Last week we had a very lovely festive mini break in London. We always used to like having a few days away at Christmas usually to celebrate our anniversary and to get us well and truly in the festive spirit but for the last few years it hasn’t been possible for us to get away at Christmas. I’m really hoping this marks a return of the festive getaway tradition!
On our first evening in London we decided to head to some of the popular Christmas lights areas. We visited Harrods for their Christmas shop and got a lovely new addition for our Christmas tree then we went to Seven Dials, Covent Garden, Trafalgar Square, Oxford Street, Regent Street and Carnaby Street. Seven Dials lights were lovely but Carnaby Street’s offerings were by far my favourite, it looked amazing! It was a lovely evening touring the lights of the city however if I did it again I’d probably avoid Oxford and Regent streets as the lights were nice but they weren’t anything spectacular, there were certainly nicer ones and you couldn’t enjoy them anyway because it was just so busy on an evening. I’d definitely recommend the other locations we visited more.
On day two we headed to Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park as it was somewhere I’ve wanted to go for years. I’m going to be completely honest here, I was so let down by it. It did not live up to expectations at all and I actually felt quite upset that it was the big thing we’d chosen to do for our anniversary celebration and it was so bad. I could have told you that we had a lovely festive, romantic day but I’ve always been honest on here and the reality is the weather was terrible (which of course didn’t help), the market was slightly tacky and had all the same stalls and the rest of it felt like an over-priced travelling fair but on a larger scale. It didn’t feel magical or festive, it felt slightly cheap and very disappointing.
Fortunately we’d booked the Magical Ice Kingdom retelling of A Christmas Carol in Winter Wonderland which is an ice sculpture retelling of the classic Christmas story. This more than made up for how bad the rest of Winter Wonderland was because it was amazing and I do recommend booking this even if you don’t bother with the rest of Winter Wonderland. It is -10 in there though so wrap up warm if you do go!
On our last half a day in London we braved Oxford Street again which was actually much quieter than it had been on an evening. We then headed to London Bridge to do the Snowman trail. Between London Bridge and Tower Bridge there are 12 snowmen based off the film all decorated like the 12 days of Christmas. It was a really fun free activity to do that took you through some lovely areas and Christmas markets and wasn’t too crowded either.
All in all we had a really lovely few days away. This was our first time visiting London at Christmas and we’d definitely return but we also learnt a lot about what we would and wouldn’t do as well!
Have you visited London at Christmas? What is you favourite place to visit at Christmas? Let me know in the comments.
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