I’ve visited London 10 times, 10 trips! So, my upcoming trip in May will be my 11th visit to the best city in the world-London. You must think I’m crazy, but I call that love (or obsession). I could have visited so many other cities instead of spending my money to go to the same place again and again (and as you know London’s not cheap). But what can I say? I really believe in Doctor Samuel Johnson’s words: “when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford “.

 10 trips to London, but out of those 10, there were a couple of weekend trips and two 4-5 days trips and 4 day trips. It all began with my first visit (actually it all began way way back when I was a child and just dreamt about visiting London ).My best friend ( and my maid of honour) and I spend 5 wonderful days (from 28th Dec 2006 to 02 Jan 2007) exploring London. One of the things we did was to find the bookstore from the movie Notting Hill :). Naturally we did all the usual tourist stuff: visited the Tower of London, visited the Westminster Abbey, crossed the Tower Bridge, took million of photos of Big Ben, saw the Buckingham palace and St.Paul’s cathedral and so on and so on. We also went to the Ice-bar and to the Sherlock Holmes museum as well as walked through the Leadenhall Market and gawped at the ancient monuments in the British Museum. Furthermore, we visited the Harrods and chased some squirrels in the Kensington gardens (not really, they came to us freely). 🙂 But after that trip we decided that we have to do it all over again-another trip to London was already on our minds.

The fate intervened and we both got into the same sort of internship programme and got jobs in England! However, we were in completely different parts of England so we couldn’t really visit each other. Of course, before our work experience began we just had to spend a couple of days in London. That was in August 2008. We re-visited some of our favourites (like our pub Prince Alfred in Bayswater) and discovered new stuff such as St James’s palace, the Burlington arcade and the Westminster Cathedral. We also watched the Changing of the guard and walked along the South Bank and went to Chinatown and Soho and much more.

During my work experience I took two day trips to London. On one I discovered Fortnum & Mason and Camden but I didn’t do any sightseeing on another day trip since I went to London to attend a seminar for work.

My best friend and I had a couple of days off during our work experience so we met again in London. We finally went on the London Eye. I bought a very cool red bag for just 10£ at Portobello Market. We’ve also visited V&A museum and the Tate Modern and strolled around Carnaby street and did some window shopping in Liberty. And went clubbing 🙂

Over a year later we planned our New Year’s trip to Madrid via London. So, we spent the night in London (Dec 2009) and enjoyed the Christmas decorations around Covent Garden and Regent street and saw for the first time the Somerset house. As usually we bought a copy of Glamour magazine and I ate some Walkers salt & vinegar crisps!

When I visited my boyfriend in November 2010 I took a day trip to London (long story short:we met while I was working in England, had a long-distance relationship after I returned to Croatia and broke up soon after this day trip). I went to look for Peter Pan’s statue in Hyde Park, met another friend, explored the Natural History museum and took photos of the Albert Memorial and the Albert Hall. As always, I also walked around Leicester sq and Piccadilly circus and Trafalgar sq and did some shopping.

In July 2011 I spent 4 days in London with my parents. They’ve heard so much about it from me and they wanted to see it for themselves. They asked if I’d go with them since they couldn’t really get around in London with their limited knowledge of English. So, off we went and I showed them all the usual tourist stuff. We went on the London Eye and we visited Greenwich (that was my first visit). We also took a boat ride down the Thames from the London Eye to Greenwich by Thames clippers. Love that ride! (did a similar one 2 years later). I bought the sweetest t-shirt ever in Primark for just 2£ (it’s got a big squirrel with a crown on it) and I bought a super cute bag in a shop near Covent Garden!

Almost exactly a year later (July 2012) my husband (then just my boyfriend) and I spent a week in Scotland (you can read more here and here and here if you want). We flew via London so we got to spend half a day (actually just 13 hours) in London. I saw the Tower Bridge open up for the first time and wandered around St Katharine’s dock. We also climbed the Monument and visited FC Chelsea’s stadium (yeah, not my obvious choice). We walked a lot and he pretty much managed to see all the major sights (but only from the outside).

And that brings me to my last trip to London. My best friend and I visited London in Aug 2013. What did we do? Well, I wrote about it already (about some of it ). We had a lovely afternoon tea. Before that we went on the cable car (the Emirates Air line) and took a boat ride (Thames clippers) and wandered around Canary Wharf. After a couple of years we walked around the City again. We didn’t do the Shard. We also saw London from Primrose Hill (alas there was a haze, so I don’t have nice photos) and we’ve finally found Neal’s yard. And had  a drink in Oxo tower and in our pub :).

In a nutshell, this was a short review of my 10 trips to London. What shall I do on my eleventh trip? Well, you’ll read all about it after the trip 🙂

Xoxox

Tanja

Ps. I’m going to Stockholm in 10 days… 🙂

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