A sales conference in London gave me some time to get back to UK and travel some more. We reached a day early and I took a walk around Cranford Park close to our hotel for stretching my legs after a long flight. The next day, we mostly hung around London along the river Thames. It has been over 10 years since I last went there but most areas still looked the same. We walked past the regular tourist spots not getting into any of them but having a good picnic. Photos with the Tower Bridge will never really go out of fashion.
After the 3 day conference, we were debating on where to for a day trip. I was thinking Dover & Canterbury but one of the local's suggested Brighton instead. A lazy beach town was definitely a welcome change after 3 days at the office. A couple of trains later we got to the town and walked over to the beach. The huge observation tower on the beach is easily visible to guide anyone to the seashore and the view from the Palace Pier is refreshing. To get to the edge of the pier we needed to go through the arcade. While places were still opening as it was early in the day, we were good to just soak in the sun. When it was time for lunch we found a vegan pub called the "The World's End". Also known for its retro arcade, a number of plant based burgers had all the vegetarians in the group really happy. The evening was spent at the Royal Pavilion - a formal royal residence built with Mughal influenced architecture that has been converted into a palace museum and gardens. Watching the opulence of the previous royals with some history lessons was a nice way to wrap up the day as we then got back to London.
On the next day, the rest of the group had their flight in the evening so they went to Oxford street to wrap up some shopping, I took off to Oxford city in pursuit of more sights instead. The day was 2nd of July and interestingly it was Alice's day (the Lewis Carrol wonderland gal). As parades with balloons and costumed wonderland characters ran along the town, I tried to get my bearings on places to visit in the city. I took a guided walking tour around the city to learn about the architecture and see some Harry Potter shooting spots. I then made a quick trip to the natural history museum and finally wrapped up the day with a long walk within one of the colleges in the city. The grounds had deer and a the hostels had a pub, convincing me that if I ever continued my education, Oxford would definitely be one of my preferred choices.
The flight next day was surprisingly smooth. Heathrow had been facing the after effects of revenge travel so everyone who left earlier had faced crazy queues and massive delays but all I had to go through was a half an hour wait outside the lounge.
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