London arrival: Tue 29th July:
Our London Apartment Link: here and here
The journey from Sydney to London went smoothly and I would highly recommend Singapore Airlines for those of you considering any travel. Primarily due to their staff as they are so welcoming, helpful and considerate. The other noteworthy issue is how frequently the bathrooms are cleaned; something I’ve NEVER struck on the other airlines I’ve travelled.
Picking up the car at Heathrow was easy, as was finding our reserved parking spot in Knightsbridge. We had to kill a bit of time between midday and our 3 pm check-in time so we found a nearby pub, The Beauchamp, for Mark to have a beer and then went onto Harrods for Mark to get something to eat. We chatted to a lovely young Ukrainian girl in Harrods who mentioned she would love to bring her parents to London but her father has to stay to fight because he is aged 53 and all man up to the age of 60 are conscripted for the war effort. A sobering realisation and a most poignant reminder of how fortunate we are living in Australia; away from so many of these awful global conflicts. She was hopeful the war would end soon and had just finished her job as an events manager so as to move to Bali with her UK boyfriend as he wished to escape the cold. We wished her well and suggested she keep Australia in mind if they ever found it too hot in Bali.
Access to our apartment was via a key code main door entry followed by a lockbox, for our apartment key, and we navigated this with ease at our 3 pm allocated check-in time. The apartment was in an excellent location; right in the thick of all the shops, cafes and restaurants of Knightsbridge and directly opposite Harrods. It was a good size, nicely appointed and had the all-important balcony for some outside space.
It was near 5 pm by the time we stepped out to head to dinner but we were both exhausted and didn’t think we could wait until our 6.45 pm (what was I thinking!) allocated booking at The Mantle, a Turkish restaurant located just a few minutes from our apartment. Google gave this a rating of 4.7 but Mark and we would give it a rating of 4. The most interesting part of the evening was the short walk home where we discovered a huge array of luxury cars queueing to pick up their clients from Harrods. The second most interesting part of the evening was the people-watching of all the very wealthy and extremely glamorous Middle Eastern women attired in their luxury traditional clothing.
It was just after 7 pm by the time we got home and we tried to watch a bit of Netflix but failed miserably and so tumbled into bed very early.
