There are some places that I feel like I’ll end up visiting a least 20 times. London is one of those cities. With flights for 60 euros roundtrip from Malaga, we figured why not a London weekend? The trip ended up being absolutely perfect.
The flights and transportation
So as some of you already know, I live in Granada. While Granada does have an airport, it’s small and there are often better deals from Malaga. Malaga is only an hour and a half drive from Granada. Furthermore there are lots of Blablacars and buses that go back and forth. I typically try to find a Blablacar going directly to the airport as it’s cheaper and quicker. However if I cannot find one, there’s an Alsa bus that goes directly from the Granada bus station to the Malaga airport. We opted for the bus this time, which cost around 25 euros roundtrip.
We arrived at the airport, checked in and boarded our Ryanair flight without any problems. Ryanair is a budget airline but the flights are always reliable. The downside to flying Ryanair to London is that they only fly into Stansted airport. Stansted is a good hour by bus or train from London. So in the end, it was 60 euros plus about 25 for the transportation to the Malaga airport, another 20 pounds for the transportation from Stansted to London city and about 7 pounds for an Uber to the hostel. In the end, it leaves me wondering if a more direct flight would evened out to be the same in the end.
The flight home was an absolute disaster. I found a cheap flight on an airline called Primera Air. I had never flown with them, but figure why not? They were the worst. The flight was supposed to take off at 3:50 p.m. and land at 7:45 p.m. The last bus from the Malaga airport to Granada was at 8:45 p.m. The Malaga airport is small, so I figured I would have more than enough time.
Well we didn’t actually take off until 6 something. We missed the bus from the airport. The last bus leaving Malaga city center was at 10 p.m. We missed that one too. My friend was on another flight that was also delayed. I had befriended this nice British girl who was sitting next to me on the flight. She was coming to Granada for a work conference. So the three of us found ourselves in Malaga with no way to come back to Granada.
There was a 4 a.m. Blablacar. It was our best option, so I booked it for the three of us. We ended up chilling in the Bingo hall because it was the only place open that late. Our diver also left early, which was nice. I arrived home at 5 a.m. and had to teach children at 9. All because this airline couldn’t get their act together and fly on time.
If you look them up, they have lots of horrible reviews. Whatever you do, do not fly with them! Anyway, back to my lovely trip to London …
Day 1
We opted to fly out on a Thursday night. This way we could wake up in London with two full days to explore the city. With maybe 5-6 hours of sleep, we were up and ready to explore. Our hostel was in Hyde Park, so naturally we walked across the street to explore Kensington Gardens. While we didn’t explore the palace, we did explore the Sunken Garden.
Apparently Princess Diana lived at this palace. I’ll have to explore it the next time I come to London.
On this London weekend, I really wanted to explore Camden Market. I had heard that you can find vintage clothing there, so I was excited to explore it. I love vintage dresses. While we could have taken the tube, Karen and I decided to walk there. According to Google Maps, it was a little over an hour. Does anyone else do this when they travel? We figured we’d likely see interesting stuff along the way.
We stumbled upon the Church Street Market on our walk. There was so much fresh fruit and veggies.
We stumbled upon this market on a Friday morning. I feel like it would be much more full of people on a Saturday or Sunday.
We also stumbled upon some boats. In fact Google Maps had us walking along the riverway in Regents Park for some time. It was very beautiful.
And finally … Camden Market!
It was a long walk but so worth it! Upon arrival, we found food. We were super hungry after that walk. One thing I loved about Camden Market was that there were food stands from all over the world. In fact that’s my favorite thing about London in general. I always love to try new foods. Karen got arepa (Venezuelan food) and I got Indian food (my favorite).
This place let you pick three different curries. Everything was nut free, which made me happy. I’m super allergic to peanuts, which can make traveling a little scary. Luckily in the UK, I don’t have a language barrier when asking if something has peanuts.
After we ate, we explored the market for a bit. I could have easily bought five dresses. However they wouldn’t all fit in my backpack nor did I have the funds for that. I did find a vintage-style one that was super cute. I ended up wearing it the next day.
Day one ended with a home-cooked dinner in our hostel. My blogger friend Ana from Faded Spring met up with us there. We enjoyed wine, pasta and laughs. It was the first time Ana and Karen had met, and I was glad that they hit it off.
It’s always good to meet up with Ana when I’m in London. She’s super down to earth in person. I also love how real and honest she is on her blog.
Day 2
Our second full day started with being the typical tourist. Karen wanted to go see the Tower Bridge, so we were off. We took the tube to the Tower Hill stop. You can also explore the Tower of London while you’re here. We had limited time and a limited budget, so we chose to take some photos by the bridge and on the bridge. We were being basic tourists.
The Soho pub crawl
After our photoshoot, we headed to Piccadilly Circus where we met Linton from Urban Adventures for a pub crawl through the Soho neighborhood. I wrote a separate post about that which you can read here. Here are just a few of the snapshots.
The hostel
We stayed at the Astor Hostel Hyde Park. I had actually stayed with their Queensway Hostel on my last visit to London a little over a year ago. This hostel was across the park from the one I stayed at last year.
This time Karen and I were in a female dorm room.
My bed was pretty comfortable. Each bed had a crate-like thing to put your stuff. You could lock it with a lock. One thing people fear about hostels is how to secure their things. All hostels I’ve stayed at have locker options. Bringing earplugs and flip flops are two other hostel survival tips of mine. The room had a private bathroom, which was nice.
The hostel breakfast was 1 pound and the money gets donated to charity. Overall, the common spaces were quite comfortable. The only thing I would change were the outlets. A lot of hostels these days have outlets next to each bed so that guests can charge their phone while they sleep. While our room did have a lot of outlets, they were all in one spot. Also the UK has a different electrical outlet, so you need an adaptor. I luckily already had one that converts for UK, Europe and the US/South America. The hostel also has adaptors available to rent at the front desk.
Have you traveled to London before? What did you do and see?
Astor Hostels would also like to offer you a discount code! Use ASTORLUV for 10% off your entire stay!
We were provided a complimentary stay for the purposes of this review. All opinions are my own.
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