One our way to Sicily, we stopped off for a couple of nights in London. As I said before, our main goal was to transfer from Heathrow to Gatwick.  Since we weren’t sure how long this would take, we decided to spend the night.  We considered the airport hotels, but then – we discovered a yacht hotel right on the Thames!  We couldn’t pass that up, so we stayed a little longer.

Sunborn Yacht Hotel

The Sunborn Yacht Hotel was a former floating hotel in Finland (that apparently did not make it as a cruise ship). They towed it around to London, where it set up shop on the Thames in the Docklands area on the East End near Greenwich.  This used to be a rough area where all the ships and sea merchants came back in the day, but now is a hip area full of high rises and corporate headquarters.  The Yacht Hotel sits next to the Excel Convention Center.

Frank and I had a stateroom with a balcony even – pretty swanky!

Our stay included a very nice breakfast, where you could sit in the main dining room or on the aft deck.

We loved it here and would highly recommend. It is a little out of town – but there are fast clipper ferries to central London to take the commuters to all those high rises (and the tourists into town).  We liked that it was in a quiet neighborhood that had plenty of cafes and parks, but not crowded at all.  Also, the other guests seemed to be there on a local holiday or with the convention center so not very touristy.

And sitting on the back deck with a glass of wine and the city lights in the distance – a perfect start to our journey.