed my eyes and went back to sleep. haha
We hung out at the hotel for about an hour and then met back up for dinner. We decided to take the Underground since we were professionals at this point. Cindy and I had a very silly laugh about the city names. Yes, we have middle school humor.
We went to Fumo, an Italian restaurant. The customer service was not great but our waitress MORE than made up for it. She was so sweet and hilarious and apologized left and right for things that were not even under her control.
I didn’t realize it was sort of like a tapas restaurant but that was fine. Dad and I each ordered two or three plates each. It ended up being SO good. Dad said he would definitely come back to this place but I still liked the steakhouse a little bit better.
My fish was covered in rock salt though, it was amazing. And the freshness of this caprese salad was simply amazing. Our waitress gave us a free dessert and tried removing the service charge (her tip!) off the bill but we said no way. She was seriously so nice.
Very lovely night! We got back to the hotel and made plans to meet at 8:55am the next morning!
Friday would be our “Changing of the Guard” day and Notting Hill exploration.
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