Our chic short break to London

Walking towards St Pauls

In all honesty London is fairly close to us - a two hour direct train and we are there and I frequently visit the capital for work, although saying that it's always for work and I never have any free time to enjoy this amazing city. So when an old friend was coming over from South Africa for a week to enjoy all that London has to offer we thought it was a perfect time to book a short family break and really take our time to enjoy this action packed city.


We have been wanting to try out AirBnB for a longtime and thought this was the perfect opportunity. our first choice was a studio in Notting hill but was not available for the dates we wanted to travel so we found a lovely one bedroom flat right in the centre of Covent Garden, with a patio so the little man could enjoy a bit of outdoor time. What attracted us to this flat was the chic and simple interior with some lovely features as that is the things about such an amazing city we want to be inspired even by furniture in London.

Our chic apartment

Really excited we boarded the high speed train from London with the little man. When we arrived we had some free time before checking into our apartment and decided to go to have a stroll (and run) through Hyde Park via the Peter Pan statue of course and the lovely lake running through the park, as well as the Princess Diana memorial after which we ventured to the Science Museum first. I love that London has such a amazing museums that are Free!! He loved the rockets and vintage cars on display as well as the interactive children's garden downstairs.

 Luckly the little man is fascinated with everything in London and is more than happy to go on packed underground tubes as he sees it as an adventure. With having run out some of the energy that had built up from sitting on a train for two hours we were looking forward to seeing our apartment - which had an amazing location although one arrival it had not been cleaned properly which was not too much of an issue as it only took 5 min to clean out the fridge, wipe down some surfaces.

John and Mr A in the underground

What not but what was unacceptable was our bedding which was not dry, in fact it was soaking wet from having just even washed and there was no spares - it was already 3pm and with only a few little electric heaters and having to hang them on the back of chairs we did not envisage having to spend hours trying to dry bedding - a bit of a dampener on the start of the holiday (excuse the pun :)  I think it's one of those things when your travelling solo or s a young couple you don't mind but it becomes more of an issue when you have a 3yr old and you want them to have a fairly comfortable and warm night. Luckily Airbnb offered us a 50% refund because of this as we literally had to spend until 9pm trying to fashion up some kind of bedding. Otherwise the flat was how it was in the photos, simple and stylish.

Mr A enjoying the transport museum 

After the initial stress though the flat was a stylish and chic place to stay with lovely wooden floors and a comfy king size bed, plus the bonus of having a kitchen meant we ate in most nights, while enjoying lunches out in the city. The highlights of the trip have to be enjoying a veggie honest burger outside in the sun in soho with my friends from South Africa.

Art in Tate Modern and walking over the Thames to St Pauls

We also hoped on a few buses with no real direction to just have a trip around the city, as well as enjoying a bus ride to the Tate Modern and walking over the bridge towards St Pauls with the dramatic skyline in the background. We of course visited Mr A's favourite place that is the dinosaurs at the National History Museum and had fun driving buses and tubs at the British transport Museum after which we enjoyed traditional pub fayre in a busy pub a few moments walk from Covent Garden. By the end of the four days we were truly exhausted and both John and Mr A slept most of the way home. All in all it was lovely spending some free time in the big smoke and even though it's an ever changing and very busy city it's a great place to take kids.

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