Travel to London, Afternoon Tea, & Seeing Hamilton
Friday, May 30, 2025
Getting back into London from the Lake District took a while.
7:10 am - Taxi pick-up in Grasmere; drive to Windermere rail station
7:30 am - Arrive at station
7:56 am - Train from Windermere to London Euston (with a change at Oxenholme)
12:22 pm - Arrive London Euston
It was a long train ride, but it didn't feel too bad. I worked on a video montage for the first 45 minutes or so to commemorate my Lake District adventure. It takes way too long to put together a reel or maybe it just does for me because I never do it. It's posted below, but there's no music attached because Instagram wouldn't allow it on the download and apparently you can't add songs on YouTube to videos that are more than 60 seconds. Anyway, the song I used on the original post was "The Lakes" by Taylor Swift, a perfect song for this video.
Check-in at my AirBnB in London wasn't until 3:00 pm, I stopped into a museum near the train station called Wellcome Collection. I did this mostly because it was free and they had lockers that could accommodate storing my bag. They also had a nice café, so I had my first meal of the day here. I had a coffee and I believe some sort of quiche.
I would say that the Wellcome Collection is for someone who really enjoys museums or has maybe visited most of the other museums in London already (which... I guess I maybe have, at least all the major ones and even some of the more obscure ones). This museum was a little too out there for me, meaning I guess I didn't really "get" it or... care? There was one piece in an exhibit that I enjoyed where you could hit different buttons for different body parts and the organ would light up within a transparent human body. So now I know how big and where my gall bladder is located, which is actually helpful and interesting.
They did have a really nice gift shop with a huge selection of books, nearly all of them I was interested in. They also had a beautiful reading room with some different works of art that was filled with what seemed to be high school students.
Anywho, I killed enough time there that I arrived on the doorstep of my AirBnB at exactly 3:00 pm on the dot (after a Tube ride and 10 minute walk). The manager even commented on how punctual I was. 😆 He was a nice man named Hassan and he promptly showed me my room.
The place was two stories with a kitchenette, small dining table, and small seating area on the lower level with a terrace. Up the stairs in the loft was the bedroom and bathroom. I guess I didn't take any photos! I need to do better with this. Here are the photos from the listing.
It was a super cute room, probably the best room I've stayed in while in London. And it was actually very affordable for the size. It was about $600 for 3 nights. It was relatively close to a couple Tube stations -- 10 minutes to walk to Paddington and 7 minutes to walk to Bayswater. I would definitely stay here again if I needed to be close to Paddington. The only negative was there weren't many restaurants nearby.
I got settled and then was quickly off to an afternoon tea that I had pre-booked at 4:00 pm at Roseate House, which is a nice boutique hotel near my AirBnB, within a 10 minute walk.
I kind of figured this would be the case, but I was the only person dining at 4:00 pm at this establishment. It was a very beautiful room; it felt very fancy. The waiters wore suits and kept calling me "ma'am." It felt quite exclusive since I was the only one there, but I also hated being the only one they were paying attention to. I asked one of the sirs to take my photo once the food arrived.
Everything was delicious! And I was full.
After my meal, I walked through Hyde Park. I wanted to see the pet cemetery and I located it, but it was locked. 😢 Some of the roses were blooming, though, and roses in England are always glorious.
I walked along the Serpentine which is a body of water within the park, just taking my time until I could make my way to the Victoria Palace Theatre for the 7:00 showing of Hamilton. The walk took about an hour.
Okay, Hamilton was amazing!!! I know it is old news that Hamilton is amazing. But I had never seen it before and, honestly, didn't know much about it. The talent -- rapping, singing, dancing, emoting. It was really impressive. It gives you chills. I loved it.
I took the Tube from Victoria to Bayswater and got back to my room by about 11:30. At my room, I was fiddling with some of the switches, figuring out which one was for the light and the fan in the bathroom. All of a sudden, all the power goes out in my room. I sat there for one second like "Uhh... okay. Now what." It was 11:30. I messaged Hassan, the house manager, through the AirBnB app. Luckily he wrote back almost immediately that he was sending someone up. A nice little man arrived within a few minutes and I think just hit the breaker (or whatever you call it) and things were back up and running immediately.