Friday, 17 April 2026

Day trip to London

Neither of us had been to Canary Wharf, in it's heart it's a modern space so many huge buildings, walking along the water edge was very peaceful, loads of places to sit and enjoy the space, other spots had original buildings, the Dockland museum, which we did not enter this time was lovely red brick. Everywhere you went there were sculpture of all kinds, a beautiful fountain with a seating area and very few cars.







Just a few landmarks, the top two are sculptures made from discarded stuff, one from electrical circuit boards, the whale from household plastic bits. The silver thingy caught my eye and the big yellow duck, just because I liked it.


We walked through the Crossrail place roof garden, it was much bigger than we expected, we both loved it, such a peaceful place to be, loads of places to sit, I did love seeing the tops of the buildings through the roof, which was open in places.










The weather gods were good to us, the sky darken a few times, but no rain, it was warm enough to wear a light jacket, a perfect day for walking, hubby recorded over 14,000 steps, so a good workout for our knees, today I do ache a bit, it's worth it to have such a fun day out. 

George loved talking to me on his bedtime call, Nana on a bus, he was so excited.

We had been chatting regarding another visit, hubby suggested we try a day trip using National Express (coaches), so we caught the 8.30am bus and the 6.30pm return journey. We sat reading for journey, about 2.30 hours, the coaches are very comfortable, and much cheaper than the trains, which often are cancelled and replaced by bus journeys. Our route stops at Portsmouth and Gilford, by passing loads of towns, sadly on the return journey they changed the route not going into Gilford but calling into both terminals at Heathrow, putting 40 minutes on our journey. Next time we book we will have to check which route preferring to take the shorter journey.

We both agreed we would do a day trip again, we had our early evening meal near to Victoria coach station, in a small Italian restaurant, we found it last year on our trip, worth the second visit, and handy to relax so close to where we needed to be, we both prefer to visit smaller independent places to eat.

12 comments:

  1. What a lovely day out.
    We used to travel a lot via London City Airport as there were convenient connections from the IOM, and always chose to overnight at Canary Wharf. As most of those trips were made over Christmas the place seemed quite magical in the evenings with all the wonderful lights.

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    1. We plan another trip later in the year to see the light displays, The Clew was still there but not lit up.

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  2. A lot of work goes into making urban areas attractive and Canary Wharf has succeeded. My son works there, and there are far worse places to work.

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  3. Sounds like you had a great day out. I like Canary Wharf, but don't go there often. The Docklands museum is a really good one. I used to take LB there quite a bit when she was little. The Crossrail gardens look lovely, I must make a point of walking through next time I'm there.

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  4. What a wonderful day out. Thank you for sharing.

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  5. Certainly looks and sounds like you had a great day out, I enjoyed seeing your photographs.

    All the best Jan

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  6. Oh my goodness. I just love that garden. Thank you so much for sharing the day with us all.

    God bless.

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  7. Lovely day out . Thanks for sharing! We now always catch the train to Melbourne if we go. Couldn’t cope with traffic or parking. 45 minutes drive from here to Geelong, then the train, just over an hour (except when for many frequent reasons replaced by bus)Refurbishing old industrial and wharf sites seems to have worked well in many major cities JennyP

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  8. A lovely day out. I quite like Canary Wharf. It always feels so quiet there compared with the rest of London. X

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  9. Interesting photos, sounds like a good day out. My husband used to search out those little family run Italian restaurants when he was down in London overnight on business, rather than having a meal in the hotel.

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  10. Glad you had a fun trip! I haven't done much traveling by bus but I'm going to try it one of these days. I have spent quite a bit of time in Canary Wharf and I know all those sculptures. I've never been to the roof garden in daylight, though!

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  11. Oh wow! Looks like a great day out with lots to see. Coaches can be quite relaxing if you aren't in a hurry. I do miss having things like that. They don't seem to have them a lot over here and trains, well, not reliable ones lol

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