ldn 2026 trip part 1

This February, Kat and I spent another week on holiday in London. We loved our last trip there so much we’d been plotting reasons to return. Luckily, a stage version of The Killings at Badger’s Drift announcement gave us reason to return. Once again, I want to log the trip here so we can relive the trip in digital form.

Sunday

We flew in on a Sunday again, but landed a bit later stay off the jet lag a bit ¹.

We took the Tube in from Heathrow this time (LHR → Piccadilly → Gloucester Road). It was super convenient, less than an hour on the Piccadilly line and ~10 minutes walk to our hotel from Gloucester Road station. Only bummer was it was drizzling when we got off the Tube and picked up strength along the way to the hotel. My brolly was buried deep in my backpack & I didn’t want to stop to get it out so I got a bit soaked. Luckily we were able to check in right away and dry off.

With the rain still coming down, we grabbed a much needed coffee from Blank St @ the South Kensington Arcade and headed to the V&A (our first of many trips here). The V&A was incredible! There were so many statues and busts and the Cast Court literally took our breaths away when we stumbled upon them. They were so massive! It’s really mind boggling the amount of art that’s jammed into the museum - and to know that there’s so much more not even on display too.

After our museum explore, we were hungry, so we grabbed Pret (Posh Cheese & Pickle!) on the Brompton Road. It was as delicious as I remembered, if not more.

From there, we were off to do some wandering and shopping. We checked out the Anya Hindmarsh x Boots collab pop-up in Belgravia; Papersmiths, and Chelsea General Store on Pavilion Road, then into Chelsea proper for a Waterstones visit. A nice meandering walk took us back to our hotel.

Dinner was at the nearby Zetland Arms. Very crowded on a Sunday evening, but we had a nice table near the bar. Good beers (Zetland Pale Ale), good food (Sunday Roast for me, vegan burger for Kat), good pudding (sticky toffee). A fantastic dinner to start the trip.

Monday

Our first full day in LDN, and we made sure to fill it full. The jet lag wasn’t so bad this time around and we were able to get off to a good start.

We had breakfast at the new, big Gail’s on the Cromwell Road. I got their bacon butty, and Kat had their almond chocolate croissant. Good flat whites with nice latte art.

We returned to the V&A for a longer explore - checked out the Raphael Cartoons, and some more European art.

After the V&A, we made our way into Central. South Kensington → Piccadilly → Piccadilly Circus and off to Carnaby Street for Muji (all the stationery!), Izipizi (sunglasses for Kat), and a Liberty mooch. We made our way down to SoHo to the Nothing store where I got a new pair of earphones. Along the way we saw Rob Beckett trudging his way up the street.

We grabbed lunch at Honest Burger (their fritter sando was really good) and a coffee @ WatchHouse in Seven Dials. They poured a very solid flat white (notice a theme here?).

We hit up our second Muji of the day in Covent Garden and searched for a glass chopstick holder - no joy. Then backtracked to Choosing Keeping (it was just around the corner from WatchHouse 😅) for more stationary goods. We also stumbled across Barnaby Bars where they make all their chocolate bars by hand, and they were delicious. Then we headed back to the hotel for a quick rest (Leicester Square → Piccadilly → South Kensington).

We headed back into Leicester Square later for the evening. Grabbed a quick but tasty dinner at SushiNoya on Charing Cross. They had matcha soft serve for a sweet treat!

Then we headed to St. Martin’s Theatre to see The Mousetrap, an Agatha Christie play that’s been playing at the same theater for 75 years in a row (we saw performance number 30,441). It’s the only place in the world to see it (they can’t make it into a movie until it stops showing at the theater. And that doesn’t look to be stopping anytime soon). Thankfully, despite its long run, there are few spoilers out there (I wasn’t really looking for any, but didn’t accidentally come across any). They intentionally keep it secretive, which is really cool. I feel part of some elite group having seen it, though probably half of England has seen it by now. Needless to say, we really enjoyed it! I guessed the murderer correctly, but Kat guessed the final Red Herring, so I think we did pretty good on our detecting.

Leicester Square → Piccadilly → South Kensington, hotel, sleep.

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