WE MET up with Rob and Carol our first afternoon, in the lobby of our hotel. Our plan for the afternoon was to hit a couple of the local pubs in Paddington, and then have dinner somewhere. Earlier in the day, I had taken my first real walk down some of the side streets. In 2021, I only had one morning on my own, as we had a very full itinerary. I only walked up the main drag (Praed Street) a ways, and then discovered a nice, quiet little nook off the street (which I later learned was the Paddington Basin). On our first night in, we asked the concierge at the hotel for where we could find a pub to get some dinner. He really wasn't very helpful. He basically said there wasn't anything nearby and suggested a Mexican restaurant over behind the Paddington Station. We like Mexican food. But we were exhausted, and it was late, and we really didn't want to venture that far in the dark, on our first day in London. We ended up eating in a pub that was right in the station (which the concierge didn't even mention). We have liked the Paddington Hilton for the most part, but the concierge really wasn't very good that year. The guy behind that desk this year in 2025 was outstanding.
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| The Victoria Pub - Paddington - London, England Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved |
IT TURNS out that there are lots of pubs nearby. Some of them serve food. Some don't. Walking southeast from Praed Street, on either of the streets that flank the Hilton (Easbourne Terrace and London Street) just 3 blocks takes you to the very traditional and nice Victoria Pub, right on the edge of the high-end Hyde Park Gardens. It is at quiet intersection of residential streets and there is a bench right across from it that became my "office" on a couple mornings for a cigar and coffee. We started on Spring Street, just one street to the south of Sussex, at a cool little local brew pub called The Bear, where we sampled a couple of their micro-brews. From the Bear, we started looking for another pub on London Street: Dickens Tavern (we somehow passed it by, but ended up there for a very uninspiring dinner later in the week). Instead, we walked on down to the Victoria, where we sat outside and had a couple nice cocktails. Afterward, we walked back up Spring Street, where there are several streetside restaurants (wonder where they were in 2021 - I suppose it is possible that they were all closed up due to the pandemic). We found them a nice place to sit and "people watch," and did so on a couple occasions.
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| I find McDonalds all over the world - Paddington McDonalds Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved |
SINCE OUR stay in 2021, a very nice, modern restaurant had opened up right on the corner near our hotel: Vapiano Paddington. We decided to give them a try our first night. An Italian restaurant, they featured a very cool, electronic ordering system (becoming more and more common in cities around the world). The food was really very good. Fresh. And service was also fast. An added plus: it was two doors down from their hotel and 1/2 block from ours.
WE MET again mid-morning the next day, with a plan to go down to the City of London and walk around. We had no specific itinerary, except to go to the Borough Market, a large, indoor-outdoor market with some really great artisan foods (cheeses, breads, wine, produce, nuts and candies, etc.). That gave me some time to follow my routine of getting out with my camera, grabbing some coffee, and walking around the area. I concentrated on the area south of the Paddington Station, where we had walked the night before. I wanted to explore the Hyde Park area. It is primarily residential, and I didn't really find anything too exciting, photographically, though I did make a few images. I did discover a little park (there are tons of them in London) in an area called Sussex Gardens, with a rather unique statue setup of Paddington Bear, and some cinematographic bears photographing him. Cute.
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| One of numerous Paddington Bear statues found in London and particularly in and around Paddington - The namesake of Paddington The Bear Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved |
AT ONE point earlier I had mentioned to Rob that there were two things I wanted to try while in London this trip: a Scotch Egg and Pork Pie. Todd and I had some conversation during our planning stages and I assumed we would order them at one of our meals. To my surprise (and later delight), at some point just as we left the Market, Rob walked up and handed me a bag. In it was a large scotch egg and pork pie! I wasn't really sure what to do with them, as we were staying in the hotel and would probably be eating dinner out each night. That "problem" solved itself later in the week. Rob and Carol headed home on Thursday afternoon, and Todd and Heather would not arrive until Friday morning. We didn't have plans for dinner that night and were - frankly - exhausted. My friend behind the concierge desk took care of us, heated the scotch egg and porkpie, and delivered them to our room (when I had gotten back to the hotel on this particular evening I had asked the concierge if they could refrigerate the egg and pie for me. I would figure out what to do with it later).
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| Borough Market - London, England Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved |
FOR THIS day, we found a nice restaurant for lunch right on the Thames (one that I had walked by a few times during our 2021 visit and smelled wonderful steak cooking smells): The Old Thameside Inn. Interestingly, it turns out that all these old and famous pubs and taverns in London are now owned by one or two large corporate outfits (we would again see this trend on our "pub crawl" later in the week). Two corporate owners that we seemed to encounter a few times in pubs were Nicholsons Pubs, and Greene King. The Old Thameside is a Nicholson's establishment. It was good, traditional pub food, and staying true to that theme, I had the fish and chips. And thoroughly enjoyed them. We found the Nicholsons establishments to be pretty uniformly good. The Green King establishments were yet another story.
