Notting Hill Carnival and Olympic Park

For the August bank holiday, my family and I took a trip down to London for the weekend. We had planned to go there because we haven’t been to the capital in a good few years, also we have never visited Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park before despite being in London during the 2012 Olympics.

London is always full of surprises and of course, we completely forgot that Notting Hill Carnival was also taking place on the same weekend. This changed plans a little bit, but for the better because it meant there was more to do during the time spent there rather than just wondering around looking for things to do!

Day One – Saturday 26th August

The travel down to London was quick because we left at the crack of bloody dawn (thanks, mum). We drove to Hillingdon and parked on a road near the station and we got the tube into central London.
Our hotel was in Shepherd’s Bush which wasn’t too far away probably about half an hour? We headed straight then and dumped our bags (not literally) and headed off to the Olympic park. The hotel we stayed at was called the Grantly Hotel I’ll link it here if you’re interested.

I couldn’t resist a mirror selfie, there were so many in the hotel hallways

Outfit: Top – LOTD
Shorts – Topshop (old)
Bumbag – Primark (old)

The four of us went straight to the Olympic Park to have a good look around and for some weird reason, the weather was actually nice for the bank holiday weekend!? I know I shouldn’t be like that but it’s practically tradition for it to rain when it’s a bank holiday, in the UK that is.
To get to the Olympic Park you have to walk through part of Westfield shopping centre which is a huge distraction, you could honestly spend a whole day in there! The park is absolutely massive and it’s so surreal to actually be where all the Olympic athletes were 5 years ago (how was it that long ago?)

They have a beach and a fair, what?

There was a mini festival in another part of the park called the Living Arts Festival. It was only a small event but it was very cute with live music and a couple of food stalls. It was so hot which is always nice for a festival because it usually rains. I bought myself a raspberry sorbet which is my fave flavour and it was delish!

This side of the Olympic Park is where the Olympic rings are situated on top of a hill; damn right we took photos. It’s amazing just being in the same place where the Olympics were and it makes me feel super proud to be British. How many times have I said Olympic Park already!

After our mini ‘photo shoot’, we explored the rest of the festival and surprise surprise, dad and Cameron managed to find an outdoor ping pong table. The two of them entertained themselves for about half an hour whilst mum and I sat and watched some of the main events on stage. We had a fairly chilled afternoon wondering the rest of the park and headed home to relax for the rest of the evening. For dinner we ate at a lovely placed called Tai Buffet which was an ‘all you can eat’ and they had some amazing veggie and vegan choices for a really decent price, think it was around £6.90.

Day Two – Sunday 27th August

There was a lovely breakfast included at the hotel and we had an abundance of toast and tea. Next, it was time to head to the carnival and what a lovely day we had for it! The tube we boarded arrived right in the middle of the festivities. I had a photo taken with some of the carnival goers before all the chaos started and it was so much fun!

Before the carnival started a group of important individuals who represented parts of Notting Hill and the Mayor of London released some doves into the sky as a sign of respect for those who died at Grenfell Tower.

Outfit: Top – Stradivarius

Shorts – New Look (old)

I bought an official Notting Hill Carnival t-shirt of course, and then we headed back to the Olympic Park because we had bought some tickets to climb up to the top of the ArcelorMittal Orbit.
The Orbit is the giant red structure in the main area of the Queen Elizabeth Park which was built as a landmark for the Olympic and Paralympic Games 2012, you can have a more in depth read of it on their website here.
Mum and I had tickets to view the top of the tower, as did Dad and Cameron but they also had a chance to go on the Slide, a current attraction that involves a 40-second descent from the top of the tower winding 12 times around the structure to reach the bottom – all inside a metal tunnel! Dad wasn’t so keen when we arrived so we conveniently’ met up with our cousin, Sam who went down the slide in dad’s place.