New Year’s Eve in the UK

About a week before our trip we were able to book some of the tickets we needed, so we were able to go into Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, and the London Eye without as much waiting, as well as go to a couple of shows: Mary Poppins in West-End and the production of The Nutcracker by the English National Ballet. Still, this wasn’t as much time for planning and buying tickets as we should have prepared for and most of the tickets for shows and events we wanted to go to were sold out, like the Warner Brothers’ Studio Tour, most West-End shows and plays at The Globe, and all the city’s events for New Year’s Eve. If you’re planning a trip there, I strongly suggest buying those tickets as quickly as you can.

The food in the city was amazing, there was a bit of everything but the must go places to try are: Market food. It really doesn’t matter which market you are in, Trafalgar’s Christmas Market, Camden Town, Notting Hill Market, or any other; every single one of them has amazing food and those are the type of places where you will find food from anywhere in the world; this of course includes fish and chips. Restaurants in Chinatown. Not only is this place a couple of blocks away from Leicester, Soho and Trafalgar square, it is beautiful and full of life. There is an incredible number of restaurants to choose from there, all of them great. Personally, I suggest you stop by Viet Food a beautiful and hip building on Wardour St with incredible food. Pizza Express. If you’re a fan of Italian food, this is definitely a great place and one of these restaurants in the city has an extra many people don’t know of; an underground jazz club, which is ranked as one of the best in the city just behind Ronnie Scott’s. Besides all the ones I’m missing, I suggest not to underestimate a nice sandwich while sitting in one of the many spots in the city.

Regarding entertainment you can do anything from walking through museums, historic locations, themed tours, watching shows or regular stuff like going to the movies in incredible theaters like the Odeon. For us some of the greatest places where the National Gallery, Tate Gallery if not for the art for the amazing view on the terrace, watching the change of guard at Buckingham Palace-which requires a lot of time waiting before it actually happens, the closer you get to the gates the better-, Greenwich a beautiful place filled with history and nice picture spots and my father’s favorite was definitely walking through Savile Row and looking at all the beautiful tailoring shops, as well as visiting the famous 221B Baker Street.

Going to Cambridge was an incredible experience, you could feel the years and years of history on every turn and I didn’t know where to look from all the beautiful spots.

Walking around the colleges is a must, not all of them allow visitors but a few do, the most famous ones charge the entrance, but it is worth it. Besides the amazing buildings, the bridges are some of the most famous there including the Bridge of Sighs and the Mathematical Bridge, these are gorgeous spots usually shown in movies and nice for pictures. Along with these places, we visited the botanic garden as well as the smaller gardens in the city. Once you’re done with the historic places and university grounds, you can always walk through the streets and the shops where you can find anything from clothes, books to cd’s and music; it’s a nice way to relax and look around before turning in at night.

Edinburgh was much colder than London and Cambridge but that didn’t stop us from enjoying every inch of this versatile city. The first thing on your list should always be a walk on the Royal Mile, all the way from the Edinburgh Castle on Castle Rock to the Palace of Holyrood; here we got the chance to see all the incredible Scottish stores and the spirit of the city. Edinburgh Castle is iconic and there is nothing more story like than walking through its pathways and looking at the city below, on the other hand there´s Holyrood, which perfectly shows the English style in its architecture, both are very different and very beautiful.

One of the best parts in the trip was rather unexpected, a hike up Arthur’s Seat, near Holyrood, a beautiful hill you can hike up in about twenty minutes and overlook the city. Another not as well-known climb up is Calton Hill, which has a view that is just as beautiful and has a museum and tower to visit while you’re there.

Edinburgh has the whole storybook setting and it has been an inspiration for many fiction stories; while we were there, I learned that Victoria Street is one of the inspirations for Diagon Alley, from Harry Potter. When I went there, I immediately understood why, the beauty of the curved street and the tall shops one next to the other is remarkable. Among these buildings there are a lot of fiction and book related shops, as well as regular ones and cafes to stop and admire the view with a tea. One of the most beautiful stores I saw there was a secondhand book shop which appeared to be small but turned out to be a treasure cove, as a book lover I fell in love with Armchair Books.

The food in the city was good, most of the places you could find in London where here as well but, for me the best plan was to head over to a pub with live music and eat whatever was in the menu. While we looked for this kind of places, we stumbled upon a jazz club not even a block away from our hotel; which turned out to be the Jazz Bar, a great spot for music lovers which even though it didn’t have any food, had great drinks and was nearby a lot of restaurants.