Funny, I was just writing a post adressing this very question !
Thanks again for all your suggestions. Some feedback :
1 - It was great to be in London again ! And the weather was really fine, cool but very sunny.
2 - The city has changed a lot since I lived there. 122 Leadenhall Street, the Gherkin, the Shard and 20 Fenchurch Street didn’t exist then, but were impossible to miss and consequently very useful to find our way, especially the last two.
3 - I had forgotten how cramped (point 2 may have something to do with it) and disparate the city is. In several places, you’d see Victorian tenements, a late 17th century church and an ultra modern high-rise within metres of each other. I had a moment of confusion in the Tower of London when I saw the Shard protruding seamlessly from the top of the Wakefield Tower :smack:. Weird at first but not without charm.
4 - I shouldn’t have worried about the Oyster Cards: they were available on the Eurostar with a 15£ credit, which turned out to be more than enough for our stay.
5 - Call me crazy but I still love the Tube…
6 - Day 1 went more or less according to plan. We arrived at the hotel around 6:45 pm and almost immediately walked to Tower Bridge, had a look at HMS Belfast, then went to Southwark Cathedral (very picturesque in the evening, I loved it and will try to visit it next time I’m there), London Bridge and All Hallows By the Tower. In Southwark, we also spent some time in a big gallery with a weird fountain, which my daughters enjoyed. Any idea what it’s called ?
7 - We also managed to see most of what I had planned on Day 2. My daughters insisted on taking the boat instead of the Tube. As result, we got to Westminster Abbey later than I had planned but it turned out ok (there was a long queue, though). We then went to the National Gallery. Turning right to see the impressionists was a great piece of advice: it allowed us to see everything we wanted and still have some left time for a quick look at the Flemish paintings in the opposite aisle. We finished with Leicester Square, Piccadily Circus, Regent Street and Oxford Street (all of them packed of course) but stopped at Marble Arch because we didn’t have enough energy for Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace.
8 - We visited the Tower of London on Day 3 but stayed over 3h (fascinating). As a result, I changed my plans because night was falling already and it wouldn’t have been ideal for more sightseeing. We went to Camden Town instead and had a really good time. As soon as we got there, my eldest daughter saw a t-shirt with Mickey Mouse flipping us the bird and she kept on mentioning it throughout the evening (I had told her it was a peculiar kind of market). My youngest daughter fell in love with what she called “the shop from the future” (loud 70s-sounding electronic music, bright neon lights and lots of futuristic-looking items) However, is it me or has it gotten more touristy and less weird over the years ? There were still some delightfully strange places but also many more regular tourist shops than I remembered.
9 - On Day 4, we spent our final hours in London doing what was orginally planned for the afternoon of Day 3 : St Paul’s Cathedral - Ludgate Hill - the Maughan Library - Staple Inn and finally Covent Garden where we got the Tube back to King’s Cross. It was not so pleasant unfortunately because we left the hotel rather late, it turned out to be longer than I expected and my youngest daughter was tired. It was mainly walking as briskly as possible stopping a couple of minutes to take pictures and hurrying to the next place on the list while looking at my watch. We made it to the station on time for the train but only just.
10 - Bribing you daughters with little gifts is a great way to have them agree to see one more thing. They didn’t seem very enthusiastic when we were there but were sad when we left and still remember quite fondly most of the places we visited, which was my goal. And, the icing on the cake, they said they liked it better than Paris, which they had loved.
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