London - the end - my views about it

[Tiago]

Hi, just arrived home from London. Unpack my bags, and here i am.
My opinions about London:

The bad first :(
- Food: sorry but it's one one the worst foods i ever taste.... I was at UK 20 years ago, different cities, but my opinion is still the same. Pizza and fast food everywhere. Muffins were nice, but not much more... for the amount of money i spend in a low meal, i can eat much much much better in so many contries.
- Coffee is s**** 2 pounds for an expresso? What a f**** ??!? You can drink a coffe here for 60 cents (Euros) and it is 500% better.

But hey, not much more to complain, the rest was super!

What i like :D:cool:
- Beer !! I taste some nice beers.
- People are friendly and nice, everyone that we talk too were cool. We talk to regular people on street, with policemans, even wth priests and all people were great.
- City was clean, at least areas 1 and 2. Nothing to complain here.
- Places we enjoy a lot:
- Westminster Abbey - superb !!
- St Paul's cathedral - Superb !!
- HMS Belfast - This boat is excellent! I loved It !
- Windsor Castle - Cool
- The Crown Jewels at Tower of London is very nice to see.
- Big Ben - Super Cool
- Abbey Road - We went to the famous crosswalk, very cool.
funny situation here, the people that were driving most of them don't stop there, they know that tourists want to take pictures of them in the crosswalk, so they dont cross when they stop, because cars will stay in front of cameras, so drivers dont stop with red lighs... they just keep going lol
- And the very fuxxxxxx best: Battersea Power Station !! I just Love it to dead !!!!! The mitical picture from album "Animals" from Pink Floyd.... i could almost see the flying pig! That building is magic, i don't know, but it's very impressive.


London Eye at night - Superb view, but i am afraid of heights, so when it reached about 30 meters i sat down for the rest of the ride.... fuxx.

We also went to Greenwich and we saw the flood. Some areas were with water high.
And i almost forgot, the undergrond (tube) is fucxxxxx claustrofobic! Our underground here is much much smaller, but stations are bigger, and the tunnel is larger. One trip it stops between two stations, and from the window to the wall was only a hand....fuxx !

[Harrison]

:lol: Sounds like you enjoyed London for the most part.

Glad the weather improved and the wind died down so you could go on the London Eye. Did you visit the London Aquarium which is right next to the London Eye? Or the Salvador Dali exhibition/gallery which is just along the river front to the left of the Eye? I really should have mentioned that earlier before you went.

Regarding the Underground:

You have to remember the London Underground was built by the Victorians, with the first line opening in 1863, making it over 150 years old! It's the oldest underground railway system in the world, which is quite impressive. The narrower older tunnels are only just over 3 metres in diameter, so pretty small. Also consider that originally the trains were steam locomotives. Can you imagine the smoke down in the tunnels? That must have been really bad.

Did you go on the Jubilee line? That is impressive, completely renovated fairly recently with glass barriers between the track and platform and sliding doors which perfectly align with the trains as they stop. Westminster station on that line is impressive too.

Regarding Food:

It all depends where you went. If you only went to the most obvious tourist restaurants and well know fast food places then don't expect much. Anywhere close to tourist attractions won't be that great. But London has a lot of amazing restaurants serving any type of food. You just needed to walk a bit around the corner from the main tourist places. Pubs are some of the best bets for home cooked food and there are loads of small restaurants down side streets.

Regarding price, food and drink prices in London have always been high because it is the capital and a central location for tourism. Everywhere else in the UK is a lot cheaper.

[Stephen Coates]

Glad you had a good time :).

I went to the centre of London back in 2006. It was cool to see things like Big Ben and the London Eye, but I wouldn't go back unless I had to.

[Tiago]

I made a mistake, i put Crown Jewels at Windsor Castle, but their are at Tower of London. I changed it. Sorry for that.

Harrison: We didn't went to museuns, only if you consider HMS Belfast as one, or Tower of London as Tower Bridge as museums.
We enjoy walking on streets, feel the atmosphere, go to the markets, see people in their day to day life. We prefer looking at major landmarks and if we got time left, then only in the end the museums. And it was only 6 days, so we didn't had much time.
But we enjoy it a lot, and we will go back. Amazing city to visit.

Regarding food: i consider good food, not only quality and price, but also the % os good places to eat. I am sure London have some great restaurants, every city have them, michellin prices bla bla bla prizes, etc... What i mean is: you pick 50 random restaurants in a 5 km circle, what is the change to get one really good? As a tourist, what i want is, ok, i am hungry, lets eat, so i go to the near restaurant, i don't want to go to a special place 400 m away. That's the major thing as a tourist point of view. There are other cities in other countries were you can do this much more easily.

[J T]

I'm really pleased to hear you had a good time in London, it is a nice place to visit. When I lived and worked there I used to get annoyed at tourists getting in the way but on reflection it's actually nice to see people enjoying themselves.

It's true about the food in London. There are a lot of chain-restuarants there that are pretty ordinary. Really good food is expensive in the city, reasonably priced but nice places can be tricky to find without some insider knowledge. In touristy spots you get a lot of the big chains.

The UK just doesn't have a cafe or bar-restaurant culture like the continent. I remember the food in northern Spain, even in crummy dirty bars was wonderful in taste, range, variety.

[Harrison]

The issue with food is commercialisation and large American fast food companies, which we all know is a country which can't make good food (the exception being New York). Just be glad that in many European countries it is still relatively free of them ruining local food.

I've had my fair share of rubbish food in London, especially when I've been in a hurry and just found the first place to buy something. But equally just looking down a side road and seeing many smaller restaurants has produced much nicer food.

If you do come back to the UK, try to plan a trip by train down to Brighton. You will like the restaurants there a lot.

[Tiago]

Here in Lisbon, if you want to have a meal, you can find a restaurant no more then 100 meters were you can have for example a steak with fried potatos, rice and egg, a glass of wine and coffe from 10 to 12 euros. A complete meal. But you can find even less. I eat every day near my work for 7 euros. And the food is very nice.
We do not have a lot of chain-restaurants, you have mac, pizzahut and a few more, but there are a lot of independant places to eat.

[Kin Hell]

:lol: :lol:

Glad you had a good time. Your right, it is fucxxxxx expensive for a coffee anywhere in England & the food isn't brilliant unless you go to reputable restaurants, (the best ones are tucked away as H said) but then you'll pay BIG money for the experience. :dry:

All the fast food is just utter cr4p where ever you go. I just don't touch the stuff wherever I travel.

Our London underground is well out of date, but it's the best way to get around London and would be a damned sight more impressive if they gutted the lot & started over. It needs a re-bore. :lol:

Shame you didn't do the National Science Museum or the Natural History museum with the dinosaurs. Arguably, the best in the world.

[Tiago]

Next time i am sure we will go to "National Science Museum or the Natural History museum".
We wanted to walk the most distance by foot possible. We like to walk around the city to feel the streets. Museums can be great, but i think they can be time consuming if you don't have much time to visit a city.

[Harrison]

That is true, although the Natural History Museum was overhauled a few years ago and you follow a route around the exhibits, meaning less chance of missing anything, and much faster. The science museum however is so huge and diverse that you can spend a whole day in there and still not see everything, especially once you get to the early computer section.