Departing by train on Friday 14th 

The morning didn't go according to plan as there was some stormy weather interrupting lots of train services all of the country and our train got cancelled. We eventually got on another train a short time after and arrived in London around an hour later than we had planned. We had booked an apartment.

We arrived at Euston and headed straight over to our apartment as the host allowed us to store our bags. Once settled we headed out to explore London. 

Here is a map of the route we took. If you're visiting London and don't have the time to stop off and explore at each location  then you could easily do this route in a couple of hours. 

This route would easily be done in a day when stopping off at several of these locations and exploring more. Because we arrived late we split the route up into 2 days, Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. 

If you'd like to skip the reading then you can scroll to the bottom of this page and watch a video of this route. Although most of the handy tips and information are found in the descriptions below. 

1 We started our route at Trafalgar Square. As it was approaching the festive period there was a Christmas market. As we headed to have a look around the market it started to rain, I mean heavy rain and no real cover under any stalls in the market so we headed over to the National Gallery next door which is free to enter.

2 The National Gallery. This place surprised us all. It was never on our agenda and we only came in to escape the rain but ended up staying in here for over an hour and only saw a fraction of the gallery.  100% worth a visit and should be on your list if you have the time. 

We walked from Trafalgar Square along  The Mall, past St James Park eventually reaching the Buckingham Palace where you can see 3 Canada Gate and 4 Buckingham Palace.

We left Buckingham Palace heading to the right side of St James Park and walked up Birdcage Walk alongside the Guards Museum. We stopped off when we arrived at the 5 Guards Chapel. If you happen to watch the video below you will hear no sound. Whilst we was in the chapel the organ was being tuned so the organ notes overpowering the sounds I have removed. 

5 The Royal Military Chapel (Guards Chapel) was another one of our unplanned stops. On another day you could spend much longer in here. 

6 Westminster Abbey We arrived at Westminster Abbey and spent a few moments admiring the building before heading around the corner to the 7 Palace of Westminster, better known to everyone as Houses of Parliament (7).

8 Sir Winston Churchill statue Over the road in Parliament Square Gardens you will find a statue of Sir Winston Churchill. Turning around and heading past 9 Big Ben crossing Westminster Bridge and down the steps to the London Eye 10. 

The whole area around the London Eye if you have never been here before is very busy with lots of attractions, especially if you have younger children with you. We didn't stop but if you do plan to stop then the best and cheapest way to visit them is buying the 5 London Attraction ticket. The ticket includes entry to the popular attractions including, Madame Tussauds, Sea life centre, The London Eye, The London Dungeon and Shrek’s Adventure. Bargain!

Follow the path around the river Thames and you will arrive at the Southbank Centre (11) which is right near to 12 Thames Beach. Here you will find a great selection of shops, bars and restaurants if you need to take five. 

Onwards towards the next stop and you will see buildings like the OXO building along the way, when you arrive at Millennium Bridge you can keep walking for a few minutes and you will come to the (13) Globe Theatre. 

Heading back and over the (14) Millennium Bridge we stopped on the bridge to get a few snaps of London Tower Bridge that can be seen in the background. This is where was would eventually end up. 

Straight off the bridge continue over the road and you will come to (15) St Paul's Cathedral. Because we started our route later than expected and stopping off several times along the way the light was starting to fade so we collectively decided to get some food & drink to refuel. We stopped at Sandwich Sandwich which is literally 5-10 mins walk from St Paul's Cathedral and serve the best sandwiches. 

We stopped off at several bars including the famous Brewdog bar for some more drinks before heading back to our apartment. 

Day 2

We headed back to (15) St Paul's Cathedral and had a better view in the daylight. If you want to go inside you can have a tour of the Cathedral. I recommend buying tickets in advance from here. Skip the line St Paul's Cathedral tickets. 

As we made our way towards London Tower we walk past the Monument. (16) The Monument to the Great Fire of London commonly referred to as the Monument. It was constructed between 1671 and 1677 to commemorate the Great Fire of London, which began on September 2, 1666, in Pudding Lane. (next door) at the time of our visit it cost just £6 to enter The Monument. It has 311 steps in a spiral staircase to climb so not for the faint hearted. Once at the top you get some amazing views of London and the immediate areas. The weather on our visit was cloudy and buildings like the Shard could not be fully seen due to the clouds. 

