This post is a continuation of “a Nice experience” and the fifth part of my backpacking trip.
Time was 5.00 in the morning and I had a train to London to catch at 5.55 from Niceville. I had packed most of my stuff the night before and it was too early for me to get some breakfast (also I think most of the places were closed), so I head straight to the train station after getting ready.
The trip would take around 10 hours with only a change in Lille, before crossing the border to England. And since I had to change train I needed to buy two seat tickets, one from Nice to Lille and one from Lille to London.
The time was 17.00 and I had arrived in London. Luckily I had an hour of waiting in Lille, so I got the get something to eat here. So when I arrived in London, it was straight out heading towards the hostel, Astor Hyde Park. The Astor Hyde Park was around 6km from St Pancras International and the weather was amazing so what the hey… I decided to walk it too. Since it was the first time I got to explore London on foot, the almost 1,5h walk didn’t seem to be so exhausting.
Hostel:
Astor Hyde Park,
191 Queensgate,
South Kensington,
Astor Hyde Park is one of the more expensive hostels I went to. One day at the hostel would cost €33, but the place was very big and beautiful and they had this nice room for relaxing with a nice piano (which I of course played). I was very exhausted after a very long day, so I went to get some nice Mac and cheese for dinner and straight to bed afterward.
The next day I got up and got myself some tea (because.. English..) and researched on how to get to Wembley. But why Wembley? Well… I love Indian/Tamil food so I knew I would spend a lot of time in the Wembley area since this is THE place for Indian/Tamil shops and restaurants. The best and maybe the easiest way to get around London is through the subway, so that was also what I did.
My favourite Indian Restaurant in London will always be the Saravanaa Bhavan. This is also quite a famous restaurant among Tamils and Indians and is one of the leading Indian vegetarian restaurants. So I would, without any doubt, go here for lunch and dinner actually.
London would be the highlight of the trip (for me) and the last stop before heading towards Denmark. The highlight was because I was going to a concert (by A.R.Rahman) for the first time. A.R.Rahman is one of the most appreciated and leading music composers of India and one of my biggest idols, so seeing a concert of his was one on my bucket list.
The concert would happen at the SSE Arena in Wembley on the 8th of July and I wanted to stay as close as possible to the Arena, to avoid getting late and crowds. I booked a room at the hotel CityLiveIn hotel, which is basically right next to the SSE Arena and the London Designer Outlet. One night at this hotel would cost around €50 (yeah it’s not backpacking friendly).
London Designer Outlet
London Designer Outlet is a big semi-outdoor shopping centre in Wembley in the London Borough of Brent for designer shopping, eating, and drinking. It has many different outlet designer shops, such as H&M, GAP, Björn Borg, Levi’s®, Vans, Adidas, Puma, etc.
You can read all about it here:
https://www.londondesigneroutlet.com/
Since London was mainly because of the concert, I hadn’t planned anything to explore and improvised most of it. London is also associated with Harry Potter and I am a huge Harry Potter fan, so I found that the St. Pancras Internation had a Harry Potter store, which I was going to check out. When I arrived at the store there was a huge crowd and I was wondering if they were all waiting to get into the store, so I walked around it and saw they were all waiting in line to get a picture with a cart that was halfway through the wall (like the portal to Platform 9 3/4), quite nice tho. Since most people wanted a picture of the cart, the crowd in the store was not that bad. The store had all kinds of Harry Potter stuff, wands, chocolate, robes, etc. I got myself Voldermort’s wand and went back to the city to walk around again.
The day of the concert had arrived and I was incredibly excited!!
How did the concert go? Who performed? And What did they perform?
Look out for a post about the Concert.
