London February 2025

February 17, 2025

2/15/2025

Midwinter break in London!

I flew out on 2/14 from Grand Rapids to London. I didn’t include any of the flight stuff in this blog because other than being uneventful (which is awesome), it pretty much is the same as my last several trips. So, skipping right to London.

I arrived in London Heathrow airport at 6am and took the Underground (subway) into Central London. Other than studying up on how to pay, it is fairly simple to use the Underground and very cheap. Instead of the $75-$100 for a taxi from the airport, it costs under $6.00. For all non underground riders, you find the line you want to take and find its end station. Instead this case it was Cockfosters, and I couldn’t help but think how the those middle school grand children would react at them saying that name over and over again for an hour!

The ride was uneventful (again, wonderful), and I was at my hotel by 8am! As luck would have it, they had a room ready and let me take it way earlier than the 3pm checkin and I was able to get a 3 hour lie down in! I know you are supposed to try to push through your first day to get over jet lag, but I didn’t sleep on the plane and I wanted to be wide awake for my first planned event!

Wait for it……..no, not Hamilton….a matinee showing of Les Miserables in the famous London West End theatre district! It was in the Sondheim Theatre which opened in 1907 as the Queen’s Theatre. In 1940 a bomb destroyed the frontage and the back of the lower circles. It reopened in 1959, and went thru various productions until Les Mis moved there permanently in 2004, and was renamed the Sondheim in 2020.

The production was excellent and the venue was beautiful!

After the production, it was just a short 15 minute walk back to the hotel. The whole area was crowded and had a party feel to it. Chinatown was right outside the theatre.