More April Travel Adventures: Battersea Power Station, Japan House, and the Thames Lido (300th Post!)

Here are a few other April travel adventures I'm yet to write about - as usual, in and around Reading and London!

Battersea

Battersea Park is one of our favourite London parks, and on a recent visit there, we decided to see a bit more of the area, by visiting Battersea Power Station. This is a prime example of the regeneration that has taken place in certain areas of London, as it was once a coal-fired power station spitting out smoke, but has now been converted into a very fancy and modern shopping mall.

When we visited, there was an art trail of painted elephants, and we had fun trying to spot as many as possible in and around the mall!

Kensington and Chelsea

Our next trip to the capital took us to the other side of the river, where we started our day out in Kensington, visiting Japan House. This cultural centre is a museum, shop, café and restaurant all in one, and is a beautiful space to visit. Japan is a country we'd love to visit at some point (I'm interested in the temples and cat cafés, and of course Claudio would love to see the cars!), so we had a great time looking around and enjoying a matcha. One weird thing that I would recommend doing there is visiting the bathroom, as they have authentic Japanese toilets with heated seats!

As the tube to Kensington from Paddington had been absolutely packed, we decided to walk to our next destination: Chelsea. We passed by this interesting building called Michelin House, which used to be the headquarters of Michelin (unsurprisingly!) but now has other uses. The actual building was closed, but in the entrance there was the most beautiful flower market.

Our final stop of the day was Claudio's choice! We went to the exit of the Salon Privé car event to watch some of the supercars leaving. We got to see a large range of cars: Aston Martins, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, McLarens, and even a Bugatti in the distance, so Claudio was pretty happy!

Thames Lido

We're planning on moving away from Reading in the coming months (though we're not sure where to yet!), so have been making a list of all the places we want to visit around the town and making the effort to visit as many as possible before we leave.

One of these places was the Thames Lido. We've had our eye on going there for ages, as we both love swimming, but it is rather pricey. However, the prospect of moving away from the area convinced us to finally go one Friday evening in April.

The building looks quite unassuming from the outside. You could easily miss it when walking past.

However, the inside is something else entirely! The lido is so beautifully decorated and contains a swimming pool, jacuzzi, sauna and steam room. The ticket gives you access for two hours, and we had a really enjoyable and relaxing evening there, finished off with a drink at the poolside bar.

While the tickets are expensive (£25 from Monday to Thursday and £30 from Friday to Sunday), you definitely get a very different experience to what you'd get at a standard leisure centre swimming pool - it's a much more picturesque and relaxing environment and much less crowded. We really felt like we were on holiday at a fancy hotel in a warmer country during the few hours we were there.

Staines-upon-Thames

We've been looking at various potential places to move to over the last couple of months and recently visited the town of Staines-upon-Thames in Surrey. Though we didn't particularly like the town centre and don't see ourselves moving there in the future, there were some nice areas, particularly by the river, that we enjoyed exploring.

That's all for now, but I'll be back soon with more travel content, right here on this blog.

I want to finish off this post by marking the fact that this is actually my 300th post on Charlotte's Travel Adventures! I've now been posting here for well over seven years and don't plan on stopping anytime soon, even though I don't post as often these days as I did in the past. 

Since my 200th post three years ago, a lot has happened in my life! I spent three months living in Malta, before returning to live in the UK in late 2023. In 2024, Claudio and I got married in Chile (with a later celebration in the UK), and after successfully applying for a spouse visa, we moved into an apartment together in Reading in 2025, and are now working in Surrey and London.

Over the last three years, I've travelled in 11 countries, 4 of which I hadn't visited before. Our travel highlight definitely has to be our honeymoon in Thailand; it was our first time visiting Asia, and we had an absolutely brilliant time.

Hopefully, we'll have lots more exciting adventures to post about between now and post number 400!

February 2026 Travel Adventures: Virginia Water Lake and Royal Holloway University

February has been a month in which we've had the opportunity to explore some more of the area near where we live. Living in Reading, our quickest way to get to London is the fast train to Paddington, but there's also a slower train that goes to Waterloo, stopping in Richmond and Clapham, as well as various places in Berkshire and Surrey. We've found that this route has some interesting areas to explore; for example, the Lexicon in Bracknell is now my favourite place for shopping trips, and Wokingham is an attractive town we've enjoyed visiting. 

In February, we've explored a few new places on the route: Sunningdale, Virginia Water and Egham, and found some beautiful nature, stunning architecture, and (to Claudio's delight), plenty of nice cars!

Virginia Water Lake

This is a place I remember reading about some years ago (maybe during the pandemic) and which I'd kept in mind to visit for when I'd live closer to London. Recently I realised that now was the moment to finally go!

