The Hand Luggage Only way! 🙂
Recently, we got contacted about the potential of having a hassle-free day in London and like any true Londoner, I was initially sceptical.
London is kinda synonymous with hassle. Yes, there are humongous upsides to being in London but I think it’s safe to say the average Londoner is always in more of a hurry (and potentially more stressed out) than most people living in other parts of the country. Everything is slightly more fast-paced in London so you gotta keep up; which in turn makes you more stressed out so a hassle-free London was an idea I was so keen to explore!
Anyway, let’s take a step back and set some context here; Santander (the bank, not the place) has this hassle-free process for switching your current account over to them (it’s actually a decent account as well as you get cashback for your spend.
Quite frankly, I’d spend the money anyway in my current account so to get something back for spending my money is a concept I most definitely dig).
Anyway, the idea was to immerse ourselves in that “hassle-free” lifestyle Santander had to offer their customers and I was definitely game to try that out. And I wasn’t taking it lightly either! Hahaha!
Here’s what we got up to:
1.) Hop into an Uber and head to Covent Garden (one of my self-imposed rules for the day was “No public transport“). One of the plus sides of this, of course, was catching the major sights of London on the brief drive in…
2.) We made a brief detour to Leicester Square to pick up tickets for a show for the evening… (more on that later)
3.) Seeing as it was a hassle free day, I didn’t get up till quite late in the morning so the first meal of the day was an early lunch! (Or perhaps I could pretend this was brunch?) Anyway, we went to Clos Maggiore for a three course lunch addled with lots of wine!
That bread (above was so amazing), it’s parmesan bread, served warm with oodles of butter which just melts on it!
I could describe what we had but in a ‘hassle-free’ style, I’ve just taken a photo of the menu instead (hehehe! Okay, fine, I was lazy with that one but I’m sticking to my hassle-free theme).
4.) Next up, we went for a little gander around London, stopping to see the street performers in Covent Garden…
5.) The walk around of course led to another food-related incident -milkshakes at Ed’s diner! I went with a Peanut butter milkshake! Everyone should always have peanut butter milkshakes…
6.) In all the time I’ve lived in London, I’ve never actually made the effort to go to the National Portrait Gallery so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to. FYI, it is amazing in here! And free too! The pieces of art here spans so many floors and you could easily spend hours and hours here. To top things off, we ended up in a live musical performance in one of the rooms in the National Portrait Gallery which was quite amazing! (Like seriously good!)
7.) We soon jetted off as we had that show to catch! But not before coffees of course so a quick pit stop to Pret a Manger was deemed mandatory…
8.) Finally, we arrived in the heart of the West End for our show for the evening – Miss Saigon! I’d kinda always wanted to see this show but I had no idea how good this was! Its soooooooo good, you’ve gotta go see it when you get the chance to!
9.) Show over (and with rapturous applause), we ran off to get an Uber to the destination for dinner that night – Sushi Samba! This amazing restaurant has great views of London and amazing food!!! It is, without a doubt, worth the hype!
We started off with shrimp tempura… (by the way, it’s all really orange here so every picture has unbelievably-strong orange tones 🙂 Even photos of yourself and your friends will make everyone orange here but who cares, you come for the food – amirite?)
Moved on to black cod…
Then the delightfully tender pork belly…
Followed by a variety of sushi whose names I really can’t remember. I had clear reason for choosing them at the time but I have no idea what they are called now. With Sushi Samba, you’re pretty sae taking a gamble with everything on the menu, we were here just days before and ordered more varied items on the menu with friends and it all tastes good! Except the mini-hamburgers, they’re the only items on the menu I would say to avoid, they’re not awful (far from) but they’re not that great either so just skip the mini-hamburgers and you’re fine with any choice on the menu!
How cool is that outdoors orange tree?!
Finally, sated by an amazing back to back serving of delicious food, we finally decided it was time to head back home after our full hassle-free day!
And of course took in the sights as we drove past – London at night is incredible!
Read more: Best areas of London to explore
Check Out The Very Best Of Great Britain!
