Planning A Second Trip to London (Part 1) : Beyond the Icons – Your Guide to a Deeper, More Local Visit

Foreign.

Travel and 10 podcast.

We're going to a city that's known for its influence on global music, on fashion, on culture.

We are going to London, England.

It is a place that tends to be a hub for a lot of travel from around the world and often a place where people will stop on layovers traveling to other parts of the world.

It's also a hub for global business.

So a place that people tend to come back to.

We've done some past episodes on that first trip to London and some of the main sights to see, but today we're getting into a second trip to London.

And in many ways that second trip is where you really start to really experience the city in a much more fulsome way.

And we think that second trip is in many ways your best trip to London.

It's a place I've had a chance to go many times in the past as well as my co host, award winning travel journalist Tim Johnson has got to spend a lot of time as well.

So Tim, what are some of your thoughts on London?

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

I'm excited we're talking about London.

I'm excited we're talking about, you know, second, third, fourth trips to London because there is so much in this city and you're absolutely right.

You know, a few, a handful of the times that I've been to London have been London trips where I was going and staying and spending time in the city.

A lot of my trips to London I've been maybe a dozen times were, you know, I would fly from Canada to London, land in the morning, you know, your flight lands at 6 or 7 o' clock in the morning.

Your flight, you know, if I'm going somewhere on the continent, maybe it doesn't leave, you know, to Prague or somewhere like that, you know, four or five o' clock in the afternoon.

You've got eight hours.

What are you going to do with eight hours?

You know and I mean Heathrow and all the other airports are so well connected to the city with transit, the underground or, or trans commuter trains.

So.

So a lot of my experiences in the city have been kind of like semi jet lagged spending the day in the city and what to do.

But there really is, I mean once you've seen Big Ben and you've walked along the Thames and you've been to Westminster Abbey and you've gone to the changing of the guard at Buckingham palace, then what do you do?

And there, there really is so much more.

It's just layer upon layer upon layer.

And I know on this episode, we were chatting a little bit before and you mentioned one of these really fantastic up and coming neighborhoods in the city.

That that is one of your favorites.

So do you want to chat a little bit about that?

Yeah.

A lot of my recommendations today are going to, are going to focus in on one part of London, an area called Shoreditch.

I was lucky enough that, you know, I've been on a lot of business trips and happen to have an office in, in the Shoreditch neighborhood.

So spent a fair bit of time there.

And it really is kind of a vibrant creative hub in East Lond, London.

It's got some of the historic elements, but it's really, I would say, the place for sort of cutting edge food, fashion, nightlife, art.

So I, I think for a second trip into London, it definitely makes, or even a first trip if you've got the time.

Once you, you covered off some of those iconic sites, this is where I would base myself and, and I think really one of the most interesting and dynamic parts of the city.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I have stayed there as well.

I'm going to talk about it a little bit later when we talk about favorite hotel stays.

One of my best memories from Shoreditch was actually doing a graffiti tour.

So it was organized through the hotel.

I think concierge at the hotel had contacts with a graffiti artist.

And so we went through Shoreditch, which is this kind of, you know, formerly kind of raffish, still a little bit raffish, but gentrifying a neighborhood and had an actual graffiti artist take a small group of us through and almost interpret the graffiti art on the walls, which was very interesting.

What does that tag mean or what does that symbol mean?

And I think he actually sort of off the record, showed us some of his own graffiti artwork that may or may not have been authorized to be on that wall, you know.

And so it's a neighborhood that I really enjoyed as well.

And I know you've had some great experience experiences there too.

Yeah.

And when it comes to street art, I mean, Banksy, one of the best known street artists in the world, this is where you're going to find a lot of his works are still found throughout the Shoreditch neighborhood.

So lots to see there.

A great nightlife scene in Shoreditch as well.

Last time I was there, we stayed at a Airbnb that was lovely, but happened to be located above a very hopping nightclub that went till about four in the morning.

So that was.

We got the full shortage experience there.

Absolutely.

But it's also Just a great place for exploring other parts, parts of London too.

Great transportation connections in.

I know one of the things that we really liked in that neighborhood was a place called Box Park, Shoreditch, kind of a pop up shopping district made up of all these shipping containers, trendy shops, bars, restaurants, food stalls.

So that was definitely one of the things worth seeing.

