Neighborhoods
The view from the ninth floor of the Marlin Waterloo hotel. The tall, pointed building on the right is called The Shard. As of 2019 it was the tallest building in Western Europe.
London has 32 boroughs. Within each borough there are a number of districts (not an official term). For example, the Borough of Southwark, where we stayed, includes the districts of Bankside, Bermondsey (where the Bermonds Locke Hotel is located), Denmark Hill, Peckham, and several others. They even have an area within the borough called Southwark.
At times it can be difficult to figure out what district you are in, so I have stuck with borough names in listing the neighborhoods that we visited.
We visited neighborhoods in these boroughs:
London city hall (left), with The Shard (right)
The Canceled Flight Fiasco
We decided to fly out of Seattle instead of Portland so we could get a nonstop flight. As we were driving up to Seattle we were notified that our flight to London scheduled for the next day had been canceled. We had a flight/hotel package deal through Expedia, and getting another suitable flight was not trivial. In the ensuing confusion there was a mix-up with Expedia and our hotel reservation for the entire trip was canceled.
Stephanie spent a lot of time on the phone with Expedia and we thought we had it patched up. Unfortunately, our new nonstop flight was delayed and we ended up spending over 10 hours at the airport before we finally got off the ground.
To make matters worse, when we got to the Bermonds Locke hotel in London, we learned that the canceled reservation had not in fact been reinstated as we had been led to believe. With much difficulty, we were able to book the first seven days of our trip at a different hotel, and then return to Bermonds Locke for the remainder of the trip.
Boo Expedia!
Fairley House, a school for special-needs children
Lincoln's Inn Fields. Its use as a communal greenspace and park goes back to 1376.
Late-night street scene in Soho
Light show in a public plaza in Soho