I never would have imagined that I would be lucky enough to win a free trip anywhere, let alone to London, one of the cities that I wanted to visit for a long time. I would like to grab the opportunity and thank International Business School for the experience and for facilitating the whole journey. Thank you for the three amazing days that I was able to spend in London with my girlfriend.
Our first day was mostly about arriving and getting to know the "flow" of the city. We arrived in London with a list of 22 sights that we wanted to visit in these 3 days. Luckily, we were able to visit all of them. This of course would have required a lot of planning ahead which we didn’t do, since we like living in the moment more than planning our life in advance.
We started each day at one end of the city and we worked ourselves back to our hotel from there. On the first day, our starting point was the airport. What we noticed right away after leaving the terminal was the amazing public transportation system that London has. After the plane landed it wasn’t even an hour and we were already standing in Chinatown, in the centre of the city.
Our next big goal was to reach the Elizabeth Tower and the Big Ben. It is one of the sights that everyone knows from the internet or from English books since it is one of the buildings that are most commonly associated with London. There is a truly beautiful view of the whole building from Westminster Bridge. From there, we went to the hotel to drop off our bags and hopped on a bicycle and we didn’t stop until we reached Hyde Park. Compared to my initial beliefs, it was very easy getting used to the left-hand traffic. We biked around Hyde Park and from there we cycled all the way to Buckingham Palace. We ditched our bikes and continued on foot. We had a nice walk in the park, watched the sunset, and went back to the hotel to get a good night’s sleep to prepare us for the next day.
We began the second day by taking the London Underground to North Greenwich, from there we hopped on one of London's typical double-decker buses and visited the Greenwich Observatory where we stood on the Prime Meridian line. We also walked through the museum located in the observatory which carried a lot of information about the place itself and the scientists whose breakthroughs were connected to it. After the observatory, we walked around a bit in the park and headed to our next main attraction, the Tower Bridge. On our way there, we decided to take a detour and ride the cable car above the Thames. There was a beautiful view of the Isle of Dogs which is one of the most modern areas in London with skyscrapers and other office buildings. Switching from cable car to public transportation, we quickly travelled to our destination and reached the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. Even though these are two of the most famous sites in the city and we’ve seen them several times already online, being able to see them in person was a completely different experience in real life!
With the Tower Bridge behind us, we visited all of the must-see sights including the London Eye, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Madam Tussauds, and Sherlock Museum. Aside from the popular tourist attractions, simply walking the streets and experiencing the atmosphere of London, was also incredible. For instance, the Borough Market was one of my favourite memories that I made during my visit. The atmosphere of Camden Town was also a gorgeous attraction that I fell in love with within seconds.
I will be missing the spirit of London. These three spectacular days made me realize that I simply must visit this wonderful city again the next chance I get!
