This is very good advice. Even in the off season, the area around the Trevi is very crowded. I can’t imagine what it would be like in the summer.
One I would recommend is the Galleria Borghese. This is one I don’t think is easily walkable. I’d recommend a taxi. But there are several gorgeous Berninis there. Well worth seeing.
Frankly, I don’t like espresso and I think Italian coffee is the one category of ingestibles that I think Italy is overrated for. But I do recommend stopping at the Caffé Tazza d’Oro near the Pantheon. You probably won’t even have to look for it. Everyone will be there. I enjoyed a couple of iced latte macchiatos there.
As much as I have this feeling that AirBnB is a net negative for the cities they operate in, I really loved the apartments I’ve rented in Barcelona, Seville, Rome and Florence in the past couple year.
In particular, the place in Rome was great as there was easy access to everything where we stayed on Via dei Coronari, just west of Piazza Navona. Walking distance from the Vatican, the Parthenon, Trevi Fountain, the Forum, etc. And just a minute’s walk from the Lungotevera and then a quick cab ride wherever.
That specific apartment may not be what you’re looking for, but there are a lot in that neighborhood. Highly recommended area, IMHO of course.
Book tickets ahead of time for the Vatican Museums. Otherwise that walk-up wait can be ridiculous.
London hotels are expensive. In fact, London is expensive. If you are staying for a week, AirB&B is by far the best option, but think hard about the location.
Most of the main tourist sights/sites are strung out along the Thames - Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Churchill War Rooms, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, St Pauls etc etc.
There is the West End, (Uptown un USAian), and the East End, (Downtown). The Tower is downtown and even further down is Greenwich with the Cutty Sark and the Royal Observatory etc. The West End has most places, including the theatres and several markets.
Travel around London is easy and not too expensive if you pay with a contactless card or buy an Oyster card. Each member of the party will need their own. Staying in the suburbs will be cheaper, but you will spend more time sitting on a train in a tunnel, so that has to be balanced against the extra cost of a more central location. You may find that places in The East End are cheaper.
Eating out is easy with just about every cuisine you can imagine. When we stay in London, we tend to have breakfast, get some sightseeing done, and then stop for lunch. This means that we only need a light meal in the evening when restaurants tend to be more expensive and crowded. Ready meals, especially those from the more upmarket supermarkets like Waitrose and Marks & Spencer can be surprisingly good.
I don’t think these translations are correct. Most U.S. cities have either an uptown or a downtown, not both. And uptowns are very rare (only about 20 or so listed in Wikipedia)
For the few cities that have both, I don’t think they match up with East and West end London.
In Manhattan, which is the one place most well known for using both of these terms, they usually indicate directions of travel rather than specific neighborhoods. To the extant that they might be neighborhoods (Uptown Manhattan redirects to Upper Manhattan), I would not equate them to East and West end.
And to be really nitpicky, most Londoners would think of the West End, the City (the mediaeval city and now a largely business/financial district, but with all the accumulations of history) and the Tower, with the East End being east and north of there, plus the South Bank (once industrial, now primarily a cultural centre). And all around that the different villages absorbed over the centuries.
One further point: if you’re looking to stay further out of the centre, then south of the river, much of the public transport is based around suburban trains run by the national rail companies, which don’t appear on the regular tube map. There is a combined map, but it isn’t always available:
Been a few years since I was in London, but I was in Rome just six weeks ago.
I’ll happily recommend our hotel, IQ Roma. It was a six minute walk to the train station (took the train to Florence), and we were able to easily walk to nearly every attraction we wanted to see. We were very happy.
To your first point yes, to the second? it very much depends what sort of a tourist you are.
If you like museums and galleries then you can easily spend 4 or 5 days visiting the vast number of free options.
https://www.visitlondon.com/things-to-do/budget-london/101-free-things-to-do-in-london
as for food and transport, you can eat well for very little and unlimited transport all day will cost you less than £8.
So I agree it is expensive to stay (certainly in the centre) but once there you can see amazing things and be wonderfully entertained for very little.
To be fair, it is no more than about a mile and a half to St. Peter’s from there and I think one of the joys of Rome is to take meandering walks and go down hidden back-streets and find piazza’s with cafe’s etc. There’s always something of interest.
This goes for London as well. One of my favourite visits was just me and my son killing a few hours till we met back up with my wife and daughter who were off to a craft fair.
We just strolled around the City area and went down back streets and googled any interesting buildings we saw (there were many) and read up on their history, took photos, had coffees and snacks etc, no particular itinerary and no plan, just where the mood took us. A really memorable afternoon.
Yep. We were about 10 minutes walking from the Castel Sant’angelo and about 25 from the hotel to the Pantheon. Coming back we stumbled on the Piazza Navona and decided to have lunch there. Touristic? Sure. Average food? Yeah. Unbeatable view? You bet!
London in particular has a fantastic public transit system and no language barrier. So the smart choice would be to stay somewhere not exactly central, and take the Tube/buses to where you want to go, because you can always ask for directions, read the signs, etc… if you go awry. (which you won’t, if you know how to read a map). London’s a bit more spread out, because a lot of the things people go to see in London sprang up
Rome is more centralized than London in terms of where the tourist attractions are, so in general public transit isn’t as necessary. I mean, you can walk pretty much everywhere you need to in order to see the big Roman, Church and art sites. (mostly they’re all sort of intertwined anyway). Everything’s more or less within a 2-3 mile circle centered on the Roman Forum. Stay somewhere toward the center of the circle and you’re good. We stayed at the “Albergo del Senato” right across the square from the Pantheon, but we were there in December, so the rates were lower. It was easy walking distance to everything, and cabs were easy to find as well.
