So I told myself this year would be the year I explored London more and I feel I finally did this
taking advantage of a bank holiday, not wanting to waste it by staying stuck indoors. Sometimes
the best trips to London are ones that are spontaneous, it's good to have a rough plan of areas you'd
want to go to and then following your feet you'll be surprised what you can find as there's literally
100's of things to do in London and many of them are free or super affordable.
My day started off with my main planned activity to go to the Museum of Childhood as a I knew
there was an Alice in Wonderland exhibit on. Alice in Wonderland has always been one of my
favourite books and films, so I was desperate to go. The Museum of Childhood is very small so the
exhibit isn't something that's going to keep you occupied for too long as it focuses mainly on the
fashion of Alice and how this has evolved and been influenced over the years as well as many
editions of the book. My favourite was the dress with the text and illustrations of the book printed
all over it, I just loved how it incorporated the classic dress style with the full skirt with the original
literary text.
(The inspiration for Don't Hug Me I'm Scared?)
After this I took the opportunity of being in the location and looking around the rest of the Museum
which was great to see the array of toys and how they've evolved over the years. I found many
things I had when I was younger such as Polly Pocket (when she was actually pocket sized), Tickle
me Elmo, and my first ever camera the Fisher Price pictured above (I'm pretty sure we still have this
somewhere). It was weird to see things I loved and still have at home in glass cases, my sister
described it as 'the place toys come to die' and the 'sadness' that they can't be played with. Upstairs
there's also a current exhibition on Dolls Houses which was interesting to see the way these have
evolved over the years and seeing the grand old dolls houses.
Following our exploration of the gift shop we were intending to head down to Somerset House for
the Pick Me Up festival, but here's where our plan slightly changed. We headed on to Covent
Garden (a favourite spot in London for both me and Lauren) and took a stroll round the shops,
mainly looking and I treated us to the wonderful Ben's Cookies. I opted for the Peanut Butter and
Milk Chocolate and Lauren opted for a classic Milk Chocolate, I've only had them once before then
but they are honestly the best cookies I've bought out the 'fresh warm gooey melt in the mouth-ness'
is definitely worth it. We also saw a few of the Shaun the Sheep statues that are scattered around
London, my favourite was the Cupcake one. The whole collection is going to be in Convent Garden
some time in September so I think I'll be coming back then rather than following the trails, as we
had a troubling and tiresome trip when we tried to do that with the book benches last summer.
We strolled on down to Somerset house anyway in case we changed our minds and instead took a
look around at the free exhibitions, although it was quite hard to navigate our way around so didn't
stay for long. Next on our adventure we crossed the river to Southbank as our dad had suggested
taking a look at what's going on down there (as there's always something). We had a quick stop in
the Southbank centre, as I've never ventured in and was curious, taking a look round the exhibition
on migration and immigration which was very interesting. Not really knowing what to do next we
carried on walking down the river looking at the handy signs with things to do in the direction
you're heading when we discovered one for the Florence Nightingale Museum. As both of us are
lovers of history and GCSE history includes a section on medicine – which I previously studied and
Lauren is currently studying, - it seemed like a great museum to go to.
The museum is included in the London 2 for 1 days out leaflet which you can pick up in most train
stations in London, meaning if you have travel cards/train tickets then you can get entry for two
people for £7 (seeing as my ticket alone was meant to be £7.50 I'd recommend this for this trip,
because who doesn't love a good bargain). The museum was all in one room and divided into three
sections of Florence's early life, the Crimean War and her life after and impact. Seeing as this wasn't
where I expected to end up on this day out I didn't know what to expect but we both thoroughly
enjoyed the experience and learnt a lot. Lastly we headed to Waterloo to start our journey home,
stopping and doing a bit of shopping first I discovered the Foyles in the station and fell in love
picking up a copy of Far From the Madding Crowd after seeing the film at the weekend, before
heading into Lush and searching the delights in there.
A busy but enjoyable day. I'd recommend if you're heading out spontaneously in London to pick up
one of the 2 for 1 guides just in case you go past any of the places inside and save yourself quite a
bit on entry prices as it includes top attractions like Madame Tussauds and the London Dungeons as
well as the smaller museums like the Florence Nightingale one.
-Cloee xoxo
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