Discovering London

Planning for the trip

I with two friends planned this trip several months in advance because our company organized the largest global event in London O2 arena at the end of April 2014, with 20,000 people in attendance! There is an annual global convention each year in a different country and I attended several ones and this one was the biggest in terms of number attendance

Arrival and first impressions

We had booked everything in advance: The flight, the bus that would take us to the city center, the hotel, the public transport card, the activities. Almost everything was well-prepared. We arrived a few hours before dawn at Stansted airport. The first surprise was the big difference in temperature compared to Marrakech, where it was very hot, while in London, the temperature was about 10 degrees Celsius. We then took the public transportation to our hotel in the Stratford area. I won't hide that every time I travel outside of Morocco to a developed country, I enjoy the organization and the nature of relationships. I know then that I won't have trouble finding a place and that everyone follows the line in shops, and I will be treated properly, at least as a customer

A place with full city view

The apartment we rented in Go Native, despite being far from the event location, offered a wonderful view of London from the 27th floor. We could even see the large O2 Arena where the event would be held. It's true that most of the day you see only fog covering much of the city, but when it clears up, especially with the transparent walls all around the apartment, the view becomes truly amazing

Navigating London avenues

The transportation is so well-organized that, with Google Maps on my phone, I had all the transport details to any place. It's clear that these people could only achieve this with a lot of precision and hard work. Every time I entered the subway, I felt like I was entering an underground city. The best thing we did and that I advice anyone who stays there for over 4 days is that you buy the Oyster card that makes it possible to take any form of public transportation with the same card that you can fill with credits anytime you need. I found it to be very practical indeed.

Exploring London attractions

For tourism attractions, we bought the London Pass which includes the most interesting attractions of the London area with prices suitable for every number of days from 1 day to 10 days. It’ll save you time and money. The vast majority of the most important tourist sites are located along the Thames River, such as Big Ben, London Eye, London Aquarium, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, HMS Belfast, etc. So you can easily do 3 activities with this list in the same day if you start early. What we did also was a boat tour along the Thames river, with the captain explaining each important site along, and the silent buildings told much about the history of Shakespeare's city!

One of the best tourist destinations I enjoyed was the Windsor Castle tour. You’ll need to take the train for more than half an hour to go there but it was worth it for me. The nature there is splendid especially tat it was spring time. And the historical aspect of every coin in the castle just makes you travel back in time.

Behold the photo album