London | Hello from the Five Star Vagabond

Piccadilly Earls Court London

April 9, 2014 by David Herd

Kensington-Piccadilly-Buckingham-Palace-Harrods

Earls Court Station

Piccadilly Earls Court London

Piccadilly Earls Court are great parts of London to explore and watch the passing parade. I like to stay in Earle’s Court because there are many hotels & I can take the underground straight from Heathrow.

You can buy a one day ticket for the underground for around 9 Quid which gives you unlimited travel, including to or from Heathrow.

Mowbray Court Hotel

Just around the corner is the Mowbray Court Hotel, the rooms are rather small but the price is right and the staff are very helpful, throw in free wi fi & it’s the perfect place for a traveler on a budget. The underground is so convenient, you can ride the tube direct from Heathrow or Piccadilly Earls Court.

Masala Zone Earle’s Court

I don’t often dine in Indian restaurants, however after reading the Trip Adviser review I visited Marsala Zone and enjoyed the food & the excellent service. Ranked 1,335 of 18,211 restaurants in London.

Convent Gardens

I saw Les Miserables a few years ago and admit I was a little disappointed compared to other musicals I have seen.

Piccadilly Circus

Piccadilly Circus connects to Piccadilly, a thoroughfare whose name first appeared in 1626 as Piccadilly Hall, named after a house belonging to one Robert Baker, a tailor famous for selling piccadills, or piccadillies, a term used for various kinds of collars. The street was known as Portugal Street in 1692 in honor of Catherine of Braganza, the queen consort of King Charles II of England but was known as Piccadilly by 1743. Piccadilly Circus was created in 1819, at the junction with Regent Street, which was then being built under the planning of John Nash on the site of a house and garden belonging to a Lady Hutton. The circus lost its circular form in 1886 with the construction of Shaftesbury Avenue.

Tour buses travel to Piccadilly Earls court

The “hop on, hop off” bus is a great way to see London.

Harrods

The store occupies a 5-acre site and has over one million square feet of selling space in over 330 departments making it the biggest department store in Europe.

Harrods food hall

Up to 300,000 customers visit the shop on peak days, comprising the highest proportion of customers from non-English speaking countries of any department store in London. More than five thousand staff from over fifty different countries work at Harrods.

Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace

Guard Mounting, a formal ceremony in which sentries providing ceremonial guard duties at important institutions are relieved by a new batch of sentries.

Changing of the Guard

I must confess I don’t really know if this was the “Changing of the Guard” ceremony or some other British pomp, however the crowd was there in thousands. You can spend weeks around Kensington Piccadilly Earls Court, there are so many great places to see & explore.