Travelogue: London July 2023

Welcome to my first travelogue! There will be more travelogues like this to come for various places all over the world!

I took a short trip to London in July 2023 so I could visit various London attractions in summer when the weather is much nicer. There are so many things to do in London which makes it my favourite UK city.

I have a disabled persons railcard which I used to purchase my train tickets down to London.
The railcard gives me a 1/3 off all train travel which is great as train prices can be expensive depending where you live and are going to. As I live in Northern England, it is quite a journey so the railcard really helps save money!
The great thing about a railcard is that you also get some other benefits too such as discounts on TFL London travel too! This means that it is perfect to take to London to save even more money!
I made a post specifically about the disabled persons railcard which you can find here. This has detailed information about the railcard.

Whilst in London, I followed part of the Morph’s Epic Art Adventure Art Trail, which has various sculptures of Morph all over various parts of London. They are all designed by various artists and each Morph sculpture tells you a little about it on the sculpture, or you can see the sculptures on their website. This also tells you about each artist with detailed information.

The art walk is also step free so you can do this if you are in a wheelchair too! Accessible which is really great and very much welcome. As someone disabled this really appealed to me and I made sure to visit lots of the sculptures.

The art walk started on June 19th and ends on August 20th 2023, so you have plenty of time to visit the sculptures still and I highly recommended you do. I did it alone and it was fun, so don’t feel you have to be a child to do it, this is for everyone!
Great fun for adults and especially fun for kids as you can hunt the Morph sculptures all over various parts of London. I recommend the app, especially if you have kids.

Here are some photos of the various Morphs in London:

The Kings Guard “On Guard” sculpture is sponsored by National Rail. They also kindly collaborated with me for this blog post.
Their sculpture is inside Hays Galleria which is right next to London Bridge and the river front. Lovely place to grab a snack before taking a stroll along the river.

You can download a map of the art trail on their website. This way you have a copy in your pocket at all times.
You can also download an app for iOS and Android, which is brilliant for visiting multiple sculptures like I did! The app also lets you tick off the ones you found, so it makes it like a game which can be lots of fun for families with children. You even gather little rewards for ticking off sculptures too.
If you have children or you want to make sure you don’t miss many sculptures, I highly recommend the app.

I enjoyed taking a slow walk around the sculptures and I also got on the bus to travel between areas for where I couldn’t walk due to disability.

As I walked around the Morph sculptures near London Bridge as there are quite a lot in that area, I passed through Hays Galleria where you can find the National Rail Morph sculpture, as well as some little shops and beautiful scenery.
Such a brilliant place to take a walk along the river and stop for a drink or snack and I did just that! I stopped for a drink and a sit down before heading along the river to find more morph sculptures.

It was right next to the bus station which was very handy for my next journey across London. I found it a great place to start the art trail, but you can start where ever you choose. I picked here to start because of the amount of sculptures in the area, plus the bus station right next door which was very handy.
If you are doing this step free, please note that there are steps in the bus station.

After I finished Morph sculpture hunting, I headed towards some other London attractions such as Big Ben which looked very pretty now all the scaffolding has been removed which was up while there were renovating it. Big Ben looks stunning now and the gold colours were shining in the sun.

Afterwards I hopped on the underground using my Oyster card with the disabled persons railcard discount added and headed towards St James Park.
I grabbed a iced drink at a local coffee shop and a sandwich at a popular sandwich chain, before I headed into St James’s Park itself, which is one of my favourite parks in London. Whilst there I took a little break to rest, and I laid down on the grass in the gorgeous sun.
Lots of others had the same idea and it was busy, but nice to have a little lay down from my very busy day. I love doing this and it is such a great park for it. If you are wanting a bigger park, head to Hyde Park.

Whilst there, I couldn’t help but see the amazing Duke Of York Monument. Such amazing architecture!

On the evening, my last stop was to see a play called “Witness For The Prosecution” at the London County Hall which is an Agatha Christie play. This was very different as it was a play set in an old courtroom rather than a regular theatre!
The building that was County Hall is now used for the theatre as well as various food and drink places as it is a large old building.
The play was really good and I enjoyed it, although as this is an old county hall, the architecture is for a court, not a theatre, so there was a huge marble post in my view which blocked most of the play which was a huge shame. Good play still! I would recommend getting seats near the front in the stalls if you want to see this play.
I did hear some kids asking their parents multiple times throughout the play if they could leave, so if you are thinking of taking your children, you might want to make sure they will enjoy it.

I managed to get all this done in one day and I tell you it was a very busy day! I crossed across London multiple times and it was definitely exhausting, but totally worth it! Can’t wait to go back!

On my journey home, I got the train home using my disabled persons railcard again for another 1/3 off travel. Was a quieter train back which was nice so I could relax on the way home. Looking forward to going back to London next time!

I will be taking another trip in August when I head over to California, USA! I will be there a whole month so there will be lots covered in the travelogues.

Disclaimer: I collaborated with Rail Delivery Group but all opinions are my own and I was asked to give my honest opinions. I was not paid or asked to say anything specific and all opinions are my own.