London weekend break

Vanessa, one of my best friends, asked Amanda, Elise and I if we wanted to go to London for a weekend. She saw an offer with Eurostar, 2 nights at a hotel, a cruise on the River Thames and a visit of Harry Potter Warner Bros Studios in Leavensden for around 300 euros per person.

We decided to go on Friday, June, 1st and come back on Sunday, 3rd 2018.
We went there with Maxime and Albert.
Anyssa and Hatem went by plane and we joined them at the hotel.

Day 1

Once arrived at King's Cross station (Harry Potter in da place), we bought tickets to take the underground. I had an Oyster card, sort of Navigo card (French card) that you can charge and use to take the undergound, the bus, etc.
The others bought also an Oyster card because it is less expensive than buying tickets each day.

When Maxime wanted to buy an Oyster car for Elise and him, he saw the ticket machine swallow his banknotes. He put them all in the machine and the machine did not appreciate. He asked an employee for help. I Think this one forgot because when he came back and Maxime asked him about the Problem, he said "Oh yeah, I should have done it". English people have their heads in the clouds!

Once everyone got their cards charged, we went to the hotel. There were two connections and the hotel, a Hilton, was located 2 minutes from the railway.

Hilton hotel

We checked-in to get our badges to go to our rooms and we saw Anyssa and Hatem who went out the elevator.

We all went upstairs to drop our luggage then we went downstairs to talk about the next day dedicated to Harry Potter Studios.

With Albert and Maxime, we asked the receptionist for some advice and she told us Leavensden is situated in zone 9, so far north on the underground line, the last station to make it short. She also told us the ride would be long and that if we wanted to take a shuttle at Victoria station, it would be expensive.

Albert, Amanda and I decided to book tickets on the Internet for a shuttle that would leave at 9am (40€ for a round trip per person). Elise, Vanessa and Maxime wanted to take the underground. Elise and Maxime went to the railway station to get more information about the price.

Anyssa and Hatem took a package with the shuttle for the Studios when they bought their tickets for the week-end.

After spending a considerable amount of time for this, we finally went for a walk in London.

We ate at Shake Shack next to Victoria railway station.

Lunch at Shake Shack

Once full, we went next to Buckingham Palace and it started raining. We also wandered Saint James Park where we saw ducks, gooses and squirrels and we had a great view on London Eye.

Buckingham Palace

Saint James Park

Cute little squirrel: a star is born

Ice-scream seller

Then we went next to Westminster but unfortunately, Big Ben was under construction. We still saw it (half of it).
We took a Picture of a guard and we laughed because it was possible to take Picture with him and a tourist hit on him for fun.

This is the guard

Little break at Trafalgar Square to get some rest because our feet would hurt. A lot of artists and marginal people show their work drawn on the floor with chalk. Many of them are beautiful, others are just simple games such as sudoku. We even saw Pikachu overthere and he posed for a photo.

Trafalgar Square

Pika Pikachu

Musical Journey at Theatreland where we saw a really talented artist doing beat box.

Great artist

Then, we visited Picadilly Circus and the Asian district and this gave us the envy to eat there. We ate at a really good restaurant recommended by the Guide Michelin 2018. This restaurant does not look much but we were attracted by what we saw through the glass that abuts on the street. You could see the chefs making delicious dumplings. We loved it.

Front window of the great restaurant

And here is another musician!

So good this restaurant!

Yummy, delicious!

At night, we walked along Soho then we drank a delicious milkshake at Five Guys (peanut butter for me) before going back to the hotel. For the anecdote, at Five Guys you can add bacon to your milkshake. Well, it is not good according to one of the employee working there.

Do you want to add bacon to your milkshake?

Once at the hotel, we went to our respective bedrooms.

When I took my shower, the shower head that I wanted to adjust, fell and the water jet soaked the wall. I tried to put it back in place but every time the water jet was too "strong", the shower head fell. It fall on my feet many times. Infuriated, I put my clothes back on and called the front desk who gave us another room. We could take a shower and go to bed. The next day would be a long day.

Day 2

The second day, Albert joined Amanda and I to the hotel restaurant to have breakfast. There were some many things to eat: fresh fruits, cold meats, cereals, scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, porridge, and many more. There was also a machine to make pancakes.

Machine to make pancakes

English breakfast

Albert, Amanda and I went to Victoria station to take the shuttle for Harry Potter. Studios. In the underground, there were ticket inspectors. They did not have a special costume as for Paris and Albert thought there were beggars. When one of them show him his machine to check the tickets, Albert immediately understood.

We arrived at 9:05am at the rally point and we did not see the shuttle. We asked an employee if the shuttle was gone. She told us to see with the reception dedicated to the Studios and yes, the shuttle was gone. One of the person working there gave us another tickets so we could take the next shuttle. We did not have to pay a dime.

Shuttle leave every hour so we went to the mall next to the rally point.

