A Christmassy weekend in London!

So this weekend I had the pleasure of spending the first few days of Advent in London!

I was invited to an event i’ve never even heard of before but turns out it’s a pretty big deal.. Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland. Of course I can’t say no to a new adventure and I do love a good visit to London.

We popped down on the train and made the 2 hour journey from Leeds getting to Kings Cross late Friday night. Because of the time it meant the station wasn’t as busy as normal allowing me the chance to try my luck at getting through to Hogwarts again.. Unfortunately I didn’t make it.

We made our way to Bayswater where we had an apartment booked for the weekend. Right next to Hyde Park so a perfect location for visiting Winter Wonderland and central London! After checking in we made our way to the nearest pub for a well deserved Purple Gin before hitting the hay in preparation for the busy weekend ahead.

Of course on all my adventures the rain follows me, so we spent most of the morning catching up on much needed sleep. It was meant to brighten up later in the day so we avoided the heavy downfalls and set off through Hyde Park once it had stopped raining.

First stop.. wildlife!

I could hear the birds in the trees and see the little green fellas flying from branch to branch. Luckily my partner took me over to the place they gather and we found a great spot for feeding the birds. I absolutely loved this experience! I had a good laugh at them landing on us and being attacked by pigeons!

Afterwards we walked along the lake by Hyde Park and we could see Winter Wonderland in the distance with it’s massive rides poking out above the trees. It turned into quite a nice day for an autumn stroll in the park and luckily we had missed the worst of the rain!

After strolling through the park for a few hours we went for a wander around London with a quick visit to see the Queen. It was also pretty cool to see some pelicans not far from the palace! One of them was a nice shade of pale pink.

Eventually we ended up at South Bank where there was a nice little Christmas market a on a much smaller scale to Winter Wonderland. I enjoyed the most delicious halloumi fries here!

Winter Wonderland is how we ended the night and I was really amazed by how exciting the place was. Like a giant carnival! Definitely the biggest fairground i’ve ever been to and it got me in the Christmas mood. We drank mulled wine and cider, ate German sausages and sat by the cosy fire 🙂

Sunday we popped back to Winter Wonderland to explore whilst it’s a little less busy during the day.

I hooked an Olaf to win this little guy who we named Bert and he came around London with us for the day!

We spent the day exploring London some more with the Christmas markets at Leicester Square, a quick visit to Piccadilly Circus, the Tower of London and we walked across Tower Bridge. Next time we visit we want to walk up the Tower Bridge and actually venture inside Tower of London. Something to look forward to next summer perhaps?

One of my favourite parts of the weekend was discovering ‘Christmas by the River’ which was a selection of stalls set up like the rest of the Christmas Markets but with more on offer. The main difference was that all the stalls were selling completely different items than the others at Winter Wonderland and it was mostly local crafts and products. We actually ended up buying quite a lot of products including things for ourselves and a lot of Christmas presents! There was much more opportunity to test the products and taste the food on offer – try before you buy! It worked because we walked away with a giant bottle of Moonshine that tastes like hazelnut!