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Girls excited to find Paddington Bear on platform 1

General tips

Left-right-left-right-left-right. Travelling and seeing as much of a city with your children in hand can be a difficult task, getting the balance right between seeing as much as possible whilst looking after the needs of your children. Especially when they are young, children need time (wherever they are in the world) to rest, eat, play and sleep. My tip is to plan a flexible schedule that incorporates a wish of each family member with flexibility to change in case of unforeseen circumstances such as weather, illness, tiredness etc. My experience is that too much rigidity and being an army corporal leads to high expectations, unnecessary stress and ultimately disappointment if your list isn’t all crossed off. I recently read an article written by fellow blogger Amanda Blakely (The Adventures of Atticus) for the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts which I couldn’t agree with more, “the fewer expectations you have for yourself and your travel companions the more flexible you can be”.

So here are my tips on travelling London so your little soldiers can keep marching on.

Get up close to one of the Queens Guards at Windsor Castle

I love London. It’s my home city but with only 4 nights up our sleeve I was overwhelmed when I looked at the list of everything we wanted to see and do. I consulted lots of travel blogs including Caio Bambino and a A Lady in London which were extremely helpful and inspirational as well as some beautiful children’s books such as M.Sasek’s This is London, Paddington Bear, Carole Boreal’s doodle your way across Europe I Love Paris, Rome, Berlin, London as well as e-books Treasure Hunt London and The Guard Mouse. Out came our pencils and paper and a sketch of the four days was made allowing for my husband’s wish of slow starts and regular coffee stops.

Image c/o This is London

Before you get to London

I love easy – so we decided to purchase the London Pass with a preloaded £25 Oyster card. The pass allows access to most major London attractions without the hassle of paying at the attraction and in some locations, fast pass access which means no queues. We travelled in September so the queues weren’t long but remembering back to my days of travelling through Europe in June, July and August, the crowds are huge and the weather can be quite stifling – so skipping a queue is worth its weight in gold (especially when you’ve got children with you). The Oyster Card allows access to the tube and bus easily. You simply tap on and tap off. Children under 11 don’t need a card and whatever value you have remaining on your card; you can claim a refund on your departure (less a nominal administrative charge) or as I did, keep your card for your next visit (any excuse to return)!

To calculate whether The London Pass was a worthwhile option for us, I wrote up a list of where we wanted to go and the cost of paying at each location versus the cost of the Pass. In our case, it was the same if not slightly cheaper than paying at each location so we opted to buy it to make entry to London’s major attractions hassle free. My only recommendation is that if you don’t live in Europe allow enough time before your trip to have it posted to your home (I bought ours at the last minute so luckily have relatives in the Netherlands so had it posted here).

London’s red telephone boxes and post boxes

Day One

We arrived into Heathrow Terminal 4 and hopped on the Piccadilly line using our Oyster card to easily tag on and off the tube. Within half an hour we were in central London and into a London Cab to our home for the next 4 days – the Prince of Wales Cottage located just inside the gates of Hyde Park. We were neighbours to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge – how lucky! A central location and clean and tidy home, (sought on air bnb), the cottage was within walking distance to Knightsbridge where we regularly stocked up on groceries at Waitrose and of course is home to the famous Harrods as well as Harvey Nichols. Harvey Nichols has a fabulous food court on its top floor, which serves freshly made sandwiches, salads, sushi, pasta and gourmet provisions. Concerned regarding the lack of healthy snack options in central London, I bought a compartmented lunch box to take on our day trips which I filled with fresh berries, my loved shreddies (childhood memories), nuts, crackers and muesli bars to ensure there was always food on hand to fuel my children’s constant hunger.

Prince of Wales Cottage – just minutes from the Lido, Hyde Park

After settling into our home, our children delighted at our first excursion – catching a double decker bus along South Kensington Road to the entrance of Kensington Gardens. Here we meandered through the beautiful formal gardens to The Orangery for high tea. London has numerous options for high teas, many catering for children including Claridges, The Ritz, the Dorchester and the Grosvenor. Go London gives you a good range of different high tea options with children so you can choose one which suits your location, budget and taste. We chose The Orangery as it was close to our home and set in a park which meant afterward the girls could have a run around as we wondered through the beautiful topiary gardens. The tea was plentiful and my only criticism was that I forgot to present my London Pass to receive a discount off the bill! Silly mummy!

Whilst in Knightsbridge, we spotted a bicycle with a large delivery box attached to its rack entitled “Deliveroo“. Being from Australia I was intrigued with the name and googled it to delight in a company where you can order high-quality takeaway online from top UK restaurants and for £2 have fast delivery straight to your home. And after a long day of travelling, sightseeing and more to come, it was just what the doctor ordered.

Day Two:

Hop on – hop off. I usually cringe at these tourist buses, filled with travellers with their camera in hand, clad in a logo t-shirt, bermuda short, money belt around their waist and rain poncho over their top, but in London we decided it was a great option to get around the city and see the sights of Westminster and London. We paid a tad more to upgrade from a one day to two days pass (which included a night tour and river cruise) and was a handy option for us to easily get from A to B and learn about the city care of the audio and live commentary. There are three main operators in London: The Original tour, Big Bus Tours and Golden Tours. They are all much the same however; offer various specials depending on what time of year you travel and whether you have access to a discount (such as the London Pass). It may pay to look at their websites and compare routes and prices. We just went with BigBus, purely because its stop was outside our cottage.