Google Maps recommended that I take the train to Sunningdale and then take a bus to the lake from the stop outside the Rolls-Royce dealership. Unfortunately, although the bus appeared at the time it was supposed to, it did not stop for some reason. Given that the next bus was three hours later (and was supposedly leaving from the same stop), waiting wasn't an option. So I walked further into the town to get a coffee and think about what to do next.

Despite the inconvenience, it was nice to see more of the picturesque town. I also noticed that there was a dealership selling Koenigseggs, which of course I told Claudio about later!

Eventually, I decided that, after coming this far, I wanted to get to the destination I'd planned to visit. So I took an Uber over to the lake. It was a short but interesting journey, going past various mansions.

Finally, I arrived at Virginia Water Lake! Even though it was raining a little bit, the lake looked absolutely beautiful. It's so big that it almost makes you feel like you're next to the sea rather than at a lake.

However, there is much more to Virginia Water Lake than just the lake itself. There are actually a few interesting surprises you can find when walking around the area. The first one I discovered was the cascade, which is tucked away in a little wooded area. Though it's artificial, it's still amazing to spend a while in front of it, watching and listening to the rushing water.

The next surprise is a complete set of Roman ruins, like a smaller version of the Forum in Rome. It's quite unexpected to find it there next to a lake near London! I assumed that the forum had been built there during the Roman era, but I looked it up later and discovered that the ruins had been brought over from the site of Leptis Magna, which is in Libya.

I then walked back the way I'd came and continued walking until I reached a treasure from the other side of the world: a totem pole made by an indigenous community in Canada. I was lucky to have the opportunity to see it, as the information signs nearby said it was due to be pulled down.

I went back home after my walk by taking the train from the Virginia Water Station, which is about a 25-minute walk away from the lake. It's a nice walk past lots of fancy houses, and I'd definitely recommend just going to and from that station if you're going to the lake by public transport rather than attempting to take the bus from Sunningdale!

I actually went back to the lake a few days later with Claudio, as it was a sunny Saturday and I wanted to show him all the interesting sights I'd enjoyed seeing. Although the café area at the entrance was busy, the lake itself was pretty peaceful. There were various families and couples there enjoying the nice weather, but it wasn't at all crowded. We had a great time walking around the lake with a hot chocolate from the café, seeing the sights and admiring the dogs and swans.

We absolutely plan to come back in the future, and would like to do a circuit of the entire lake once we have a car (and therefore don't have to do the long walk to and from the train station).

Egham, Royal Holloway University and Sunningdale

I went to Egham on my own once in February, in order to visit the Runnymede National Trust site, a trip I wrote about in my previous post. I mentioned in that post that I'd been really impressed with the Royal Holloway University's main building, which I'd passed on the bus on my way to Runnymede.

So I came back to Egham with Claudio that weekend in order to visit it properly!

We decided to walk up to the university from Egham, in order to see a bit more of the town, which we liked a lot. We walked past Strode's College, which is a very grand-looking sixth form college.

En route, we stopped at the Ferrari dealership, which of course Claudio loved! We had a good look round at the beautiful cars and had a comfort break in an incredibly posh bathroom!

After walking up a steep hill and through the university campus, we finally arrived at the Founder's Building, which is the building I'd seen from the bus previously. It's absolutely incredible to see - so huge and elaborate. It was actually inspired by the Château de Chambord in France and looks like something out of a fairytale. 

It even has its own little chapel, an elaborately decorated space that is perfect for a moment of reflection.

We noticed that the university's library had a rooftop terrace and decided to go inside in the hopes of getting up to the terrace. Shortly after entering the building, we had the luck to meet a lovely little orange cat. He was so friendly and cute, and I felt very honoured that he decided to sit on my coat! I later found an Instagram page about the cats of Royal Holloway and found out that his name is Cheese!

We then went up to the roof terrace and were surprised to find that we had pretty clear views from there right across to London! We could see planes taking off from Heathrow, Wembley Stadium, the City, the Shard and even Canary Wharf in the distance.

The terrace also offered great views of the Founder's Building below.

After saying goodbye to a sleepy Cheese, we made our way back to Egham for a coffee.

We stopped off at Sunningdale on the way back, because I'd told Claudio about the fancy car dealerships that I'd seen there previously. So my misfortune with the bus actually came in somewhat useful in the end! The dealership where the Koenigseggs had been on my previous visit had actually moved to a much bigger location with many more supercars on display, so Claudio was very happy!

To sum up, these two destinations (Virginia Water Lake and Royal Holloway University) are actually two of my favourite places that I've visited in recent months. I love seeing places of natural beauty as well as stunning architecture, so both of these places really appealed to me.

I'll be writing again soon about some of the interesting places we've explored in March! See you back here then!