Four nights is not enough time in London, not if you’re just discovering the city for the first time, and not if you want to nostalgically revisit as much as possible. Still, we made the most of our time and got to see some new sides of the city.

We landed on Easter Sunday, took the Tube to our rental flat and headed out on foot to get out in the daylight, the best way to get on schedule. For our first day we walked up to Camden Town to see the market and the locks, and back through beautiful blooming Regents Park. We got an Easter meal to go at a ‘Box Park,’ like a food hall made of shipping containers. I present to you the Yorkshire Burrito, a flat Yorkshire pudding filled with lamb, potato and mint sauce! Dessert, of course, Cadbury eggs!

The next day we took a long loop around much of the main tourist track. Starting obscenely early in the morning, we walked through an empty Covent Gardens, had some really nice coffee and pasties, and discovered our own little (giant) egg hunt.

We walked as far east as St. Paul’s Cathedral, across the Millennium Bridge and a quick tour through the free Tate Modern museum. We continued along the Thames past the London Eye and back through Trafalgar Square. Our last visit was in April of 2009 with Nathan’s parents, and we happened to hit a celebration for England’s patron saint, St. George. Imagine our surprise when the square was again done up in red and white with dragon puppets and live music for St. George’s Day!

We stayed right next to the British Museum, so when we got a rainy day, we spent a few hours just barely scratching the surface of that enormous collection of artifacts relieved from the colonies, including the Rosetta Stone, Athens’ Parthenon, Egyptian tombs, Assyrian colossus, Roman statuary, Chinese ceramics, Mayan lintels, preserved Maori tattooed heads, an Easter Island statue and so much more. Worth the price of free admission!

The Tate Modern is also among London’s roster of impressive free museums. We didn’t get as much time there, but saw a little sampling, including a sister to the spider who stands outside the Guggenheim in Bilbao. 

The art in the museums is one thing, but the murals on the streets were even more fun. Not far from the Tate, this Graffiti Tunnel hosted a Banksy (behind plexiglass) and plenty of new works in progress. Ever-evolving, always in progress, just like the city itself. 

For even more street art, we headed out to the Shoreditch neighborhood - once rough-and-tumble, then up-and-coming and now already-here-and-hip. It was absolutely covered with paint in every style and skill level, on almost every surface. 

The end goal of this route was lunch at a famous chef’s restaurant. I don’t normally seek these kinds of things out, but I have been cooking from and inspired by Ottolenghi’s cookbooks long enough that I had to try the real deal. We hit one of his casual delis in Shoreditch as well asa sit-down restaurant in SoHo. Small, sharable, veggie forward plates, exactly my kind of meal! 

Before I knew it it was off to pick up a rental car and drive to something completely different. Here’s a sneak peek from the plane of the Lakes District, where we will spend the next segment of our trip.