We Made it to England!

We’ve made it to London! Bailey has been wanting to go to England for forever, especially since this is where his ancestors are from.  And of course literally everywhere is on my list so I have no complaints!

We flew in this afternoon and checked into our Airbnb. It’s the top floor of a French restaurant and it is so tiny and cute! We didn’t spend much time there though. So much to do and see, so little time!

We went straight to the National Portrait Gallery. We meant to go to the National Gallery but it took us a minute to realize they’re two separate things. The portraits were interesting though! But I definitely had more fun at the National Gallery. I was able to see one of my favorite paintings, Arnolfini Wedding. I don’t necessarily find it beautiful, I’ve just written so many papers on it that I feel sort of invested haha. The painting was smaller than I imagined, but the detail was incredible. I took my time studying it, looking specifically for the Christ scenes painted in tiny circles around the mirror. Too tiny to really see without a magnifying glass. Amazing!!

Then we saw our very first Leonardo da Vinci. I feel so lucky! Madonna of the Rocks is too beautiful and I just love it. We enjoyed roaming through many of the rooms and enjoying all of the artwork.

The Gallery is free to visit which is amazing because it has such a good collection and it is HUGE. The freeness is also nice because we didn’t feel bad heading off early to catch Kensington Gardens while we still had a little light. Not until after a quick stop at Primark, of course. The Primarks in bigger cities have city-specific merchandise which is super fun and pulls people like us right in. We also enjoyed the huge section of Harry Potter merchandise!

Kensington Garden was serene and beautiful. The perfect way to spend our first evening in London!

We grabbed some dinner at our host’s restaurant downstairs before calling it a night. We’d never really had French food so we didn’t know what to expect. It was so amazing! They gave us a discount on 3 course meals since we were their guests. The appetizers were our favorite - I got grilled goat cheese (literally a huge chunk of cheese on a few pieces of arugula) and Bailey really enjoyed his chicken liver. The last course was chocolate mousse. So good!

We are feeling pretty exhausted after our journey today. But we are so excited to spend the next few days in beautiful England!