Harry Potter shuttle

Then, we went to the rally point and we took the shuttle. We saw the movie Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets during the trip which lasted 1h30.

We were supposed to wait for the other group at the entrance because Albert had Vanessa's voucher to go to the Studios.

We called them to tell them we would have some delay (our ticket allowed us to enter at 11:30am and we thought we would arrive later).

We arrived sooner and we entered the Studios.

After a while, the other group gave me a call to know where we were. I told them I sent a message to Elise and also called her to tell her we had arrived. Albert went back to the beginning of the Studios to give Vanessa her ticket. The employees showed him a shortcut to go faster; English people are really nice.

If everyone took the same mean of transportation, there would not have been all these problems!

I went to the Studios 4 years ago and I am happy to went there again because there are new settings : a long corridor with many quotes from Harry Potter universe displayed on the Marauder's Map. It is possible to visit sceneries that you could not visit before: Dursley's house for example. King's Cross station is there and you can ride the Hogwarts Express.

Characters from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

The Cup from the Triwizard Tournament

The Goblet of Fire and the Age Limit

Hogwarts portraits

Gryffindor Common Room

Gryffindor Quidditch team

Arthur Weasley's Ford Anglia

The trolleys from the Platform 9 3/4

Lavender Brown's declaration of love to Ron

The Knight Bus

Privet Drive

Voldemort

Buckbeak the hypogriffe

Dobby

After visiting the Studios, Albert, Amanda and I took the shuttle. We bought some sandwiches and fruits to have lunch even if it was late while going back to the hotel.
Then, Albert joined some friends who used to live in Paris and Amanda and I stayed at the hotel to get some rest.
We went to town to do shopping: Primark off course! I was a Little disappointed because I did not find a lot of things. On the other hand, there was a stand at Primark where you could customize your Harry Potter T-shirt for only a few pounds, that was cool!

Harry Potter stand at Primark

After our shopping, we joined the rest of the group (except for Anyssa and Hatem who did the Studios later and went back to the hotel just after the visit) and Albert's friends to eat a pizza in Covent Garden.

His two friends gave us a "tour" until we arrived at Jerusalem, a nightclub where a crazy barman made us cocktails.
We took a Uber to go back to our hotel. 

Day 3

The third and last day was dedicated to the cruise on the River Thames. Amanda and I left the group to put our luggage in the left-luggage office at Victoria railway station; the others went to the rally point for the cruise. We joined them later.

The weather was perfect, ideal for the cruise! The guide from the cruise was very funny and did not stop making jokes. The jokes were in English of course but were easy to understand.

London Eye

After the cruise, Amanda and I went to Victoria to take our luggage while the others went to Camden Town; Hatem and Anyssa went to catch their flight.

With Amanda, we joined the others at a restaurant in Camden where we ate fish and chips.

The decoration from the restaurant where we ate

After the meal, we left the restaurant to take the Eurostar.
Unluckily, Camden station was closed on the way back; we had to go to the next station by foot. To go on the platform, we had to take spiral stairs which seemed interminable. We lost time and run until King's Cross station. No time to get some rest, we run in the escalators with our luggage.

Once arrived at the Eurostar counter, it was too late. One of the employee changed our tickets for the last Eurostar to Paris.

While waiting for our train, we ate delicious ice-creams not far from the railway station. Amanda and I slept on benches at the Railway station. Indeed, we did not sleep much the previous night because we went to a nightclub and we woke up early to leave the hotel.

Matcha and peanut butter ice-cream

We were in different cars: car 11 for Amanda and I, car 6 for Elise and Maxime and car 2 for Vanessa and Albert.

Once on the train, Elise told me Maxime and her would join Vanessa and Albert in car 2 because They had a car just for the two of them, First Class. Amanda and I did not want to walk through 9 cars with our luggage so we stayed. We quickly regretted it because the English girls behind us were so noisy and also uncorked a bottle of Champagne to celebrate something. They laughed as if they were some kind of whales, it was not possible to sleep. Amanda kindly asked them to lower their voices, which they did for a fraction of seconds.

After a while, the train swerved suddenly and remained at standstill for 30 minutes; the lights were off too. Only the LED emergency lighting modules were on.
Amanda took advantage of it to visit our Friends in car 2. When she came back, we decided to go there with our luggage. People were wondering what we were doing with our luggage while the train was not running. A lady asked us if we wanted to get ou of the train; she was laughing. It was not easy to walk because people were sleeping with their arms and legs everywhere on the way to the next cars.

We arrived to car 2 while our friends were making a movie. With the weak luminosity, They decided to make a short movie like Walking Dead.
We filmed many other scenes while keeping an eye on the door to check if somebody was coming or not.
The train restarted but stopped again so we filmed other scenes.

Once arrived in Paris, there were no RER, undergrounds or other means of transportation.
All of the passengers took Uber or taxis (the company requisitioned some taxis).

We missed our Eurostar but it turned out to be for the best because we never could have live all these adventures.

We must do it again! :-)