So on we hopped, like little sheep, following the red line! Our first stop was back to Kensington Palace, the childhood home of Queen Victoria to learn about her reign and the history of this famous British monarch. I didn’t realize what an amazing woman she was – I just had pictures of a short, stout, stern widow. Victoria was a Queen at just 18, married at 21, mother to 9 children, widow at 42 and ruler of an empire of over 400 million people. I don’t think I will complain about my life being hard again! The Visiting Victoria Revealed exhibition is mesmerizing not only for adults interested in British history and stories of the monarch but my children loved the interactive activities on offer through the Historic Royal Palaces. At the time of our visit, my girls were given a scratch and sniff trail to find their way through the palace and play with some of the toys typical of children in the Victorian era. Most special was the display of Victoria’s personal letters, paper dolls as well as the book she wrote entitled The Adventures of Alice Laselles, written when she was just 10 ¾. Victoria’s creativity, imagination and eloquence is impressive as is the drawings of her paper dolls on which her characters are based. As every girls likes to shop, we bought a copy of this book from the beautiful gift shop to take home as a memento of our morning at the Palace. Also impressive is the café where the coffee is good (tick from Daddy) and the outlook to the topiary gardens.

Back on the bus and around the corner where we headed to the top of Hyde Park and onto Oxford and Regents Streets. Shops, shops and more shops including one of the world’s oldest and biggest toy shops: Hamleys. Now this place you have to visit. The “toyologists” (my made up name for the shop attendants) were as excited as my 4 and 8 year olds wearing a smile ear to ear, playing with all the latest and greatest toys you can imagine: Paddington Bears, Sylvannian friends, Lego including a life size Queen and Corgi, William, Harry and Kate as well as dolls, musical instruments, art and craft, construction, electronics….you name it – Hamleys has got it. I’m not sure where the saying like a kid in a lolly shop comes from, but I have seen first-hand a kid in a toy shop – my girls could not resist running from corner to corner to see and touch everything on offer. To my husband’s relief, we exited with only two £10 purchases!

The Queen and her corgi made out of lego at Hamley’s Toy Store

Food – we need food. Around the corner and we stumbled across Fortnum and Mason (the Queens providore) where we purchased freshly made sandwiches, fruit and some sweet treats for lunch. Coincidently it is just near the beautiful Cath Kidston on Piccadilly Street. Modern vintage describes Cath’s range of prints and I just love her motto: to create practical, everyday useful things that make you smile. So without saying, we bought a few practical goodies. Directly across the road from F and M is the Royal Academy of Arts which offers outside seating. Here we grabbed a table and chairs to sit and eat our urban picnic and relax. The tables are shaded by large umbrellas which can be a benefit to take shelter from both the sun and the rain.

To make life easy, we often hopped into a London Cab to get us from A to B versus trek to the next hop on hop off stop and wait 10-15 minutes for the next service. So in we hopped into another cab to travel along the mall to Buckingham Palace in time for tea with the Queen. What a special afternoon. A truly amazing experience for my daughters and I to visit Buckingham Palace and take a tour inside her state rooms. The palace supplies audio guides in different languages and have designed a narrative for families. My youngest, aged 4, loved her tour and I was amazed at how much she took in. She now can tell you how to tell when the Queen is in residence, where the secret door is, where Prince Charles and William were christened and awed at the Queens jewellery and dresses. I’m not sure I’d recommend this tour for children who can’t be quiet and need to run and climb – so I am blessed that my children can be attentive for 2 hours and are interested in this sort of thing. Most exciting was standing inside the palace quadrant and seeing the public look in at you from the main palace gates. We of course, returned their gazes with a smile and a royal wave.

The garden café in Buckingham Palace – tea fit for a queen!

Back on the hop on hop off bus back to South Kensington but not before a curry at one of the many local Indian restaurants. After 6pm most of the bus services will drop you straight to your accommodation which is lovely when your feet ache, everyone is grizzly and you just want to get to bed.

Day Three:

“Make sure you plan a day inside on Wednesday” warned the cabbie on our arrival in London, “it looks likely to be a wet one”! Wet days aren’t exactly rare in London so when the heavens opened, we found plenty to do.

Waking to a blue sky we decided to catch one of the red double decker buses that ran along South Kensington Road up to Notting Hill. Here I kept expecting to bump into Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts but no luck. We did however; bump into Recipease, one of Jamie Oliver’s cafes where we sat and charged our batteries over coffee, babycinos and pastries. Fueled and ready to go, we strolled down Portobello Road to meander in and out of the many antique shops. I would have liked the opportunity to visit here on a Saturday to bustle in amongst the crowds but with the children it was much more pleasant to go in and out of the many shops, pretending we were on Antiques Road Show, trying to find a bargain that would cost us £2 but be worth £200. To our excitement we also spotted a bobby.

