Exploring London

We visited the city of London twice on our Northern Europe holiday, once in 2024 and again in 2025. It was Bianca’s first visit, but Christian lived in London for four years in his twenties.

London Underground

Even though it is the world’s oldest underground railway system (since 1863), the London Underground is efficient and effective. Christian still had two Oyster cards from his last visit, but it turns out that you can use a credit card to get through the Underground turnstiles instead. As a bonus, once we had done three full journeys, all other underground travel was uncharged in their “capping” scheme.

Each station, and line, is different – so we had to navigate a maze of underground tunnels, steps and escalators. It was hard work when we had lots of luggage! Sometimes, the trains were packed solid with passengers, and there was always a rush when people got on or off. We went on probably over 50 trains, but only got a seat about five times. Bianca found the announcements (and their accents) to be amusing – “Mind the Gap!”. Although the older trains and stations are dirty and definitely showing their age, the new stations are gleaming and impressive.

Twist Museum

Just at the junction of Oxford Street and Regent Street, there is a small door that leads down to an illusion museum. This experience is called the Twist Museum, and we enjoyed an hour exploring it. The experience is self-guided and cost £19 each. We entered through a demonstration of light and colour, and then we were in a mirrored area where we could explore the impact of light and reflection

We explored symmetry and sound illusions, three dimensional perspective illusions and then there full-sized rooms that played with our perception of angle and size.

The children in the museum were very excited by the bright colours and hands-on exhibits, and we found the overall experience to be very interesting. When we saw other similar museums and experiences around Europe, we decided that we had already had the experience in London.

Hamley’s Toy Store

The worlds oldest and biggest toy shop, Hamleys, is based in Regent Street, and has expanded out to other locations and airports across the world. We were enticed in by a giant teddy bear and two elves. The shop has a mixture of licensed toys (like Paddington soft toys), packaged toys from worldwide manufacturers (like Lego and Ravensburger) and their own products.

The basement is set aside to be a Harry Potter themed shop, but the other five floors have a wide variety of toys. On each floor, there are demonstrators who are playing with the toys and encouraging children to join in. The noise of robot dogs barking and jumping fills the shop, and excited children are playing with the demonstration displays.

Liberty and Carnaby Street

Just behind Hamleys, we went to the historic designer department store of Liberty. This timber-framed Tudor style building is spread over four floors and has a range of departments including women’s fashion, jewelry, homewares and even Persian carpets.

Significant for Liberty is that they have their own style. The ornate delicate flowers in a repeating pattern is in their fabrics, their clothes and even in the china. As with many London buildings, the structure of the Liberty shop itself was as much of an attraction as the items for sale.

Through Liberty is the fashionable street of Carnaby Street. This area has been renowned for decades for fashion and a “hip” vibe, where it was the centre of the “swinging sixties”. It is the western-most street of Soho, and we explored the street and the rest of Soho beyond. After a mulled wine in the Shakespeare’s Head, we headed in to the rest of Soho.

Leicester Square

The centre of England’s movie world is Leicester Square, where most of the movie premiers are shown. Here, we found a small Christmas market, and statues of Mr Bean, Mary Poppins, and Harry Potter.

Platform 9¾

For any lover of Harry Potter, when you go to London, you really must head to King’s Cross station and find Platform 9¾. Whilst the original version of the book quoted Euston Station (which has steel columns, not brick walls), and the film used re-numberd platforms from St Pancras station (next door), there is a new 9¾ created. Conveniently, this is right next to a Harry Potter shop.

We waited around an hour in the queue to have a photo taken with a half-dissolved luggage trolley. Even though there is a formal photographer, and you can buy the posed photos, almost everyone in the queue also took photos with their own camera. It was an unofficial arrangement, but you just hand your phone to someone else in the queue, and they take a photo with your own phone.

City of London

After we had our visit to Tower of London cut short, we had a couple of hours free. I used this opportunity to show Bianca where I used to work in the City of London. However, there has been so much construction and re-construction in the last 20 years, that my old offices are now gone, replaced with a bigger and taller tower.

Still remaining in the area are the Lloyds of London building – inside-out, right next to the ancient Leadenhall Market, where we stopped in at a pub. I showed Bianca the Bank of England, and tried to find some Medieval back-streets here (but did not find what I was looking for). We then ended up at the one of the oldest pubs in England, the Lamb and Flag in Covent Garden.

Harrods

London’s most iconic luxury department store, Harrods in Knightsbridge, is very popular with tourists. We joined the 15 million other annual visitors to enjoy the luxury brands and ornate building. We did not visit all 330 departments or 23 restaurants over eight floors and a million square feet. However, we did visit the food hall.

The food halls in Harrods are on the ground floor, and are both ornate in design, and opulent in stock. There are raw ingredients, like butchers and fishmongers, but also ready-made food that many Londoners will use for lunches or to dine in. Unfortunately, it was extremely busy when we visited the ornate tile and marble rooms with palatial ceilings.

Battersea Power Station

We took a Northern Line tube on the new extension to Battersea Power Station. The location is iconic because it was used on the album cover for Pink Floyd’s album “Animals” with an inflatable pink pig floating over it. As a power station, it was closed in 1983, and left undeveloped for thirty years over arguments and failed plans to make it a theme park.

Now, it has been developed into a shopping centre, surrounded by apartments. There is a bar made from Control Room B, retaining the old switches and dials that were used to monitor the power generated and delivered to London.

Tate Modern

The modern art gallery of the Tate Modern is in the old Riverbank Power Station. The Tate Modern is free to enter, and is a part of the Tate art galleries that are in London, Liverpool and St Ives in Cornwall. We entered the main turbine hall off the Southbank, and were stunned at the five story high open space. We explored a few galleries, but not everything we could – this place is huge!