48 Hours in London
London is a must see city, even if for only a short amount of time! I met a girlfriend for 48 hours in London and boy, did we have a good time! You can fit a lot into 48 hours, but make sure you prepare yourself for it. Also, be sure to bring a lot of hand sanitizer…. I ended up getting COVID after my two days in this big city!
I arrived to London the evening before so technically had slightly more than 48 hours in London. That being said, we really only had 48 hours to “see” the city and actually explore. Since our hotels were located in the Covent Garden/South Kensington area, that is how we mapped out what we would do. Everything to the west of our hotels we ran through during the first day, and everything to the east we did on the second day!
One thing to note about this itinerary – it is not for the faint of heart. We were movin’ and groovin’ the entire 2 days with no rest stops. Expect to walk approx. 10-11 miles a day and for your knees to give out. If you are over 30 years old, this itinerary might put you in hospice. I’ve warned you.
If you don’t want to read through the blog and just want our itinerary, scroll to the bottom of this post and I have attached our 48 hours in London itinerary to download!
Hotels
We stayed at two hotels while we were there:
Day 1: West London
No time to waste! We got up around 8:30a and having two girls in the hotel room with one bathroom meant we needed some time to get ready. We ended up heading out around 9:30a and grabbed some coffee & a breakfast snack on the go (nothing fancy). From there we hit our first stop: Buckingham Palace. Of course this area was insanely crowded so we weaved through everyone and got some good photos and video for TikTok (duh).
After we had our visit with the Queen, we walked through Hyde Park to see Kensington Palace. I’ll be the first to admit, I wasn’t blown away by this palace. Not that I live in a palace myself, but I think seeing it after Buckingham Palace made it seem… not as grand. That being said, huge palace, cool to think Kate was there, possibly hanging.
After we made our rounds to visit everyone in the Royal Family, we made our way over to Notting Hill. My main reason for wanting to see this little area wasn’t because of the movie – I wanted to see all the colorful houses! There were three main roads on the itinerary to hit: Portobello Road, St. Lukes Mews and Landcaster Rd. To be honest, there are many streets that have beautiful houses, I suggest just walking around.
After photos of the colorful houses, we had dinner & went to the hottest spot in London for drinks! We walked approximately 11 miles on our first day but did take the Tube a few times to save our feet. Make sure to wear some comfortable shoes when you are traveling!
Day 1 Food & Drinks:
As mentioned above, we didn’t do anything fancy for breakfast. For lunch, we went to Farm Girl Cafe which was DELICIOUS. We went around 2:00p and there was about a 15 minute wait, nothing crazy. They have a lot of coffees and teas to choose from and have an extensive brunch menu.
For dinner, I picked a very “out of the box” spot. The Jam Chelsea is unique in that it’s built like a treehouse. It boasts a one of a kind architectural design with a multilevel booth seating arrangement. You have to climb ladders to reach the up top seating, which was a bit rough after how much walking we did this first day. While their seating design was unique, their food was just as amazing. They are an Italian restaurant so we both got pizzas but they also have other items like pasta and some meat dishes.
For after dinner drinks, we made our way over to the other side of London. We took the tram over there to save our feet! We went to Sky Garden Bar really for the views of London. Sky Garden is London’s highest public garden – a vibrant social space with 360-degree views of the city’s iconic skyline. We walked around the garden and had a delicious cocktail to wrap up our evening! Onto the next 24 hours of our 48 hours in London girls’ trip!
Day 2: East London
After a big first day, we woke up with our body feeling a bit achy! Walking 11 miles the day before did us in. We took the tube over to brunch (more info below) and spend our morning slowly sipping coffee and eating pancakes. After fueling our body, we took the Tube (again) over to St. Paul’s Cathedral. This Cathedral was magnificent. We weren’t going to go inside but we had the time – thank goodness we did! We only spend about an hour walking through & taking the stairs to the top but could have spend half the day there. There is famous artwork inside, monuments, as well as tombs and memorials of some of the nation’s greatest heroes. At the top of the Cathedral is stunning views of the city where you can see the London Eye, the Tower Bridge and everything else London has to offer.
After we got our heart rates up by climbing to the top of the Cathedral, we made our way over to Borough Market to walk through. This area is a historic market in central London with an emphasis on high quality food, sustainable production and social connection. We didn’t spend much time walking through, we ventured to Roast for our Afternoon Tea. This took up a couple hours of our afternoon as we had some laughs over bottomless Prosecco, always a must during a girls’ trip!
Stumbling out of the Roast, we hopped over to the Tower Bridge because you can’t go to London and not see it! There was quite the crowd there at this time, but most folks passing through for pictures. We took videos for TikTok, took some photos here and went on our merry way.
The rest of the evening was filled with drinks and food – we didn’t do any more sightseeing after that, just rounded out our night with drinks and dinner (more information below)!
Day 2 Food & Drinks:
This was the day of the food and drinks! We probably had a little too much “drink” if you ask me. We kicked off our morning with a scrumptious breakfast at The Wolseley. This was definitely more high end but the prices weren’t too bad. We shared insane pancakes and each had our own eggs for some protein for the day.
We didn’t have an actual lunch as we had “Afternoon Tea” at Roast at 3:00p. Let me tell you about this afternoon tea. It was only $55 per person for unlimited Prosecco. That was probably where we went wrong… oops. We ended up sharing 2 bottles of Prosecco during the 90 minute time period we had! It also came with finger sandwiches, a biscuit with butter and jam, and also some little dessert pastries. Totally worth it!
Because we had food later in the afternoon & had a late dinner, we had “before dinner” drinks at The Madison. Going back to the “drinking too much” comment – we each had two drinks and shared another bottle of Prosecco. It was here when I think we realized we are too old to be consuming this much alcohol, but oh well. The Madison had some great views of the city and was definitely a vibe.
After drinks, we hopped over to Circolo Popolare for some Italian food! This place was magnificent and their food was even better. We were a bit drunk at this point but we shared ravioli and pizza – can you tell I love pizza? 10/10 recommend this place for the ambiance and the food! After dinner, that wrapped up our 48 hours in London – boy was it a blast 🙂
As promised, below is the itinerary for our 48 hours in London! This was geared toward a girls’ trip, though can also be a fun itinerary for a couple spending a couple days in London! If you are looking for another fun itinerary, check out our 5-day Trip to Italy itinerary!
