It’s really good to be in London again! The journey here went surprisingly smooth. Since my tickets are SAS plus, paid for with bonus points, I had access to fast track. No queueing at all.
When I arrived at the airport in Oslo, and had checked in, I headed to the lounge. I had plenty of time before my flight to Copenhagen, so I enjoyed some refrehments.
The reason I flew via Copenhagen, rather than getting a direct fliggt, was that I got my flights on sale. SAS had a bonus point sale, and I was a tad bit late to the ball, so it was either flying via Copenhagen or getting up ungodly early. The choise was easy.
Arriving in Copenhagen I started hunting for food. I wanted a warm meal. I ended up buying wokked tofu and vegetables with rice, which was supposed to have ginger. I with it had more ginger and less salt, but all in all ot was a totally OK meal.
In Copenhagen I had to go through passport control, and was surprised there was no queue at all. Since I expected it to take a long time, I ended up having plenty of time before my next flight. Fortunately we got to board early, and soon enough I was on my way.
Boarder control at Heathrow was busy, but that’s normal. I think it took maybe 30 minutes before I was out and able to pick up my bag.
Having picked up my bag, I headed to the underground station. I was happy to see my Oystercard was still working, and still containing money. I topped it up, though, just in case, and headed to King’s Cross where my hotel is.
I checked into to hotel, and had the choice of having a room in the ground floor or fourth floor. I definitively prefer it to be higher up, so fourth it was. The room was quite nice, and it didn’t take long before I was under the duvet sleeping.
The vegan scene in London has pretty much exploded. Even a few years back it was pretty good, but I know it has gotten even better. The last few times I’ve been to London, I’ve visited several places I’ve loved, but I know some of them are now sadly gone. That being said, I’m looking forward to check out some new places I haven’t tried before!
One of the places I want to try out is Copperhouse Chocolate, a 100% vegan chocolate café and artisan hot-chocolatier. They’re not open every day, so I will have to aim for a visit either Wednesday or Thursday, as I’m going home on Friday (as mentioned in my previous blog post).
A place that I’ve heard a lot about, but for some unknown reason never tried out, is Temple of Seitan. It was a big deal when they opened up their first shop back in 2015, and today they have a few branches in London. The food is mostly fast food/junk food, but that’s OK with me. It’s still on my list of places to eat, as long as I’m in the mood for that sort of food.
It’s no secret I love tofu and noodles. One place that has those exact things on the menu is Vegan Fusion, a predominantly Asian fusion vegan restaurant. I haven’t been able to find a webpage for them, which really is a pity, but they’re address is 71 Chapel Market.
Something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time, is to have afternoon tea in London. The Savoy has a long tradition of serving afternoon tea, and they’re now offering vegan afternoon tea, and I hope I’ll be able to book a table for afternoon tea there one day, but you’ll have to book well in advance. There were no openings when I’m in London, so I simply had to look for somewhere else. After some searching the Internet, I finally ended up booking a table at Dukes, which has a vegan afternoon tea menu. The afternoon tea is served in the Drawing Room at Dukes hotel, which is only a short walk from Waterstones Piccadilly, one of my favourite bookshops.
I’m sure I’ll not have any problems finding vegan food in London, there are plenty of places I’d love to go back to.
London has had a very special place in my heart ever since I first visited in 1988. It was the summer before I turned 14, and I remember how magical it felt like visiting. Since then I have been there so many times I lost count years ago. Actually, I used to visit several times every year.
Due to the time we’ve been through, I haven’t been there since 2019. I was supposed to go in May 2020, but we all know the world shut down shortly before that, and needless to say, the trip got cancelled.
I’m thrilled to know that I now have booked a trip, and am finally going to visit my beloved London again! I’m arriving fairly late on 11 April, and am leaving again on 15 April. That means four nights! It will be my first trip outside of Norway since my partner and I visited family in Ireland for Christmas in 2019.
I am super excited! Now I just need to make plans for things I want to do and places I want to eat at!
Have you ever been to London? Do you have any favourite things there?
The first week of October 2021, I spent a week at Jønnhalt Gjesteseter in the Venabygd mountains in Gudbrandsdalen (English: Gudbrand Valley). For a whole week I attended a yoga retreat, and spent my time doing yoga, reading, and going for lovely walks.
We had planned on going to Ireland for the summer of 2020, but due to the situation, we decided to go to Bergen instead. As we were not comfortable flying, we decided to take the train both ways.
