Travel On My Terms: London

I love London. Not sure why, it is not much different from visiting New York, but then I love to visit New York too.

I took a black cab from the airport to Castletown house in West Kensington. Cabbies are fighting back against Uber by developing their own app and by October 31 all cabs must accept credit cards. I noticed on anything I looked up on Google I got an Uber ad - Uber here for xx pounds and get there in x minutes - pretty ingenious. But I had my Oyster card so it was the Underground for me - so easy to get around.

Castletown house offers self catering apartments. It is rated 3-4 star. It is in an older house and the apartments show the wear, but it is very clean, the owner and staff are very nice and accommodating and the price is great. It is a block and a half from a Tesco Express (small grocery store), a Co-op and the West Kensington Underground station.

I was upgraded to a one bedroom apartment which was nice except that it was a third floor walk up. By the end of my stay I though I was doing quite well with the stairs - new back exercises and swimming have really paid off.

This is my apartment and bath. A bath tub! A rare occurrence and a nice treat.

I headed down to Vicotria Station to catch the Hop-on-Hop-off bus. It did not disappoint. They had live guides who were quite fun. I had seen most of major sights like the Tower of London and the Crown Jewels, but these buses take you through the neighborhoods where various famous people live/lived like Benedict Arnold, Paul McCarthy, Ringo Star, where the inquiry was held for the sinking of the Titanic.

This is the Gosvner neighborhood owned by the Grosvner family. These homes lease only and the low end starts at $28 million.

Green Park where a lot of people have lunch. They have lawn chairs you can rent for a pound during lunch - 7 pounds for the day.

This is Regent Street just a few blocks before Picadilly Circle and the theatre district. Apparently there is an NFL football game in London October 1st and there are banners all over advertising it.