I’m visiting London next month - but I’ve been there before and I’m pretty well-versed in the typical tourist stuff. So I don’t necessarily need that kind of advice. But I’d like to know about:
Where to stay near Euston Sta. (I’m going back & forth to Coventry a bit).
The best store for art supplies - especially pens/pencils/blank books.
The best used bookstore for art/architecture/old maps/etc. Aside from the tourist-oriented places by the museum.
Offbeat dining that might not be prominent in the travel guides.
I’m planning a day-trip to Greenwich. Things of interest there?
Probably, but London actually has a much drier climate than people think (drier than Madrid, Rome, Dallas, Tel Aviv…). As I write, we have had only 1 rain day since the end of March, which is pretty unusual it has to be said. June can often be rather wet, no doubt due to the Wimbledon tennis tournament being held then It’s fairly rare to have days of rain on end though, the usual thing is sunshine and showers, sometimes thundery. But the last few summers have been generally very warm and sunny in southern England.
I’m going to be studying in London for four weeks, starting in the last week of June, so I’m keeping a close eye on this thread. I have never been to London, so any pearls of wisdom you can pass down would be appreciated!
Can you please define “much drier climate” and “very warm” while bearing in mind that I’m from Los Angeles? For your reference, we generally don’t get any rain from May until September every year, and the temperatures are usually in the 90s with little to no humidity.
Okay, well first, bear in mind that London is on the same latitude as Calgary and northern Newfoundland. “Hot” for London is high 80s to low 90s. It usually reaches into the 90s on a few days each summer, but that more often happens in July and August, not June. Typical highs in June are mid-70s, but it can be quite a bit warmer. Equally it can struggle to get into the 60s if you’re unlucky.
The Met Office site has lots of long-term average data, here are the figures for Greenwich for 1971-2000. The mean maximum for June was 20.2C which is about 68F. The average number of “wet days” (more than 1mm of rain) in June was about 8, so less than one in three days sees significant rainfall. The total rainfall for the month is on average around 2 inches. The most common form this takes in summer is heavy but relatively brief showers.
Bear in mind that these figures are averages from the past 30 years. But in recent years the British climate, especially in the southeast, seems to have shifted to something much more akin to continental Europe. I don’t have any hard cites to back this up, other than the fact that temperature records have been tumbling recently. July 2006 was the hottest month ever recorded overall in England. September 2006 was the hottest ever September. And this April just gone was the hottest April, by a huge margin (0.6C, or 1 degree F). Bear in mind that these monthly records go back to 1659, so breaking three in less than a year is pretty remarkable! A lot of these months have also been breaking, or coming close to, records for total sunshine hours as well.
The current 12-month rolling average temperature is also the highest it has ever been, since before 1659 at least. The UK climate seems to be heating up at a considerably greater pace than the world as a whole.
The maritime museum at Greenwich is excellent!
You can take a river cruise (with commentary) down and the Docklands Light Railway back…
We were down about 3 weeks ago for a couple of days and had our first use of the transport system’s ‘Oyster card’ - very easy, very useful. Good for the tube and the buses, and some discounts for other things… loads of places will sell you one - they cost from £20 + £3 returnable deposit, I think. You can cash it in when you leave if you want. We got ours at the first tube station we were in.
Oyster cards cost £3 returnable deposit and from their you can either put a weekly/monthly/yearly travelcard on it or pay-as-you-go in multiples of £5 so you don’t need to put £20 on it.
Pay-as-you-go has a daily cap and can be used on Buses, the Tube and the DLR. The quickest way to get there though is to take an overground train to Greenwich (trains run from Charing Cross/Waterloo/Cannon Street/London Bridge). You would have to buy a rail ticket or a weekly zone 1-2 tube pass though.
If you buy from a train station, you can get a travelcard instead of an Oyster card which gives free travel for a period (1,3 or 7 days 1 month etc). Its useful if you are going to any of the outer regions of London where they don’t have Oyster readers fitted yet. Travelcards can be ordered in advance online, which does save queuing.
Another tip, if you’re coming from the USA (or just about anywhere else, in fact) is to budget at least double the maximum that you think you could possibly spend. Then add a nought. Seriously, London eats money at the best of times, and with current exchange rates, it’ll eat an obscene amount of US dollars.
I use venere.com a fair bit for accomodation. It has user reviews which can help (bear in mind a lot of people had pretty unrealistic expections of what they’d get for the price they paid)
Budget food: Eat and Pret are all over the place and are fine
Pubs: Nicholsons pubs do quite nice food (try the Blackfriars it has an impressive Gothic interior)
There are any number of ok Chinese in and around Soho/China Town
If you do end up staying in the Euston/Kings Cross area, try Merkato on the Caledonian Road. It’s a cheap Ethiopian place, I haven’t been in a couple of years, but it was excellent and well worth the walk.
Hmm, I don’t know if it’s that bad. The pound does seem to be overvalued down at the retail level, but the trick is not to think like a tourist. Tourist: “I’m peckish, let’s buy a snack” (buys £4.50 sandwich from Tower of London restaurant). Londoner : “I’m peckish” (walks 300 yards to nearest Tesco or Sainsbury’s, buys sandwich for £1.75. And probably a better sandwich too). Accommodation is expensive, because real estate is expensive, I’ll give you that.
There are dozens of good restaurants and pubs around Angel tube station in Islington. Some are more pricey than others but there are plenty of cheaper places too. And it’s a short walk from the Euston area.
Shipley’s, as suggested by Colophon, are the main art specialists on Charing Cross Road, though they’re correspondingly pricey. If you’re just randomly browsing for bargains, then the other shops on the street might be a happier hunting ground.
For old maps, several of the shops in Cecil Court, a little street just off Charing Cross Road, sell them. While they don’t actually deal in old ones, anyone interested in maps who’s in the vicinity should check out Stanfords nearby. They have a reasonable selection of new books on historical maps.
It’s fairly rare to have days of rain on end though, the usual thing is sunshine and showers, sometimes thundery. But the last few summers have been generally very warm and sunny in southern England.
For your reference, we generally don’t get any rain from May until September every year, and the temperatures are usually in the 90s with little to no humidity.