The train journey between Oslo and Bergen might very well be one of the most beautiful train journeys in the world, and I highly recommend giving it a go if you ever get the chance!
The piece of music used in this video is «Flowing», composed and played by Øystein Holmen, who’s a friend of mine. Read more about the story behind the song in the blogpost «The greatest gift».
I visited Ålesund, a town and municipality in Møre og Romsdal county at the west coast of Norway, in April. The reason for my visit was work related, so I didn’t have much time to look around, unfortunately. However, I did find it to be a beautiful city, and I wanted to share some photos i took while I was there.
I hope to visit again in a not too distant future!
After having some busy weeks (months, actually) behind me, I decided I wanted to treat myself to a spa day. After searching around on Google, I came across a site, where I could buy different experiences online called TrueStory. They offer many different things, but I went for the wellness option, and picked Spa day at The Thief, as it seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. The package included a 50 minutes classical massage, entrance to the spa, fruits and tea, and a lunch at The Thief Foodbar. My reason for picking the spa at The Thief was both that it’s supposed to be good, as well as the fact it’s very easy for me to get there from where I live.
Buying the experiense went fine, and I got an e-mail with confirmation, codes and instructions. I’m not a person who likes to phone people, so I e-mailed The Thief, and told which day I wished for and referred to the information I had gotten from TrueStory. Fortunately, they e-mailed me back shortly after, and the day was booked. I made sure to tell them I was vegan, and had a couple of allergies. I had looked at their menu, and didn’t find anything vegan. From experience, many restaurants are willing to make something vegan for you, if you ask on beforehand.
When I found out that the spa, which is actually located in another building behind the hotel, opens fairly early on Sundays, I decided to head there early in the morning. This, I found out, was a great decision. I had my appointment for the classical massage at 10, and had over an hour to enjoy the spa. And the best thing was: I had it all to myself!
At arrival, I was handed a bathrobe and a big, fluffy towel. I went down to change into my swimsuit, and when I got back upstairs for the spa, the receptionist had made ready some tea and a fruit platter for me. That was very nice!
The spa was slightly smaller than I expected. I don’t know why I had expected it to be larger, but for some reason I had. However, it had what a spa needs. A steam bath, a Finnish sauna, a swimming pool, and tropical showers. It was very relaxing, and I got tea, coffee, and fruits. Water was aviable from a tap.
Unfortunately, but understandable, no cameras were allowed into the spa, so I have no photos from inside the spa itself. There was an area right outside the wardrobes, though, where they do misc. treatsments, like manicures and facials. It looked very nice and fresh to me, even though I wasn’t having any such appointment.
The classical massage was really nice, and just what my aching body needed! Getting there, I was handed one of this “neat” single use knickers to use. I can’t say I thought they were neither nice looking nor comfortable to wear, but they did their job. The massage therapist really knew what they were doing. I was asked how I preffered my massage, and the preassure was really perfect. The 50 minutes just flew by.
I was given a new robe and towel after the massage, as wel as a scrub to be used in the steam bath. The spa still wasn’t too crowded, and I relaxed with a cup of coffee and the free to borrow newspaper, as well as enjoying the spa facilities, before heading to the hotel for my included lunch.
The restaurant was situated on the roof on floor 9, and had a really nice view over the fjord. It looked nice too, and the staff friendly. I had to repeat that I was a vegan, and I was, needless to say, excited to see what the chef would come up with. The Thief restaurant is said to be a good high end restaurant, but unfortunately, for me it just didn’t deliver.
Being served a salad at lunch I find a but boring and uninventive, to be honest. In addition, it was mainly beets. People who know me well enough, know that I really dislike beets (they taste of dirt to me). In adition, it was not vegan when it was served. The cheese itself was a visible and given non-vegan item. I sent it back, but I think they just picked it out and gave me the same plate. This is not something I expect from a high end restaurant. I also suspect some othe other stuff on the plate was non-vegan, and though I tried to avoid the more creamy things, it wasn’t easy. I normally don’t mention my “other” food intolerances/allergies when I ask for vegan food, as they’re non-vegan foods (like cow’s milk). I actually ended up getting ill shortly after leaving the restaurant. I skipped dessert, to be honest, I don’t think they would have anything I could eat, and I was staring to feel unwell.
