In London City Centre – My Western Europe Travel Experience Day 2

London city tour continued. We deliberately spent much of our afternoon session in shopping at Oxford Street and Knightsbridge as it was drizzling and cloudy whole day in London with temperature dropped drastically to below 10°C. We supposed to do shopping only on the 3rd day but we swapped it with our original 2nd day travel itinerary hoping for some better sunlight on the next day to photograph those main London landmarks such as Tower Bridge, Big Ben and St. Paul Cathedral. Travel tips: Changing travel plans in ad hoc conditions is fun but can only be done in Self-travelling. Still want to consider packaged-travel?

We left Harrods departmental store to take another underground train from Knightsbridge Station which is right in front. Interchanged from Piccadilly Line to District Line at South Kensington Station and came to our next destination, Victoria Station.

Victoria Train and Underground Station is the 2nd busiest station in London, after Waterloo. It is also the busiest on the London Underground system, serving nearly 80 million passengers each year! We really needed a pee before going anywhere else. I thought public toilet in train station is free entrance but I was wrong! It charges 20p for each use! 🙁

I purposedly chose to get out 1 stop earlier at Victoria Station instead of St. James’s Park station. I wanted to take photos to its beautiful front facade architecture. Look out for those dark green or black trademarked London black cab as shown in photo above!

Our next travel destination is Buckingham Palace. Which way should we follow? Left….

or right?

Thank god! We had a direction information pole in front of us…. Com’on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse member kids… Victoria Station is behind us. Which direction should we follow to go to Buckingham Palace? 🙂

After 15 minutes of slow walk ( after all the shopping before this, we couldn’t walk any faster…), passing by the Queen’s Gallery and Royal Mews, we finally reached the official residence of British royal family, or the Buckingham Palace. The most famous activity to catch at the palace is the “Changing The Guard” ceremony. The guard changes every day at 11AM. I hate to say that we missed it! We would not if we kept to our original plan but then we would then miss the sunlight on 3rd day…

In front of the palace is the Victoria Memorial, which sits in between the palace, in line with the ceremonial walk, The Mall. View all my travel photos of the Buckingham Palace and Victoria Memorial.

The Mall in London is the road running straight from Buckingham Palace at its western end, surrounding the Victoria Memorial, to Admiralty Arch and on to Trafalgar Square at its eastern end. It is a motorway traffic on weekdays and Saturday but is closed for pedestrians on Sunday.

I took plenty of photos around. We decided to walk from one end (Buckingham Palace) to the other end (Admiralty Arch) then Trafalgar Square. If it is on weekend, you can opt to walk along The Mall motor road as it is closed to vehicles on Sunday. You can also take a rest on benches provided in the park while watching waterfowls swimming and playing in the lake.

Once we have reached and passed the Admiralty Arch, we came to a big square, a big square in the centre of London where local people love to gather in, a big square where London counts down the New Year (similar to Time Square of New York), where I first experienced a new year eve huge count down event in a foreign country many years ago. Where it supposed to be? It’s Trafalgar Square. Click the image to view the Trafalgar Square photo in bigger and higher resolution format which I love.

I love the name of Trafalgar Square. It is a famous tourist attraction in London, and a popular hang out place for local people as well as political demonstrators. At its centre is Nelson’s Column, which is guarded by four lion statues at its base. Statues and sculptures are on display in the square, and with special LED lighting display at night.

At its North is the National Gallery which houses over 2300 collections of painting from Western Europe includes artist like Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael and Van Gogh and more. Entrance is free but it is open until 6PM only. We missed it as it was already 7PM. The sky is getting darker as you can see from the above photo.

At its North Eastern side is St. Martin in the field church of City of Westminster, London. It is famous for being one of the few non cathedral in London.

A view into the Charing Cross Road. In fact Trafalgar Square is right next to the city centre point of London which is Charing Cross. Charing Cross Road is cutting across National Gallery and St. Martin in the field Church. Charing Cross should actually be the starting point of London travel. All trains, undergrounds, buses and cabs are connecting and interchanging here. From Charing Cross, visitors could easily go to any London attractions with ease.

Go further down the road you can easily spot the Irving Street on your left. This was the street I’m so familiar of with, as I walked every time I wanted to go to Leicester Square when I was still a student.

There we are…. the infamous Leicester Square of London. It is not only a square with a small park in the middle, it is also the entertainment center of London, featuring major cinemas such as Odeon, Empire and Warner Bros cineplex with the largest screen and seating capacity of over 1,600 pax! London film premieres and London Film Festival are held here each year.

Public Telephone kiosk in London, or better known as “The Red Telephone Box” They are the famous London icons but lesser and lesser could be found in London streets. I finally spot 2 of them in Leicester Square!

The main Odeon Leicester Square Cineplex. Apart from cinemas, Leicester Square is also famous for its nightlife. Dance Clubs, pubs, restaurants, ticketing agents TKTS and theatre performances are spread all over the square.

Floor mounted plaques with Hollywood star’s hand prints are found along the Leicester Street.

Another big cineplex at far end corner in the above photo, the VUE from Warner Bros. Haagen Daz London is next to it and Burger King is opposite. Wow! It really made me hungry. What we going to eat then? There are too many eateries in the area. Leicester Square is throw stone away from SOHO, Chinatown, Covent Garden, Piccadilly Circus and Orange Street. they are all full of restaurants and cafes…. Hmm, we were scratching our head…. Ok. Let’s try London-Hong Kong fusion Chinese food… in Chinatown!

London Chinatown is centrally located in the West End, along and around Gerrard Street and just 1 block away Leicester Square. It is sometimes referred as the largest Chinatown in Europe. It stretches from Lisle Street, Gerrard Street to Dansey Place and stop at Shaftesbury Avenue Road. There are various Chinese food Restaurants, supermarkets, souvenir shops, and take away’s in Chinatown. Why I said London-HongKong fusion food is because they adopted some western cooking style in their Chinese menu. We tried the “All you can eat” Chinese cuisine for £8 per person. I think they know what western people like more than what we like as a Chinese… 🙁

The ornamental gates standing at the beginning of Gerrard Street. 4 Chinese characters on top is saying “Lun Dun Hua Fou” or London Chinatown.

Our last stop of the day before returning back to our Smart Russel Hostel is Piccadilly Circus. Piccadilly Circus is another famous shopping district in West End. It is actually referred to a big round road junction which neon sign billboard displays have become the major attraction to tourists.

Ripley’s Believe It Or Not is located in the junction of two road meeting at Piccadilly Circus.

We walked to Piccadilly Circus from Chinatown after dinner was to catch the underground train back to Russel Square Station with Piccadilly Line. Our Smart Russel Hostel is just behind the station. One thing very convenient about the hostel is Tesco Express mini market is just in front of the underground station.

UPDATED: Click HERE to view the complete travel photos of London in High Resolution!

I took shower in their sharing but huge bathroom at basement. How nice to have a hot shower in such a cold evening. Before going to bed, I snapped a photo on how our 6-person dorm looks like. Jean was smiling and I was going to sleep above her in the bunk bed after that. It was already 10:30PM and we were all exhausted and totally blackout shortly afterward… – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog