London Calling

Big Ben at the Palace at Westminster

The weekend before Thanksgiving a couple of buddies and I caught a plane to London for a few days of vacation. I had visited London before in 2003, but it was a great chance to go back to one of the best cities in the world. Our trip came at a nice time for us as we were feeling the weight of the daily routine at that point, and even a few days away from it can provide refreshment and renewed focus.

The famous London Tube ... and some affectionate Londoners.

We stayed at a Catholic parish in Soho, just off Oxford Street, a locale more centralized and more lively than the district I had stayed in last time, Victoria. We spent some time visiting the familiar London attractions, including the Tower of London, the British Museum, and the Houses of Parliament. One of the best parts of the weekend was just being in a country that felt a little more like home than Italy usually does. British food generally gets a bad rap, but after weeks of pasta, it was nice to have a burger and fries (called chips there, of course) with a pint of beer for a change.

In front of Tower Bridge

We were also looking forward to hearing English on the streets, and while we did, we were astonished at how often we also heard Italian! London is of course a very cosmopolitan city, and perhaps it was because our ears were already attuned to the sounds of la bella lingua, but Italian was easily five times more common than all other foreign languages that we heard. Maybe it was because the pound was at a record low against the euro, but there were Italians everywhere!

The impressive ferris wheel at the Christmas fair

The best part of the weekend was undoubtedly the Christmas fair that we kind of stumbled upon in Hyde Park, near Hyde Park Corner at the Wellington Arch. We had been touring around west London in the early evening, stopping the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace and were about to head back east when we saw some lights coming from the park. We headed over and found ourselves in a winter wonderland of sorts -- indeed, that's what it's called. It turns out we were there on opening night, so we got the best experience possible, I think. There was ice skating, a large open-air market, booths selling holiday wares, food and drink vendors (including some with great mulled wine), and a variety of rides and funhouses. The highlight of the evening was taking a turn on a large observation ferris wheel that offered great views of the fair, the Hyde Park area, and all of London.


The whole trip was great. But since Christmas is my favorite time of year, I particularly enjoyed the fair in Hyde Park. It really gave us all a little piece of home and was just a great intro the Christmas season. Hope you're enjoying this time of year as well!