Would I recommend people to use TrueStory? I would. You can get good deals by using their package solution. They have a ølot more to offer than their “Wellness” category. If I had a wish, it would be that I could have a spa package where there was no meal included.
Would I reccomend people to visit The Thief? The spa, and absolute yes for from me. It was such a nice and relaxing day I had there. As for the restaurant, I would say no. I wasn’t pleased at all by how they treated a vegan guest, and I’m not likely to visit ever again.
This is in no way a sponsored entry, I payed for everything and did all research etc. myself.
It has been a while since i went to Milan: I visited the famous city in November last year. I went there for a long week end on my own, and even though I didn’t like it by far as much as Rome, I still enjoyed my stay there. I think that if I had been more into fashion, it would have been a more interesting stay, but fashion really isn’t my thing…
Travelling as a vegan is always interesting, as it’s hard to know whether you’re able to get nice, vegan food or not. However, Milan wasn’t a problem at all, as there were several vegan places to eat, and some of the Italian dishes are vegan by default. Here are my favourite places to eat out in Milan:
Mantra Raw Vegan Address: Via Panfilo Castaldi 21
I found the restaurant Mantra Raw Vegan pretty much by coincidence. I had planned to go back to the hotel, and wanted to look up the quickest way to get there on Google maps. The restaurant’s name popped up, and I decided it was a place i would love to try.
The Italians tend to eat dinner by far earlier than us Norwegians, so when I got there, there was no dinner service until 19. I didn’t feel too bad, though, as I had had a big lunch. I went for a matcha latte made with almond milk, and a so called “nice cream” they had named Ciot Cream. I went for the chocolate one, and it was super yummy. The matcha latte was very nice too.
Though the restaurant is fairly expensive, even for a Norwegain, it really is very good, so definitively worth a visit!
My very first meeting with Universo Vegano, was when i visited Rome in August 2016. This is an Italian chain of vegan restaurants, and I have never been disappointed by their food. This time around, I had a mushroom lasagna, and i’m not lying when I say that it’s probably the best lasagna I’ve ever had! It was very good! I also had a cake for dessert, but this time around, the lasagna was the true star.
Though I visited other places for food that were good, like Flower Burger (where i had a chickpea burger with vegan cheese called Cheesy Cecio), these two were my absolute favourites. I think i would have liked Flower Burger more if it had decent seating, though it’s more of a take away place than anything else. The burgers are good, though.
Have you ever been to Milan? Do you have any favourite places to eat out?
The first weekend of February we went to London to visit the exhibition Harry Potter: A History of Magic at the British Library. The decition of going was made in January, and we booked the trip before checking if there were aviable tickets. When checking the website it turned out it was all sold out. Needless to say, we were disappointed, but decided that a weekend in London would be nice even without visiting the exhibition.
We arrived in London Friday night, and stayed at a hotel near the British Library called Pullman St Pancras, that I got a really good deal on. When we got there, we got upgraded to a DeLuxe room, which was really good. The view from the room was great, and at the end of the hall on our floor, we could see The British Library. The location was great, and the room brilliant!
Saturday morning we met up with a friend of mine for breakfast. I had been given the suggestion of a place called Vx, which is a shop that prouds itself to be a vegan junk food shop. It was a really small place, but they had a good selection of food and cakes. I went for the Marinara Meatballs Sub, and it was really very good! I also had a chocolate doughnut for dessert.
After breakfast we headed to the Bristish Library to tey our luck. Going to London for the exhibition and not asking if there were any free tickets would be silly, we thought. And we were in luck! There were tickets, and we could enter the exhibition pretty much straight away.
It was a fantastic exhibition! There were rare books, manuscripts and magical objects from the British Library’s collection, as well as original drafts and drawings by J.K. Rowling and illustrator Jim Kay, and objects from The Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Boscastle, Cornwall.
On Sunday we went to have breakfast at one of my favourite vegetarian restaurants in London: mildreds Kings Cross. On weekends they serve brunch in the mornings, and we went for the scrambled tofu, slow roasted tomato, oak smoked house beans, roasted mushroom, sausage and toasted sourdough. Now, that’s what I call a breakfast! Or brunch, if you prefer… It was a perfect way to start the Sunday.
After breakfast we went back to Vx, to end our weekend in London with cake! This time I had a piece of the Unicorn cake. It was delicious, but very sweet, so I didn’t manage to eat the whole thing. However, I would love to go back and try more items from their menu at some point. Anyhow, a great way to end a great weekend!