I’m a big fan of going in the off season, rather than staying in the off-places if that makes sense. Rome in December before Christmas wasn’t hot, wasn’t touristy, and I got to see a bunch of Christmas preparations I wouldn’t have got to see otherwise. Same thing for Prague, Florence, Siena, Milan, Budapest, London and Vienna. I’ve also been to London in the summer a couple of times- the crowds and lines are a lot bigger in the summer. We didn’t really have to wait in line for the Uffizi in Florence or the Vatican museums/St. Peter’s either.
It may sound silly, but the Rick Steves guide books are fantastic. If you make sure and get a current year one, they’ll even have off-the-beaten-path restaurant recommendations that are always excellent.
Second this suggestion. He also has a free app that gives audio guided walking tours. Very good.
I’ve always interpreted downtown as being the business district, or alternatively the manufacturing district. London’s traditional business district is the City of London, to the east, and for recent decades Canary Wharf, also to the east. Manufacturing is dispersed around London’s perimeter, but more prevalent to the north and east. Uptown being the entertainment area is heavily weighted to London’s West End, which isn’t really west. Most of the West End is east of Buckingham Palace.
My recommended area for friends seeking a midrange hotel area is Gloucester Road. It depends on how active you’re going to be in the mornings and evenings. Any museums, castles, or palaces you want to visit, I’d recommend getting there at opening time, especially during summer. If you eat breakfast, you’ll want accommodation that provides breakfast and includes it in the price. (If you just want coffee and a croissant or muffin, there will be chains and cafes all around.) Staying in the suburbs will save you money, but the transport time trade-off may not be worth it - especially if you have to switch lines.
If you and your friends are just after relaxing sightseeing days, and hanging out in the evenings, London Bridge is a good base. There’s lot’s too see in and around that neighborhood, and there are lots of good pubs and restaurants. But if you’re wanting to go to the popular theatre shows, or the big-name restaurants, you may find that the journey back to your hotel is a lot longer than you’d expect. If you’re planning on spending your evenings in the West End, I’d recommend a hotel to the west near a tube station for the District or Piccadilly lines.
For hotels south of the Thames, there may be some excellent options. I’ve spotted chain hotels at excellent locations and wondered if they might be a bargain. But definitely check on the actual location before you make a booking. I’d want to be careful about how close a “Southbank” hotel was to the Thames and a tube station.
Those are not broad definitions of the terms that would be recognized generally in American English.
As I said, in Manhattan, uptown and downtown are most often directions of travel, not names of specific neighborhoods. The famous entertainment district and the central business district in Manhattan, by the way, is in Midtown, which is by contrast a commonly used term for a specific location.
Elsewhere in the country, “downtown” means roughly “the oldest part of the city, where the tallest buildings are.”
As I said before, relatively very few cities have a neighborhood called “uptown.” When they do, it’s often in lieu of a downtown, such as in Oxford, Ohio. And otherwise, there’s no standard connotation for the term.
This is “In My Humble Opinion”. We’re going to have different opinions.
My opinion of Downtown Manhattan is the area around Wall Street. Wikipedia agrees with me,
Uptown Manhattan, to me, and I think to most popular references, does indeed involve the quarter south of Central Park and including Times Square, most of the Broadway theatres, and many other prominent locations. Northern Manhattan is north of Central Park. I’m sure there’s lots of debate on the subject.
I wouldn’t call London’s West End Uptown. I’d call it the West End. For many other cities, downtown is extremely common. Uptown is less common. But when there’s a geographical break, even if it’s based on small distances, I’ve come across the use of uptown in the UK and seen it referred to elsewhere.
I’d have to see extensive citations for that. That’s definitely Midtown. As I pointed out Uprown Manhattan redirects on Wikipedia to a different term indicating an area far north of Times Square. So not only less commonly used, but when used, it has a completely different meaning.
Lower Manhattan is most commonly just called Lower Manhattan if you’re not using a more specific term. Sure, Downtown Manhattan might be used by some set of people, but it’s not the common usage.
As I said if you’re in Manhattan, uptown and downtown are directions of travel, not commonly used as names of neighborhoods.
I’d be interested in seeing Ngrams I’d anyone is so inclined.
Regardless of the intricacies of Manhattan usage, your original claim of the general meanings of uptown and downtown in American English is just wrong as a generalization.
And that’s my last entry in this particular hijack.
Moderating:
Good call. Let’s get back to talking about vacation planning. Thanks.
I’d love to know where. Downtown and uptown have no meaning in the UK. We could hazard a guess that the US term ‘downtown’ means what we might call the ‘city centre’ (for any city other than London, where the concept is meaningless), but uptown? Not a clue! Most of us have probably only heard it from the mouth of Billy Joel, who has given us the impression that it just means ‘the posh bit’.
Someone upthread mentioned pre-booking tickets for the Vatican Museum. 100% you should do this (and book an early entry time too). The lines can be vast, and you’ll whizz straight past them.
It’s not such a thing in London, as the main museums are all free anyway, so don’t attract queues at ticket desks. You just wander in. The one major exception is the Tower of London (do not miss), which you can prebook.
If you have ever seen MPs shouting at each other in Parliament, then I would recommend booking a guided tour. Parliament is an exceptionally unusual building, steeped in history with crazy architecture. I suspect Parliament might be out for the summer when you visit so you likely won’t see the Prime Minister, but you will be able to stand at the despatch box where he takes weekly questions from MPs.
https://www.parliament.uk/visiting/visiting-and-tours/
It goes without saying that you should see a show in London - same quality as Broadway, and considerably cheaper. And not just musicals - you’ll find some exceptional plays at places such as the National Theatre and the Donmar Warehouse. Of course is music is your thing - classical or contemporary - it’s all here too. London is one of the great entertainment capitals of the world.