UK 2024: The London AirBnB

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The main living space. It wasn’t huge, but much bigger than a hotel room.

Story time! I promised a bit about our AirBnB…I had to wait to go into detail until we resolved an issue. It’s been resolved to our satisfaction, so here we go!

Our AirBnB was about 1000′ east of the iconic St. Paul’s Cathedral, near not one but THREE Underground stations that served 5 different routes! And so many bus options, too! The location was absolutely amazing.

The apartment itself was a perfect size, and was well-equipped with kitchenwares and linens.

The view out the windows was over a tiny alley that had two pubs facing each other. One of the pubs had closed down in 2020, but the other, Williamson’s, was still open and thriving. We were directly above the latter. There were people in the alley pretty late Friday night, but it was all quiet by about midnight. The pub was closed Saturday and Sunday, which surprised us, and gave us hope that we’d have more quiet our last two nights.

On Saturday night, starting at about 11pm, there was ton of racket, as some folks were moving business-type furniture into a space across the alley. It was so loud! And it went until 1am Sunday. Who moves furniture that late???

On Monday morning, we were awakened before 6am to the sound of kegs being rolled down the cobblestone alley and then hoisted up some steps into the pub immediately below us. That was about 30 minutes of loud, also.

But the kicker? THERE WAS NO HEAT! The weekend we visited was the coldest it had been so far this season (lows in the 40s, highs in the 50s, with rain), and we were needing the radiators. Perhaps it was the first time they needed to run since Spring. This issue didn’t make itself apparent until after the pub closed just after midnight the first night….when the pub was open, the heat rose up to our place and it felt fine. But then the pub was closed the rest of our time there.

The property management company was very responsive to help us troubleshoot and dispatch someone to check things out, but by the time we left, they hadn’t figured out what was wrong and we still had no radiator heat. We resorted to running the electric oven with the door open (only when we were awake and present) with a fan to blow the warm air from the kitchen into the main living area. We went back and forth on some compensation for the inconvenience and it was worked out today (we’re getting a partial refund).

#travelswithdaveandpatricia #london #airbnbexperience

This company, “Bob W.” (sign at the top), manages several AirBnBs around the world. It was in a courtyard that we thought would be quiet, but it was busier than we fine.
Once we popped out to Watling St. and looked west, we had this amazing view of St. Paul’s Cathedral — which some of you might know from the movie Mary Poppins, she sings a song called “Feed the Birds”, and there’s a sad scene of a woman feeding birds on the steps of St. Paul’s, singing “Feed the birds, tuppance a bag”. It bears a striking resemblance to the U.S. Capitol dome, doesn’t it? That’s because Dr. William Thornton based his 1790s U.S. Capitol dome design on Christopher Wren’s St. Paul’s Cathedral dome.
A small kitchen. That oven ended up being our heater.
This pub closed in early 2020 (before COVID). The iron gate there allegedly has some markings related to King William III and Queen Mary II visiting in the year 1600-something (The same William and Mary of “College of William and Mary” fame).
The 4 windows above this pub belonged to our apartment. This one, Williamson Tavern, was where Dave and I went for dinner right after we dropped off our luggage upstairs. Interesting how most of these pubs are owned by larger companies. This resulted in similar menus at pubs around the corner from each other.
Complimentary coffee and shortbread.
The thermostat didn’t budge from 19.0-19.5C (mid-60s F) the whole time. It wasn’t dangerously cold, but it was uncomfortably cold. We were chilled to the bone outside most of the time, and weren’t too thrilled with coming back to a cold apartment.