Good day, my friends! Phillip Davis here at it again sincerely and passionately to continue to be a Guest Blogger on the amazing and uncommon blog website of Kelsey V!

I am sure that you know by now that, yes, Kelsey and I love to eat and travel. So much that we basically have planned out our travel plans for 2025. Creating memories is very important in our lives, and for us, it’s been by traveling and spending that quality time together. So, with that being said, I present to you our London Day Two Blog!

Kelsey, Tori, Clark, and I woke up the next morning from our night “knight” caps and took the London Tube from Stratford to the Notting Hill Gate Station, which was about a 30-minute train ride on the Central Line into the city. After a short, brisk walk from the station, we made it to the popular Cheeky Scone, a bakery centered all around the scone and coffee scene that London has to offer. And, goodness did it offer! Kelsey and Tori tried out the Poppy Seed Scones while Clark and I went with the Chocolate Dipped Nutella scones, and boy was it all good!

Now each scone was offered with two huge (and I mean HUGE!) sides of our choice of jam and London’s clotted cream, which are both staples for eating with scones. At first, all four of us did not know how to eat the scones with the clotted cream and jam, but we saw some locals a few tables across from us. They broke the scones in half and then spread the clotted cream on each half first before putting the jam on the top of the clotted cream. So, an open-faced scone sandwich, if you will! We each had our own coffee to complement our scones, so we savored our lovely breakfast meal in this little cafe before we did other festivities for the day!

After our breakfast, we all decided to walk around foggy London town since we were in the heart of the city. Since we were very close to Kensington Gardens, and since the weather was nice, we decided to walk there and start there first. Upon entering the gardens from the West side, we saw the grand Kensington Palace and Queen Victoria Statue and walked our way around the Round Pond for a little while. After the Round Pond, we kept walking East until we made our way to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain and Hyde Park on the Eastern side. All of these scenes and monuments were very beautiful, and it really made us four reflect on just how much history London has (and we were just getting started on our trip).

While at the park, we also noticed that most of the locals were wearing grey and black apparel or more neutral colors. We also saw lots of dogs and folks riding bicycles, as well. It was all very picturesque in scene, and by this time around midday, we had walked over 20-thousand steps, but who was counting, ha! Then, of course, within minutes and out of nowhere, the rain started coming down so the four of us quickly made our way down to Harrods to, number one, get indoors out of the rain and two, to do some shopping!

We were inside Harrods for definitely more than an hour until the rain died down, but, of course, we purchased some London souvenirs there to bring home with us to remember the memories we created in London. Once the rain stopped, we left Harrods and continued walking East along our journey until we made our way to the Wellington Arch and Buckingham Palace! The palace was just as beautiful as I remembered from my very first trip to London around 20 years ago! This was Kelsey’s, Tori’s, an Clark’s first time to London, so to see their faces light up when we arrived to the palace was definitely priceless! We stayed there a while, sat around the Queen Victoria Memorial, and embraced the scenery all around us.

As time seemed to fly by (like most vacations do), and since it was around mid afternoon as the day was getting wrapped up, we were definitely getting hungry at this point. So, we hopped on the Tube for a short ride to get some local fish and chips at Rock and Sole Plaice. We all got the Regular Plate of Cod Loin that came with their Signature Tarter Sauce. Kelsey and Tori got London Style Sides which came with homemade coleslaw, gherkins, pickled onion, pickled egg, and mushy peas. Clark and I ordered butter rolls with our meals. We all enjoyed our food with no leftovers at all! We washed our food down with their Rock and Sole Lager Beer and me with their Camden Pale Ale. This was definitely one of my favorite meals of the entire London trip, that’s for sure!

After our wonderful Lunch/Dinner (I like to call this “Linner) fish and chips, we called it a day out in the city and and took the tube back to the Moxy Hotel in Stratford where we, of course, took on some more rounds of What’s The Point and more drinks at the Moxy Lobby bar. After some games, we headed to bed to rest and prepare for day three!

PS – I still have yet to beat Kelsey, Tori, and Clark in a game!! 🙂

Until Day Three blog, friends!

Love, Phillip!