We arrived at Heathrow extremely early this morning. The Border has become very efficient, and we were quickly in the Tube on our way to our hotel, the CitizenM Tower Hill. It was all quite a bit too quick and we arrived far too early to check in. We took a few minutes to reorganize for the day, checked our bags, and walked out into a beautiful, rare (at least for us) sunny London day.

We’ve been curious just how busy the streets would be post-pandemic, and for sure the number of people out and about was lighter than in previous trips. We were happy to see that it’s still incredibly vibrant. When we started coming in 2016, the number of cranes over the buildings was astonishing, suggesting tons of building and renovation. If anything, the number of cranes post pandemic is even more extreme. It’s pretty hard to take any kind of a skyline picture without cranes all over it. London is definitely not sitting around on its laurels.

Business first, we shopped quickly for the best SIM card deal we could find in our neighborhood. Because that took us over near Leadenhall market, we wandered about there for a bit. Leadenhall market is said to be J K Rowling’s inspiration for Diagon Alley (and certainly where a scene about Diagon Alley was filmed in the first Harry Potter movie).

We also found ourselves wandering over to Borough market. I guess because we haven’t been in London for so long we wanted to repeat some things we’ve done before. We bought some croissants and empanadas to hold us over until a real meal could occur. And then we walked along the Thames over near The Globe. We enjoyed watching kids playing along the river front and listening to the variety of buskers making music and most enjoyably, making bubbles. They were so pretty in the sun.

While we were there, we formed a plan to visit the Eltham Place. This is a smallish palace that started as a manor house and became a vacation/weekend haunt of Edward II and his heirs starting in the early 1300s. Henry VIII grew up in the Palace. It fell into disuse and was restored by a textile magnate and his wife in the 1930s. We learned that we could take the train to the place, so we set out for the London Bridge train station. We struggled to figure out how to buy round trip tickets to the location we had understood to be the closest and ended up buying tickets to the town of Eltham. However, once we got to the tracks we were informed by a train employee that you can’t get to Eltham Palace from Eltham.

At that point we had a decision to make. We decided to let the train take us to an adventure in Eltham, even if that adventure would not be Eltham Palace. I slept almost the whole way there.

When we stepped out of the train, our googling, enabled by the new SIM card, gave us new hope—it seemed we could EASILY walk to Eltham Palace. It was only 10 minutes up a pretty, shaded street.

I’m glad we went because it was a very peaceful setting, with cool, somewhat wild gardens amongst Medieval walls. Note: you could see London skyline, including all the cranes, from the garden. The Palace, which would have been quite small by Palace standards (at least among those I have toured previously) was made larger due to a large great room used for parties.

The textile magnate and wife had left the exterior relatively pure to its roots, but inside had redecorated to 1930s standards in Art Deco. Although it seemed strange amongst palaces I’ve seen, it was interesting to see someone apply modern style to an ancient space.

We enjoyed the house and gardens and then trotted back to the train. By the time we returned to Tower Hill it was well past the time to check in to the CitizenM.

We’ve visited London at least 15 times and have never repeated a hotel….except this time. Partly because there weren’t very many options in our price point and partly because it just seemed like something familiar might be nice after the pandemic-induced hiatus from travel. Although the CitizenM is fine, it’s not the hotel I thought it was when we selected. Our room has the dreaded alcove bed where inside person has to climb over outside person to leave the bed. In my case, this is numerous times in a typical night. Oh well. We will enjoy the view and the location anyway.

We were happy for the shower and regrouped for dinner. For dinner tried a program via the Evening Standard where restaurants form prix fixe menus with typically three courses + wine for a reasonable price. We selected Cucina del Ponte. This restaurant is located along the Thames with inside/outside dining and a great view of Tower Bridge. There was also musical entertainment—an opera singer. I’m not a huge fan of opera but that was a very nice addition to the experience. The food was very good. I chose the Caprese salad, Scaloppina alla pizzaiola, and panacotta. My husband had bruschetta classica, mushroom risotto, and tiramisu.

Then a quick visit to a local pub called Hung, Drawn & Quartered for a London Pride, before we called it a day.