Day 14: Saturday, September 21

So Long, York…

It was time to return to London for one night, then on to Heathrow Airport the next day for our flight back to Toronto. When I was initially putting the agenda together for this trip and booking everything, I looked at the option of flying home from York via Manchester airport. That represented a small issue, though – first we would have had to get to Manchester from York, and even then the flight would have stopped at London Heathrow to connect/change planes anyway. Given all that rigmarole it was simpler to just fly in and out of London, taking a London-York return train.

We got up at 8:00AM to meet our 9:00 breakfast reservation in the hotel’s dining room. We finished our last Queens Hotel breakfast, then headed back to our room at about 9:30.

Checkout time at the Queen’s Hotel was 11:00AM, so we slowly started packing up for our hotel departure and train trip down to London. We had lots of time so we moved slowly and lingered as much as possible; our train to London did not depart from the York train station until 11:50.

Tired of sitting in the hotel room all packed up and ready to go, we decided to check out of the hotel. We left at about 10:30, first returning the room security card, the loaned extension cord and my borrowed cane to the front desk. Outside the hotel I ordered an Uber, which arrived within 5 minutes – very nice and courteous driver (bless Uber – it has been so handy on several European trips).

It was a short ride to the York train station, and we soon arrived. We found the departures platform and waited for our 11:50 train info to appear on the Departure board:

Our platform – Number 3 – was eventually posted on the board, so we made our way there and took a seat (train not yet arrived).

The train arrived right on time and we boarded Coach E, the First Class carriage (I had reserved seats months ago when I booked this trip). The train pulled out exactly on time. It was an hour and fifty-minute trip down to London. The journey passed pleasantly except for a small group of rugby/soccer yobs ahead of us who were clustered around a game on someone’s phone, blasting the game’s commentary at full most of the way down to London and yelling at each other. Brits have an international reputation of getting very worked up over rugby/soccer games, and this was living proof.

Back in London

We arrived at London’s Kings Cross at about 1:30, stepping out of the station into a totally chaotic (but wonderful) Saturday afternoon mayhem outside – aahhhhhhh… to be back in London… there’s nothing else like it!!  🙂

We made our way back to the eternally awesome Cartwright Gardens, bypassing our beloved Euro Hotel this time (what! oh, the disloyalty!) to reach The Harlingford Hotel at the end of Cartwright Gardens:

I had booked the Harlingford for this one night in London because it was almost £100 cheaper than our usual hotel, the Euro. All hotels charge as much as they can get away with on a Saturday night booking compared to mid-week – the Harlingford was £180 (CAD $322) for the night. For some time I’d been wanting to give the Harlingford a try just to see how it stacks up against the Euro.

We checked into the Harlingford at about 1:40. The woman on Reception had originally assigned us a room on the top floor (no lifts in the Harlingford). When she saw me limping in she very kindly moved a bunch of bookings around so that we could have a room on the ground floor (no steps – Tada!). She assigned Room 11 to us, and we made our way there. What a great little room it was!! (emphasis on little). The ensuite and room had been fully modernized and it was very nice… we loved it, but soooooo tiny. Oh well, it was just for one night.

Wandering Through Bloomsbury

We did some very minor unpacking, leaving almost everything in the suitcases as we were checking out fairly early the next morning, then left the hotel to take a walk around Bloomsbury. We stopped in at Leon to have a drink and soak up the London vibe. We decided to continue our wanderings around Bloomsbury, so we went through the beautiful and relaxing Russell Square – where we paused for a long while, enjoying the relaxing and shady park:

While we were sitting in Russell Square, we couldn’t help but notice an attractive young woman splashing around in the park’s centre fountain, a la Anita Ekberg in La Dolce Vita but much more subdued. I then noticed a professional photographer giving the model direction, so then I understood what was going on:

After chilling out in Russell Square for an hour we left, continuing our wanderings in the British Museum neighbourhood:

One of my favourite buildings in London is the British Museum:

Reaching the Museum, I could see the ice cream trucks lined up on Great Russell Street, taunting and tempting me with their offerings – of course, I weakened and indulged:

From the British Museum we wandered down Gower Street, then Tavistock Place to Marchmont Street, and back to the Harlingford Hotel.

One Last UK Meal

Returning to our room, we had a little lie-down for about an hour. We wanted one last – and somewhat special – evening meal for our last night in London, so I suggested Pizza Express on Euston Road; at about 6:30 off we went.

Pizza Express did not disappoint, and we had the full meal deal, so to speak, with wine and desserts. Although it was breathtakingly busy and noisy there, we stayed for a couple of hours, just enjoying the great food and lively atmosphere.

Saturday Night in Piccadilly Circus

We returned to the Harlingford Hotel at around 8:30 for a pit stop, then went down Marchmont Street and got on the Underground’s Piccadilly line. To create a London memento, I wanted to pay a short visit to Piccadilly Circus on a lively Saturday night in the big city. We weren’t disappointed – when we got there the place was jumping… and it was still early:

I shot a little movie of the goings-on in Piccadilly Circus that night. Nothing special happens in this video, it’s just Piccadilly Circus going about its business on a typical Saturday night in central London; people hang out for hours there, just milling about. When we were there, there was some kind of street dancing going on but there were so many people we couldn’t actually see the performance:

Saying Goodnight to London

We wandered around Piccidilly Circus for a while, soaking it up, then got back on the Underground. It was very crowded with a lot of loud, boisterous and slightly drunken Saturday night party people. All good fun, though.

We reached the Harlingford Hotel at around 10:00PM and were off to bed shortly after that. We needed to get a good sleep for the big travel day tomorrow!

Today’s step count: 12,531