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| The Old Thameside Inn - Fish and Chips Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved |
AFTER THE nice lunch, we walked along the river for a bit and eventually over the (pedestrian only) Millenium Bridge to the St. Paul's Cathedral area. We had a nice surprise when we learned that we actually knew of "a place" that our friends did not - and had never been to. In 2021, we had done a walking tour of that area and our guide had taken us to a top-floor bar and restaurant that had a splendid view of St. Paul's dome - and the City of London. Best yet, there was an elevator up! On our tour, we just went up to look and make a couple pictures. This time, we were ready to partake in some cocktails, along with the look. As we got up to the top, as we remembered, it is indeed quite a view. But to my disappointment, the view is now "lessened" by large, 5 or 6 foot plexiglass panels, to keep viewers back from the roof's edge. For their own safety. It seems that since 2021 there have been a couple jumpers. It's the world we live in today. I wrote (ranted?) about this not long ago in Making The World a Safer Place.
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| St. Paul's Cathedral - London, England Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved |
THAT EVENING we located the Dickens Pub near our hotels and went in to see if we could get a burger. The front end was quaint and might have been a fun spot to have "a pint" as they say in London. The area where they served food was another story. it was back through and resembled more than anything I can think to describe: a pool hall (replete with a table). It was getting late and we were hungry, so we sat. Like many of the London pubs, ordering was done through and app. Easy enough. But that's where it fell apart. After our order was in and a wait, the waitress came back to inform us that 2 of the 4 of us had ordered entree's that they had run out of. We had to re-order. The food was - at best description - mediocre, to perhaps just not very good. Maybe a one-off, but this, we learned, was a Greene King establishment. Beer and spirits are what they are. But food is something that you can do really well. Or not so much. We were in a couple other Greene King pubs during the week. But never to have food.
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| Dickens Tavern - Paddington - London, England Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved |
THE FOLLOWING day, Rob and Carol had made us reservations at the Natural History Museum (free admission, but reservations highly recommended). We agreed to meet mid-morning for our 11:00 reservations. Rob and I had discussed him joining me for my morning photo-walk, and I was interested in finding a morning location called Blackwalls Basin. He knew where it was and how to get there, so we met first thing that morning and jumped on the Tube, to head for Canary Wharf; London's new-ish and up and coming commercial financial district, to find the basin. With Rob's able guidance, find it we did. Look for an upcoming separate post on that morning's adventure soon.
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| London Museum of Natural History Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved |
BACK IN Paddington, we met up with the ladies, and headed over to the Natural History Museum. For me, perhaps the most impressive part was the building. It is rather massive, and architecturally magnificent. We spent a few hours there, and then headed back to Paddington. That night, we had reservations at a well-regarded, nice restaurant near our hotels: Smith's Tavern. Our feet and legs were complaining, so we took the tube back to Paddington and sat at one of the streetside restaurants for a bit. Getting to Smith's would prove a challenge, but one that was well worth it. The food and atmosphere was excellent and I would readily recommend it to anyone staying in or near the Paddington area. There is another whole dimension of Paddington that we weren't aware of, on the backside of Paddington Station, along the Grand Union Canal. I will go into more detail when I blog about my morning walks later in the week. For now, this area is where the Smith's Tavern is.
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| Paddington Commercial/Business District (Smith's Tavern to the right) - London, England Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved |
PADDINGTON IS built around a major train station, and our hotel is built right on top of it. Below, there are two levels. The first (which is also street level) is the train station, with some nice little shops and the escalator to the Hilton at one end. One level down is the Tube. What we didn't know was that you could access the other side of the station from there (though it stands to reason and we probably should have known). I discovered it while doing some exploring the next morning. Part of the issue was that there was major construction going on, making it confusing. That second evening, we set out to walk to the northeast of the station only to find it barricaded. We didn't realize that all we had to do was walk down some stairs to the tunnel between ends of the station. Instead, we walked all the way around the front of the station, to the back and up a steady grade to get to the other side. Once there, we had to cross a major street and then go back down stairs to get to our destination. On my "wander" the next morning, I discovered that we had more than doubled our necessary walk, and included an uphill grade and stairway down that the tunnel right near our hotel exit completely eliminated. 😏 That information stood us in good stead later that week.
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| One of the numerous Pubs I found while walking around Paddington in the mornings Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved |
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| Harrods - London, England Copyright Andy Richards 2025 - All Rights Reserved |
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