We continued our walk from The Monument (16) and the next stop was Tower Hill, 17 Tower Hill Memorial. We stopped for some time to remember the fallen. 

Down the hill to 18 London Tower, we didn't go into the Tower of London as we didn't have enough time but 100% we agreed to come back and visit the tower another time. 

Walking behind the tower along the garden to Tower Bridge. Walking up Tower Bridge Approach the bridge is a formidable bridge with some fantastic views. 

19 Tower Bridge You can buy a and tour the towers, You can buy entrance tickets here: Tower Bridge Entrance. You can also buy Tower of London Entrance tickets also tower of London entrance tickets also. We never had enough time as we had a Rugby game to attend so we had to skip past these attractions and admire them in passing. 

Once at the other side of the bridge we turned right and headed along the Queen's walk stopping along the way for some pictures. 

A short distance down the Queens Walk you will find a fantastic 20 Royal Navy Ship - HMS Belfast you can explore if you wish. From the side it looks really good but we didn't have the time to go aboard.  If you decide to visit you can get tickets in advance and save on the "on the door price" Buy HMS Belfast tickets. 

This pretty much ended the route and at this point we headed towards The Shard (21) as we needed to catch the next train to get to the Rugby. 

We spend the afternoon watching England v New Zealand at Twickenham.

In this thrilling match England came from behind to beat the mighty All Blacks 33-19.

Day 3

We was all excited and fresh following the buzz of England's win. We had a train to catch at 18:10 but also had a full day. Checkout was 11am and we still had a full day ahead having to carry our  luggage around. Two minutes later and google informed me about lots of storage places we could leave our luggage. I couldn't believe it as it was the first time we'd needed to use a service like this and was the first time I had looked for one. There is literally thousands of places we can leave our luggage for a few quid. 

We used a website called www.LuggageHero.com and it cost around £4 per bag. 

We also found the following websites offering the same service.

• • Bounce
  • Stasher
  • Left Luggage

As mentioned above, there are lots of these websites available, many of them use the same stores and locations but charge different prices for the same service so it's best to check several of these. 

Once we dropped off our luggage I realised we were a short distance from Covent Garden so we walked up to the market to see if there was anything going on. 

Covent garden is known for street performers,

We walked around for a while and there was no street performers downstairs, we found a little market and walked around for a while. It was quite but it was Sunday morning after all so we decided to head out and go to Camden Town. As we were leaving Covent Garden there was a street performer setting up a stand just outside. We stopped to watch him put up a canvas and set up some painting equipment. 

We decided to stop and watch this guy to see what he was going to do. Sometimes forcing yourself to stay put through the slow buildup is worth it. Once this guy got into his main show it was amazing. He is a speed painter and his talent is unreal. I don't want to spoil it for you but if you watch the video below I recorded his performance. Let me know if you was as impressed as I was with this. 

Here is his details. 

Jon Hicks - https://www.thejonhicks.com/

Jon Hicks Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thejonhicks/

Once the show had finished we showed our appreciation to Jon and swiftly mate our way to Camden Town and in particular the Camden Lock Market which well known for the food stands. 

We arrived quite early and most of the stall were quiet. If you're clever you could eat here for free as majority of the stands are giving our free samples haha

We're not a food review channel so I'm not going to get into the food to much but lets just say 2 things. 

Firstly the food we had was delicious, not only was the food good but I I think the prices was also really good. We all finished off with a beer from the Camden Brewery bar. 

Secondly, I'm glad we got there early as we managed to get food relatively quickly but as time went by there were some busy stands with huge queues. 

Once we was full we headed back into central London for the Grand Finale, Back to the future musical. Grab some tickets from just £22 from Get your Guide and settle in for one of the best shows around. 

If you grew up in the 80's then you will be familiar with the iconic file "Back to the Future" The musical take a new spin following the original theme and how they do the special effects with the car at the end is nothing short of fantastic.