London visit 2026
Text and photos by Erik Sturkell
From the 13th to the 16th of June 2026, I went to London for a combined study, tourism and a philatelist trip. As Gabrielle was bound for Copenhagen this weekend for social activities at her former supervisors from University of Copenhagen, I decided this was a good chance to spend some time in London. Early on Saturday morning I flew out from Copenhagen Airport and after a late departure and after a few circles over Heathrow I arrived. I went to the hotel at the Albert Embankment and checked in. From there, I walked along the south side of the Thems with a fantastic view of the parliament and Big Ben and took the tube from Waterloo passing Caring Cross ending at Kings Cross.
A nostalgia trip to Islington
On the way to Islington, I passed Kings Cross train station, famous from the Harry Potter books. They have made a tourist trap with the Platform 9¾. You can get a photograph pushing the trolley through the wall.
I took the Picadilly line to Arsenal and walked to deceased Susan Pitt’s house at Kelross road passing the old Highbury stadium. This was the route I took the first time I visited Susan back in 2000. Susan’s house “Minerva” seems to be empty and not well attended but free of ivy. On the way, I stopped at the Highbury Barn, a pub I used to visit when taking the tube from “Highbury & Islington” station.
Sunday
On Sunday I went on a tourist (some work) mission. At 10AM I arrived at the Natural History Museum and went straight to the mineral and gemstone exhibition. The first object in the exhibit was the “Ostro stone” (fig) which is a 9381 carat (almost 2 kg) topaz from Minas Gerals in Brazil. I continued through the mineral exhibit and reached the “vault” with gold and gemstones. On the display was gold both as crystals and intact and plentiful of gemstones and one replica. The latter of the Koh-i-Noor diamond. The real diamond came to England after a political agreement of the second Anglo – Sikh war. The large transparent gem did not appeal to the new owner. Prince Albert demanded it to be re-cut! The parts of Koh-i-Noor is now a part of the British crown jewels. The ownership is contested to this day.
I visited the dinosaurian section that is extremely popular especially among the young visitors. They had a moving T-rex figure and several dinosaurian fossils. All in all, a nice exhibit but crowded. The Natural History Museum is an impressive building erected 1860. It has an impressive Hintze Hall with a blue whale (25.2 m long) suspended in the air!
From the museum I passed by the South Kensington tube station and proceeded towards Harrods. On the way I passed by a very thin house on number 5 Thurloe Square. The underground rails are just in an open trench making a slice of the property, but they constructed a house anyway. The house is 1.8 m wide at the thinnest end. From here I proceeded to Harrods – this is a fancy department store. One of the most exciting parts is the central escalator shaft. It is decorated in ancient Egyptian style. They have used large slabs of Rapakivi Granite and for the roof, the zodiac in Egyptian style.
From Harrods at Knightsbridge, I took bus 74 to Marbel Arch and visited the site for executions (fig). At the Tyburn Tree, public executions were performed from 1177 to 1783. From this gruesome place I continued to the British Museum, which was crowded on a Sunday afternoon. I stayed only for a short time buying an Anubis magnet. After the crowded museum I set out for the pub “the Lamb” at Lamb’s Conduit St. (Bloomsbury), a place I had visited before. However, it was closed for renovation! So, I went to the next-door restaurant (Ciao Bella), which I had visited more than twenty years ago. I ate a carbonara that was very tasty. After the food and drinks I got back to the hotel just stopping shortly to continue to the nearby Imperial War Museum in Lambeth. This museum covers the two world wars and displayed it well. But I was an exhausted customer. One of the last items I looked at was a German eagle shot in the neck, an appropriate end of the day. After this I went to the pub “the Rose” near the hotel.
Monday 15th of June
This was the stamp day! I started to visit the auction firm SPINK to pick up some stamps I bought. The British Museum is just two blocks from SPINK, so I dashed to buy a figurine of Anubis (a very small one). I also took some time to visit the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon. I passed the Nereid monument (in room 17) the largest and finest of the Lycian tombs from Xanthos, south-west Turkey. From the museum I walked to the Strand to visit Stanley Gibbons stamp dealer. I meet the man who had sold me some stamps, so now I have a face. After this back to the hotel to unload todays catch at the hotel at the Albert Embankment. Next visit went to the Royal Philatelist Society London (RPSL) in the new building at number 15 Abchurch Ln. They have a good philatelist library that I arrived at 1:30PM and left at 3:45PM. During this time, I got an overview of the library and found some books with the information I was looking for. The library and the Librarians were very helpful, and I got a copy of some pages from the book “A History of the Ship Letters of the British Isles”. I left RPSL passed by the Monument tube station and proceeded to Westminster and passed by the parliament. Outside the parliament building is it a statue of king Richard the Lionheart in the middle of a parking lot – some disrespect perhaps.
Tuesday 16th of June
I returned to the library at RPSL and got 15 pages scanned of a book from 1930 describing all the stamps used in the Cape Colony. After the visit I passed by Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus, Regent Street and proceeded to Paddington. At Paddington I took Heathrow express and left England at 5PM.
