As you may have guessed by now, four fellow bloggers and I got to travel with Eurostar to the capital of the UK. Along with Paulien, Annebeth, Afrodite and Sabina I go to enjoy two hours of first class fun in the Standard Premier seats of the Eurostar, the fastest, easiest and most stylish way to travel to London. No hassle with checking-in and waiting ages at the airport to catch a flight. Just drop by the Eurostar check-in at Brussels Midi, have your passport and luggage ready and before you know it, you’re on the other side of the pond. Perfect service, classy dinner and comfortable seats: I’m a fan!
With the Eurostar racing full speed and the one-hour time difference, you can leave Belgium at 9:00 and be in London by 10:00 local time. We left around 13:00 and pulled out our fanciest British accents and pockets full of pennies only an hour later! We traded our Eurostar train for the tube towards our hostel, the Palmers Lodge Boutique Hostel (Swiss Lodge). Total recommendation for when you travel in group or just by yourself! Affordable, clean, supercosy environment, friendly staff and free breakfast!
After arrival we hurried to Oxford Street to do ‘a bit of shopping’. First (and only) stop: Primark, aka crazy world. Imagine five girls who “like clothes” being dropped in cheap dresses/collars/shoes/accessories-heaven. Things got rough! After nearly passing out, we concluded shopping is HARD WORK and we needed some time to chill out. Aline, Belmodo-girl and our London connection, to the rescue! We met up at Strada in Spitalfields along with some other fashionable ladies and I enjoyed the best pizza I’ve ever had (outside Italy). Going to London in the future? Be sure to stop by and refuel at a Strada. There are lots of different ones throughout the city.
After a short night our second and last day began with breakfast. We tried to map out all the things we still wanted to do (and we still wanted to do A LOT) but time wasn’t on our side. A quick stop at Topshop turned into a two-hour shopping spree on which Afrodite and I totally lost it! I’ll showcase my new gear in a next post, but in the meantime check out Afro’s Topshop buys in this blogpost.
Jelly beans and Lola’s cupcakes proved to be insufficient for this shopping overload, so we headed over to Garfunkels for a good old English meal. Fish and chips, burgers and chicken wraps did the trick. We were ready for part two, the part I was very excited about: LONDON FASHION WEEK.
After checking out of our hostel, the lady at the reception handed over a big pile of mail, all addressed to Miss Dogs and Dresses. Quite flabbergasted I opened the envelopes, to find several invites to shows. Oh my. Two of them were on that same day in the afternoon (Temperley = love) but we had our train to catch so there was no way I could make it. Bummer, but I won’t be making the same mistake in the future! We did wander around Somerset House for a bit, the venue where all things LFW take place, and ran into Susie Bubble, Sofie Claes and a truckload of overly stylish and eager-to-pose people. I now understand the term Fashion Circus !
Our London blogger trip was a whirlwind of fashion and I loved every minute of it. Thanks to Jasmien and the Eurostar crew for treating us like princesses, thanks to Annebeth, Afrodite, Paulien and Sabina for being good company, thanks to Aline for taking us out to dinner and thanks to London for being you. I’ll be back soon!
