London, England - Cheese Bar & More - August 2024

The next morning, we rode the train from Bath to London. It was just a commuter train, much like the Gatwick Express. The train took us right to Paddington Station. Since my suitcase was starting to fall apart due to a beating it took from Edinburgh to Bristol, we took a cab from Paddington to our hotel near Westminster Abbey. Once we'd checked in our luggage, we hopped a subway over first to Camden to eat some magic (more on that below), then walked to Piccadilly Circus to get A's children's subway pass. Here are some photos from that first journey. Fair warning, I don't think I used my good camera at all this day, just phone.

A's inaugural tube ride, or really any subway of any sort. I have a ridiculous love of the Tube, I dragged her later in the trip to the London Transport Museum - but she looks about as excited here as most people would to ride the subway. All that being said - riding the Tube is far and away the most practical way to get around London. It takes minutes instead of hours, it costs a fraction, and it's pretty safe.

For lunch, we went to Camden Stables Market to visit The Cheese Bar. When researching fun and unique places to eat, I found this Insta-famous cheese conveyor belt restaurant. I am alllllll in on some cheese, and have always wanted to visit an automat, so this was pretty amazing.

Above is a short video of the cheese conveyor belt in motion. Different plates had different numbers on them, that coordinated with different items on the menus we kept at our table. Different colors indicated different price points. You just grabbed whatever you wanted to eat off of the conveyor belt, then your server counted the number of each type of plate. Easy peasy. (You could also order some baller-looking grilled cheese from the kitchen, but I was here for the conveyor belt.)

Each of the dishes was paired with either a method of delivery by which you got it in your mouth, or a little pairing. This prosciutto was paired with some cornichons and a few crackers. A and I shared this one, and it was quite good.

I think this was an English Stilton? I don't remember 100% for sure, but it was amazing. That's a little curd and graham cracker crumbs that were awesome on top of a little slice. You can also see our half-eaten meat over there on the right - I wasn't really there for meat, so I'd moved it onto A's plate.

This was the GOAT of the Cheese Bar - goat cheese and a jam squashed in a donut. I could have eaten four of these - this is the only food item A and I got one of for each of us, because this was too good not to eat the whole thing. Pairs nicely with a Diet Coke.

I would love to go back through Chinatown (located in Soho) sometime at night, I think it would be fascinating and picturesque. There were also a bunch of restaurants I wanted to try, but the timing didn't work out with getting back there.

We stopped for a bit in Piccadilly Circus to watch a street performer, stopped in a few shops, and got A's Tube pass.

Looking directly into the sun is a great look always in photos.

We rode A's first double-decker bus, as well! We're making this face because the super-cranky driver floored it while we were still on the stairs coming up to the second level, and both of us fell pretty hard. Grace runs in our family.

We sat right behind the stairs so we could run down them fast at the stop, so that we didn't get thrown down the aisle or something.