London Call: Diary of mom and teenage daughter in London

Tips and tricks of a trip to London with a teenager: practical guide for a parent on vacation

Diary of mom and teenage daughter in London

 

"Mom, take me to London"

"Yes, I'll bring you my love"

After a few months....

"Mom when will you take me to London?" .... and so on and on for at least three years.

 

In the fourth year, I easily surrendered to spending a mother-daughter weekend in London, a city that I love but hadn't visited for too many years.

We went to London in September, and we had sunny weather for three days in a row; euphoric
Londoners were enjoying the parks and gardens even during  their lunch break.

 

It 's true, three days is the minimum amount of time that you need to see London, but we have very good intentions of going back more often so we decided not to hurry and to enjoy the city as it is, without having to see everything in 48 hours.

We  lived in London peacefully without stress, taking ample space for rest and genuine admiration.

 

Below is the list of our "must see" places, the "soundtrack" of two teenagers, a real one and a nostalgic one, which we think is really worth preserving:

 

- Trip on the Thames: there are several companies to choose from, all with identical prices. It's nice to look at the city from a different point of view, you can stop in different parts of the city, go down to visit the neighborhood and then continue or return to the start.

- For the first time in our travels we booked a walking tour of the city with a guide. It was a fantastic, fun, educational experience because we decided to visit the centre of London with an English speaker: a great choice, a walk around London with a lot of history. We also saw the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. 

- Visit to the Tate Modern Museum, a museum of contemporary art, with free admission like many London museums and  a huge collection of modern and contemporary painters. We could easily pass at least half a day, we selected the parts that most interested us.

- An evening at the theater to see a musical in the original language (we read the libretto in Italian before); Priscilla my daughter chose "The Phantom of the Opera" a French novel of the early twentieth century from which the film and the musical were taken.

It was an impressive show, we got so excited.

- Walking and wandering in the various neighborhoods, listening, seeing street artists ... some really good ones

 

 

Practical information:

 

 

 

- We bought a tourist "oyster card" in order to get reduced prices for the metro and public transport

-We used “uber" after dinner to go home without having to take the metro, highly recommended

- We booked a private room in a private house for our stay and we did very well, considering the English cleaning standards!! We chose the Vauxhall district in the Southbank, south of London, because it is still a residential area and very close to Westmister.

 

 

In addition to choosing a few pubs close by for fish and chips and a good beer for me, we survived London life by visiting the “Pret a Manger” chain. Pret a Manger is the perfect formula for our family healthy-eating style. There are many spots around the city, where you can have a coffee, breakfast or lunch or you can choose the "take away" formula. It's all cooked on the day, in fact I can say by the hour, every store has its own kitchen where food is prepared from fresh ingredients, not from frozen. They offer a wide choice of food of all kinds and tastes: omnivorous, veg, raw, high protein ... ranging from Mediterranean to Asian cuisine.

Excellent value for money.