Today, we decided to head to Barceloneta beach to check out the International Fireworks Festival. Tonights' performance was hosted by Tamaya Kitahara Fireworks (Japan) and Pirotècnica Igual (Catalonia). The fireworks were beautiful, and watching it at the beach made it even more magical.
Read More“I love London more than New York City” said Kian on our last day in London. I wonder what other cities will become his favorite as we travel on.
The day started off with lots of sunshine. We decided it was only fitting to explore the Wapping neighborhood and headed down towards Waterside Gardens, a small park with nice views of the river. The streets of Wapping are very historic and despite renovations the buildings still hold their olden day charms.
Waterside Gardens in Wapping
We had a great time playing tag and took some fun pictures.
It started to get windy and cloudy a little after noon. We headed to Captain Kidd, a famous restaurant in the neighborhood for some traditional British grub.
Captain Kidd Restaurant in Wapping
When you are inside the restaurant you feel like you are on a ship. The rooms are all wooden with wooden walls and lots of wooden beams and you can see the river from all the windows. The restaurant filled up quickly with lots of families. We all enjoyed our lunch.
with veggies, gravy, and Yorkshire pudding
Enjoying Lunch
We headed back home to grab our raincoats, since in had started to drizzle, and to figure out what we wanted to do in the afternoon.
Finally, we headed out to Southwark and South Bank to check out the Festival of Love.
Before getting to the festival we came across a small opening off the walkway with lots of boutique like stores.
We continued on to the Festival of Love. There were a lot of street performers around, cotton candy, people singing. I believe earlier in the day they had a few speakers that talked about a various topics focusing on love of humanity, love of self, love of family, etc.
South Bank Festival of Love
Cotton Candy Eaters at the Festival of Love
As we headed back home we encountered our first hiccup of the trip. We wanted to return our Oyster cards to get our deposit back but you can only return Oyster cards at underground stations and the closest train station to our flat was an overground station. I mistakenly thought we could return the cards at Canada Water station and walk the rest of the way. Little did I know that we were on the wrong side of the river and the shortest way to cross the river was a tunnel for motor vehicles!!! Ummm…Ooops! Of course it was raining and the kids were tired so they wanted to be carried.
We walked a bit but then finally decided to buy a single one way ticket for the overground and got out at our Wapping stop.
An early dinner was in order since we had to catch a flight at 8:05 AM to Dublin which meant waking up at 4:00 AM. We ate a review of the week and sent the kids to bed :)
Last Dinner in London - A review of the week
With the kids in bed I went on the computer to check-in online for our flight only to find out…dun dun dun….that there was another monkey wrench being thrown our way! The fine print on the confirmation said, “You must print and bring your boarding pass with you or you will be charged when you check in”. I believe the additional fee was about 20 GBP per person. Print?! Dude! It was almost 9 PM on a Sunday by the time I read this. I will spare you the details of us weighing pros and cons. Thank god for our friend Simon who saved the day by printing our boarding passes at his friend’s house and dropping them off. YAY SIMON! THANK YOU!!
We finished all the packing as quickly at we could and finally went to bed around midnight. Goodbye London. It’s been amazing!!
Our family of four is chased summer around the world. Now we are a family of 5, back in the US, and planning our next great adventure.
