United Kingdom

London, friends and the road north

Our United Kingdom trip in June 2017 was different from many of our earlier journeys. Pragati and I were travelling together, but this time the trip was also about spending time with close friends. Pradeep had recently moved into his home in Ilford and insisted that we stay with him and Kalaivalli for the entire trip rather than book a hotel.

That decision shaped the trip more than we probably realised at the time. We weren’t simply arriving in London, checking into a hotel and following an itinerary. We were arriving at a friend’s home, being picked up from the airport, sharing meals and then heading out each day to discover the city. Later, when Pradeep and Kalaivalli joined us for the Scotland tour, the trip became a proper group journey.

Arriving in London

We flew from Dubai to London Heathrow on Emirates flight EK003 on 1 June 2017. Pradeep came to pick us up at the airport, and from Heathrow we made our way towards Ilford using London’s rail network.

For someone visiting London for the first time, the scale of the transport system is one of the things that immediately makes an impression. The Underground is not simply a way of getting from one tourist attraction to another; it is part of how London functions. During this trip, it became our default way of moving around the city, making it possible to cover very different parts of London without having to think too much about road traffic or parking.

Our first stop was Westfield Stratford City, the huge shopping and entertainment complex in Stratford. It was an easy way to begin the trip without trying to pack a major sightseeing programme into the first few hours after arriving.

The following day, 2 June, we went to Greenwich Park. Greenwich is much more than just another London park. It is closely associated with Britain’s maritime history and with the Royal Observatory, whose location is tied to the Prime Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time. The area brings together the park, the observatory, historic buildings and views across London, making it one of those places where geography and history are both part of the experience.

For us, though, the more immediate memory was simply being there with Pradeep and beginning to settle into the rhythm of London.

From London to Scotland

On the morning of 3 June, the character of the trip changed completely.

We left London for a four-day Historic Scotland tour organised by Star Tours. Pradeep and Kalaivalli joined us, turning what had started as a trip for two into a group road journey.

There is something different about seeing a country from a road rather than moving between airports and city centres. As we travelled north, London gradually gave way to a very different landscape. The road itself became part of the experience, with the changing scenery providing a continuous introduction to Scotland before we even reached the cities.

We reached Glasgow by evening and stayed at Jurys Inn Glasgow as part of the tour. Glasgow is Scotland’s largest city and has a long industrial and maritime history, but our visit was relatively brief. We saw Glasgow Cathedral and George Square before continuing with the tour.

Glasgow Cathedral was particularly interesting in the context of the city. It is one of Scotland’s great medieval buildings and one of the few medieval churches on the Scottish mainland to survive the Reformation largely intact. George Square, by contrast, represents a much more civic face of Glasgow, surrounded by public buildings and monuments to figures from Scottish and British history.

The road journey between places was just as memorable as the stops themselves. Scotland has a way of making the landscape feel larger than the map suggests, and travelling through the countryside gave the trip a sense of scale that a city visit alone could never provide.

Edinburgh and the Highlands

The tour also took us to Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital and one of the country’s most recognisable historic cities. Edinburgh has a particularly distinctive character because of the contrast between its medieval Old Town and the planned Georgian New Town. The Royal Mile runs through the historic Old Town, connecting Edinburgh Castle with the Palace of Holyroodhouse and passing through one of the most historically significant parts of the city.

Our visit was part of a larger road tour, so Edinburgh was one chapter in a much broader Scottish journey rather than a standalone city break. That made the experience different from the way we explored London. We were constantly moving, seeing a little more of Scotland with every leg of the journey.

One of the stops that stayed with me was Loch Tulla. A place like this makes it easy to understand why travelling through Scotland by road can be as rewarding as reaching any particular destination. Loch Tulla sits within the dramatic Highland landscape, with open water, mountains and broad stretches of countryside creating the kind of scenery that feels very different from the urban environment we had left behind in London.

We also visited Glengoyne Distillery. Glengoyne is a Highland single-malt whisky distillery just outside Glasgow, known for its deliberately slow distillation process. For us, it was another interesting contrast within the journey: after cities, roads and Highland scenery, we were seeing a part of Scotland’s whisky-making tradition at its source.

The four-day tour gave us a taste of Scotland rather than an exhaustive exploration of it, but that was part of its appeal. We were not trying to master the country in four days. We were simply moving through it, stopping at places that gave us a sense of its history, landscape and character.

Back to London

The Scotland tour brought us back to London on 7 June. Returning to the city after several days on the road felt like changing gears again.

We still had time before our flight home, so we continued exploring London. This time the list included some of the city’s most recognisable landmarks: the London Eye, Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, St Paul’s Cathedral and Madame Tussauds.

The London Eye offered the familiar modern view of the city from above, while Trafalgar Square and the area around Big Ben placed us among some of the symbols most strongly associated with Britain’s capital. St Paul’s Cathedral added a very different kind of landmark — a major piece of London’s architectural and religious history whose dome has been part of the city’s skyline for centuries.

Madame Tussauds was a completely different experience again. The London attraction has a history stretching back to the nineteenth century, when Marie Tussaud established a permanent base in London, and the present Marylebone Road site dates from 1884. What began as a travelling exhibition of wax figures eventually became one of London’s best-known attractions. By the time we visited, it was the familiar combination of celebrity figures, historical personalities and theatrical displays that visitors associate with the name.

Moving between these places was remarkably straightforward because we mostly relied on the Underground. That became one of the practical pleasures of the trip. London can appear intimidating on a map, but once you understand the Tube, the city becomes surprisingly accessible.

Food was another thing we never had to worry much about. Indian restaurants were easy to find, which made travelling with familiar food preferences particularly comfortable. It may sound like a small detail, but when you are travelling for several days, knowing that you can find food you are comfortable with takes away one more thing to think about.

More than a sightseeing trip

Looking back, I don’t remember this trip primarily as a collection of landmarks.

I remember Pradeep picking us up from Heathrow. I remember staying in his home in Ilford rather than a hotel. I remember the change from exploring London with a friend to setting off on a road tour through Scotland with a larger group. I remember the Scottish countryside between the stops, the cities we passed through, Loch Tulla, and the experience of seeing a distillery in its own surroundings.

That is probably what made this journey different from many others. Travel is often described through destinations, but sometimes the people you travel with become the real destination of the memory.

It was also one of the relatively rare occasions when we travelled as a larger group rather than just Pragati and me. Pradeep and Kalaivalli were wonderful hosts, and their insistence that we stay with them made the London part of the journey feel less like a conventional holiday and more like visiting friends while discovering another country.

The Scotland road trip added another dimension. For four days we were not simply tourists based in one city; we were moving together through a landscape that was completely different from London, sharing the long stretches of road and the stops along the way.

We finally flew back from London Heathrow to Dubai on Emirates flight EK032 on 10 June 2017.

The United Kingdom trip therefore stayed with me not because of one spectacular moment, but because of the combination of friendship, hospitality, cities and a road journey through Scotland. It was one of those trips where the itinerary is easy to remember, but the people are what make the itinerary worth remembering.