From here the rain kicked in, so back onto the hop on hop off bus to get to the Tower of London. Here we spent an hour or so meeting the Beefeaters or Yeoman of the Guard, admired the Queen’s jewels including the Coronation Crown worn by Elizabeth in 1953 when she was crowned in Westminster Abbey, the ravens and many armours worn by knights and horses during battle. As the Tower of London is still officially a royal residence and is also the location of the crown jewels, it remains the army’s obligation to guard it, so here is another spot where you can get close to one of the Queens guards wearing their trademark red suit and bearskin hat.

The Tower of London. This July 888 246 poppies were on display to commemorate 100 years since the Great War.

Not far from the Tower of London is Tower Bridge – a must do with children. On entry you catch an elevator to the upper part of the bridge where there is a see through walkway which, if you dare, you can walk over peering at the many boats, cars, buses, trucks and pedestrians that pass you underneath. There is a lot of interesting information throughout this attraction including the commission, design and engineering of the bridge, how it was built, it’s operating mechanics and if you are lucky, you may even see it open to let through a ship.

From this part of town you are privy to some modern and tall architecture. We played a game where our children were given the names and asked to match the buildings: the gherkin, the shard, the armadillo and the cheese grater. All these buildings are close to London’s financial district which is busy by day and dormant by night. We found a tapas restaurant near Banks and Liverpool stations which provided us not only great food but a dry and warm haven with an easy tube ride home.

PS: if the forecast is for wet weather don’t wear suede shoes mummy – go all out and splurge on a new pair of Hunter wellies!!

Day four:

One advantage in having a London Pass is the included trip by train from Paddington Station via Slough to Windsor. Lunch box packed off we went, lucky enough to be seated in first class. Spoilt with complimentary wifi, food and beverages we rode in style to another royal residence, Windsor Castle.

Train to Windsor

Albeit a short trip, the journey gives you a snippet of the English countryside (which is now on my wish list for our next trip to the UK). Windsor is such a pretty town and no doubt one of the reasons why Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh spend most weekends here. Windsor Castle is the largest occupied castle in the world and St Georges Chapel has daily services open to all. This chapel has celebrated many royal weddings including that of Prince Edward and Sophie Rhyss-Jones as well as the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwell. Funerals have also occurred here and the Queen Mother, King George VI and Princess Margaret are all buried here. The main reason for our visit was the colourful spectacle of the changing of the guard within the castles quadrangle. Your children can be meters from the action versus the 20 deep crowds that gather early outside Buckingham Palace. As well, you can stand next to one of the guards for a photo opportunity – getting close enough to see each strand of hair on their hat! If you don’t want to purchase entry to the castle you can stand on the road that enters the palace and watch the guards enter the palace accompanied by their magnificent band. Coffee shops a plenty – tick from Dad.

The good news is that Windsor offers a half day trip out of London being able to return to the city to do some more sightseeing. We of course couldn’t visit Paddington Station without finding the famous bronze statue of Paddington Bear sitting under the clock tower on platform one. You just want to take him home. We reassured our girls Mr and Mrs Brown were on their way soon and on we went to Trafalgar Square to clamber on more statues – this time the lions that guard Nelsons Column.

What a photo opportunity (if you can reach them) and one that I have of me doing the same when I was younger (less the hundreds of pigeons that were famous in Trafalgar). I read that at one stage there were 35000 pigeons in its flock which posed threat to people’s health and damage to the stonework due to their droppings. As a result, in 2001 the sale of birdseed was stopped. There are lots of free museums close by. We opted for the National Portrait Gallery and had a lovely lunch in their café before heading back toward the Thames and hopping on a river cruise to the world’s prime meridian, Greenwich.

Now a big tip for all of you wanting to get to the Royal Observatory – it closes at 4.30pm and is a good 20 minute walk up a steep hill into Greenwich Park. If you have children who are poor walkers be prepared to take longer to get there, opt for a pram or have a fit family member to piggy back them. We got to the Observatory at 4.20pm and had to negotiate entry!! We felt a little like Chevy Chase from National Lampoons vacation arriving to a closed Wally World when we were told by one of the attendants it was closed. The situation was quite funny as we questioned the accuracy of her time keeping given the clock outside read 4.20pm and they are of course the place where the world’s time is set!! Needless to say we were let in without too much of a fuss. My opinion is that the museum and information caters for children 10 plus and will appeal to those interested in astronomy, navigation as well as British sea history. The Observatory itself is a beautiful building deigned by the famous architect, Christopher Wren.

Big Ben

Back on our ferry and down the Thames to continue onto Westminster Pier and take in the sight of the famous Big Ben and Houses of Parliament. What a spectacular way to end our cruise and our four fantastic days in London.

Watch out Paddington Bear – Nicole Kidman is in town! It’s true. Nicole was in London when I posted my Instagram feed and my BIGGEST accolade to date is that she liked my post! Yippee. Here are my tips on sightseeing London so your little soldiers can keep marching on, and on and on…. General tips Left-right-left-right-left-right. Travelling and seeing as much of a city with your children in hand can be a difficult task, getting the balance right between seeing as much as possible whilst looking after the needs of your children.