Day 0: London [England]
We kicked off our European trip with one day and two nights in London. Not only is this a location that neither of us have been to, but it was also the most budget-friendly place to fly into. It can be a little intimidating finding your way into Prague for this trip, with some research we were able to get there very reasonably! We took a cheap flight from Dallas to Fort Lauderdale and from there took a Norwegian flight directly into London. We have never traveled Norwegian before but with extremely nice planes and $200/ticket, we certainly would again!
Tip! Check out Norwegian Air, they fly out of a few US airports, but they had beautiful flights and were SUPER CHEAP!!! A budget travelers dream!
Tip! Check out Norwegian Air, they fly out of a few US airports, but they had beautiful flights and were SUPER CHEAP!!! A budget travelers dream!
hit the ground running! keep ahead of the "jet-lag"!
As we did with our last trip to Europe, we tried very hard to carry-on at full steam once we landed in Europe. With the length of the flight and the time change, we try to think of it as just "skipping a day". Try to sleep on your flight over the Atlantic (they are typically night flights). When you land, we find it is best to act like the time is "now". If you get caught up in "what time it really is", then you will have a harder time adjusting. We got to our hotel in the early afternoon, did a little walking, grabbed some food and went to bed at a similar time as we would back at home. "Skipping a day". We woke up ready to go!
We took a look through the Rick Steves' London guidebook for some ideas on what to do with our limited time in London. We started off the morning by opening the Tower of London. We found the place to get very busy when the gates were about to open, if you would like see the Crown Jewels without a line, get there early or purchase tickets in advance!
Tip! Nicole was able to manage a FREE TICKET into the Tower of London! Through her searches, she stumbled across this website, Days out Guide. The short version is they require a pair of national rail tickets, a printed voucher [before you get there!] and we were able to save 22 British Pounds [~$33USD] at the Tower of London and a free ticket at the Nightingale Museum! This worked out great for us, definitely keep this in mind if you plan on attending one of the venues on the linked page. Our public rail tickets were from Gatwick airport, to London, back to Gatwick [to catch our flight to Prague].
Our second stop was the Florence Nightingale museum, where we also used the Days Out Guide program. Florence Nightingale is otherwise known as the "Mother of Nursing", which is very fitting for Nicole, since she is a nurse! The museum is right next to the hospital and can blend in pretty easily, so keep an eye peeled for the sign! We enjoyed the museum more than we thought we would and recommend it to anyone in the medical field or that is otherwise interested in what she was able to do in her lifetime. Very interesting!
As if we didn't stay busy enough, we managed to go for a stroll by Parliament, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, none of which are very far from the Florence Nightingale museum! We caught a ride to the British Museum which is "free", but they do recommend a donation. It is not what we consider a guilt-inducing/nudge-nudge type of "donation request", rather there are just a few boxes where you can drop a few pounds into if you would like. The museum was very good! The Rosetta Stone is certainly worth seeing and it is filled with Egyptian and many other civilization's artifacts! Also a highly recommended spot to go in London!