Another one I'll call out in terms of sticking on the art theme with things to do.

This wasn't right in Shoreditch, but just across the river, a short ferry ride away was the Tate Modern, which, you know, one of the best modern art museums in the world.

It's housed in this massive former power station.

Quite an imposing looking, very, quite plain looking building.

Actually, you know, it's this brick power station there on the Thames.

But once you get inside, I mean, some of the best known modern art in the world.

I believe it's free admission if I remember correctly as well too.

So a little cost thing to do and definitely a place that's worth spending some time.

You mentioned a very unique museum that you've spent some time at when you were in the city last.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I'll just say I also recommend the Tate Modern.

Very cool.

I mean, even if you're not into modern art, and not all of us are, the building itself is worth it.

I mean, it's such a huge, hulking, dramatic building and the fact that they repurposed it, you know, as this art gallery, I think is, is just so interesting, such an interesting place to visit.

I do.

Have I mentioned to you, I think before we started recording, that I do have a bad memory from the Tate Modern, which was that I bought a very cool coffee mug there and I took it into my office, when I had an office, and someone stole it out of the dishwasher.

So that was a bad memory, but it was.

But the, the couple museums I want to mention, one is called, it's called the Crime museum and it's an interesting one to mention because it's not usually open to the public.

I was able to go, and I'm not sure what the rhyme or reason is for when they open it to the public and they don't open it to the public.

But I believe I put on social media, this is a few years ago that I was going to be in London.

I've done all the main things, kind of what we're talking about today, exactly on theme.

And I said, what are some of your cool hidden things to do?

And somebody messaged me and said, you've Got to go to the crime Museum.

It's open right now for, just to the public, just for a limited time.

And it is, it's at New Scotland Yard.

It's actually part of that, you know, that police station.

And they have death.

It's dark.

I mean, get ready, buckle up.

It's, it's a bit of a dark place, but they have death masks of people who were executed.

They have the actual murder weapons from some of the most infamous murders that happened in London.

They have original letters from Jack the Ripper, you know, and there's still obviously this debate about who Jack the Ripper actually was.

But they have his original letters on display there.

They have the printing plates, perhaps not as dark, the printing plates from the world's most notorious counterfeiter.

And it's all this original stuff.

So I believe the, the day to day entrance is only for law enforcement people and you have to make an advanced reservation.

But I would encourage our listeners to check it out.

If you just Google Crime Museum London, it'll come up.

And it was open to the public when I was there.

So I don't know when they open it to the public.

But that's definitely worthwhile if you get a chance.

The other place that I think is, it's well known in London, I'm not sure that visitors to London necessarily know about it as much is the Churchill War Room.

So this was the kind of the secret bunker, the underground headquarters where the British government operated during the Battle of Britain, during that merciless bombing of London throughout the Second World War.

And I thought it was very interesting from the perspective that okay, yes, it's where government functioned, but Churchill spent a lot of time.

And I've read a couple of Churchill books and they talk about the fact that he spent a lot of time here to the point where he was actually living in the war rooms part of the time.

And so you can see, you know, the sort of the situation room where they were planning defense and invasions and things like that.

And you can see I think the code cracking machines and the Enigma machines and all that kind of stuff.

But I thought one of the most interesting parts was the seen the bed and bedside table, this basic little room where Churchill slept.

So you know, he would actually sleep there.

So he was there late in the night, first thing in the morning.

You can do it on a self guided tour.

You can do a guided tour.

They have a Churchill museum on site.

So I learned a lot more about Winston Churchill.

And you know, this is, we're in great Britain.

You can actually go and do high tea there if you want in the, in the Worms, not at the Crime Museum, but in the Warren museums, definitely you can do it.

So, so that's, that's another little off the beaten track place that I definitely enjoy, enjoy going to.

Okay, well, having covered off some of the unique things to do on that second trip to London, we are coming up against the 10 minute mark.

So I think this week we're gonna, we're gonna split this up into two episodes because there is so much to see and do in London.

So, Tim, we're gonna come back tomorrow and talk a little bit about where to eat, where to stay.

Can't misses on that second trip to London.

So for everybody coming back tomorrow, we'd appreciate, as always, if you could give us a review on Apple podcasts on Spotify and check out our other travel podcasts around the world on voyescape.com and we are going to be back tomorrow with part two of a second trip to London.

D.