The London Diaries: Day 2

Buckingham Palace

A few weeks ago I went to London for a few days with my husband and when I got back, I decided to share my journey with all my lovely readers through a series of blog posts. Today's post revolves around what we did on our second day in the big city and although it was a little bit more chilled than the first day, we had an exceptional time.

Being typical tourists, our first visit of the day was to see if the Queen was at home and visit Buckingham Palace. It was frosty outside and despite attracting almost 500,000 visitors per year, the crowds were much smaller than usual. The palace looked beautiful as always with the guards pacing up and down the drive way and the golden gates shimmering in the dimmed light. James and I managed to take a few photographs and quickly retreated to the nearest cafe to warm up, it was worth bracing the cold in the end though.

M&M World Bus

Our next stop of the day was to Leicester Square where we had lunch at TGI Fridays, did a spot of shopping and finally saw my favourite musical of all - Phantom of the Opera. On our way to lunch we stopped off at the world renowned M&M World store and I couldn't believe my eyes - so many M&Ms in one place and so much M&M merchandise to get your hands on. I've grown up snacking on M&Ms as they are my Dad's favourite, it was great to explore the store. I also managed to get a sneaky photo on the M&M World bus shown above.

Christmas tree at Hotel Russell

After seeing the spectacular that is Phantom of the Opera, the husband and I headed back to the hotel to get ready for our second show of the evening. This time it was a Burlesque show at one of London's highly rated Burlesque bars Proud Cabaret.

Proud Cabaret City

Proud Cabaret is a burlesque club that is modelled on a 1920s speakeasy bars and according to the website 'offers high end dining and entertainment experience of unrivalled prestige'. If you're looking for a night that screams Great Gatsby and you're not intimidated by beautiful women stripping down to their pasties, this bar is for you. When I told my husband that I wanted to take him to Proud Cabaret he was a little anxious about my feelings, but when he rang up to book our places the women over the phone laughed and stated: "A lot of the time the women enjoy this more than the men." James and I had an amazing evening full of cabaret singing, beautiful model-esque women and of course plenty of fizz and food.  If I'm to be completely honest, I wasn't overly impressed with the food on the evening, but everything else made the evening worthwhile. It was one of the most fun and exciting nights James and I had experienced in a long time and we will probably be back sooner than we think.

Have you visited any of these places in London?