I'm going to London! What should I do and see?

In My Humble Opinion
21

I loved the London Walks! I did the Jack the Ripper walk and had a very proper British lady (complete with pearls–I picture her as the British version of our own Eve) talking very matter of factly about some gory, gruesome murders. I don’t know why that seemed so very British to me, but it did. I also did a ghosts of London walk. It was fabulous as well.

I agree that Westminster Abbey was better than St. Pauls. It’s older, I like the earlier acrchitecture better, and more interesting tombs are there.

Changing of the guards is nice, but the last time I went we couldn’t get very close. There’s a changing of the horse guards as well (but it’s somewhere else that I can’t recall) and it’s not nearly as crowded.

Yes, yes, yes to Churchill’s wartime bunker. When I was there years ago, they had guided tours you could take or an audio tour on cassette (with a tape player that was huge and outdated even in those days). Both had really good information.

22

You wanted unusual and out of the way: Highgate Cemetery. This is one of the coolest Victorian cemeteries you’ll find. If you’ve got a camera you’ll get some amazing pics. Plus you get to visit the final resting places of some very interesting people:

And I’ll third the London Walks.

23

:: jumps up and down ::

All this fawning over great museums, and nobody’s mentioned the Imperial War Museum yet!

24

Don’t be jealous – you can come too!

Okay:

[ul][li]Buy a digital camera.[/li][li]Learn to use it.[/li][li]Learn how to post pictures here.[/li][li]Learn how to put up the link.[/ul][/li]Right, then – I’m on it!

Big_Norse, I am now all about Highgate Cemetary. It looks like an incredible experience!

GorillaMan – what’s the Imperial War Museum all about – other than, you know, the Empire and, um, war?

May I just say that I’m as excited as a little kid about going to London? It’s all I can do not to follow every sentence with an exclamation point.

Oh, did I mention – I’m going to London!

25

Let’s see… I’ve been to the UK twice, and London 3 times, and I have to say that:

  1. The British Museum is the be-all,end-all of archaeology and anthropology museums. There just isn’t anywhere else in the world like it. It’s a must-see. I visited it 2 out of my 3 trips to London, and spent about 4 hours each trip, and still don’t feel like I’ve seen everything.

  2. The Tower of London is really cool. Kinda touristy, but still really neat.

  3. Westminster Abbey is pretty interesting- lots of famous burials and stuff like that, as well as being the place for the royal funerals, coronations and weddings for the better part of a millenium.

  4. The Imperial War Museum is mighty cool as well, if you like military stuff. The Holocaust exhibit is very chilling- I haven’t been through anything quite like that before or since. The tanks and airplanes are really cool as well.

  5. A tour of the Houses of Parliament is really interesting as well.

  6. The National Maritime Museum and Old National Observatory is interesting, but only if you’ve seen everything else you want to see and have spare time.

  7. It’s worth taking some walks in London- one of the more interesting walking tours I had was from just northeast of Soho (Oxford St. maybe?) to Westminster . I got to see a different side of London than I would have by just riding in a bus or something.

26

One option to consider is taking an open-top double-decker bus tour. Kind of touristy, but when we visited in May this was a nice way to get a feel for the layout of the city. We went at the very end of our first day, while we were still on US time, so a lot of the attractions (museums, etc.) were closed anyway.

27

BTW Leiscester Square is where you can get some pretty good “same day” theater tickets too. Most of the places that I have been in London have already been mentioned. I agree with everyone about bring impressed with the British Museum, National Gallery, and Westminster Abbey.

sigh I really want to go back. Can I stow away somewhere? :smiley:

28

We haven’t booked flights yet, but we’re trying to land in enough time to make a play the first night. (Yes, we’re nutters that way.) But if that doesn’t work, this could do. So what if it’s touristy? I’m a tourist. In London!

supervenusfreak, if you and Clothahump can fit in my rolly suitcase, you’re in like Flynn!

Everyone, these ideas are awesome. I’m going to start making actual plans soon, including looking at a map, so I can see how much of this is actually doable.

29

Get the Rick Steves book. It will save you a lot of trouble.

Do NOT skip the Museum, the Abbey, the Tower, St Paul’s, or the National Gallery. I stupidly missed Tate Britain and was underwhelmed by the Tate Modern. I don’t know if that was me, poor presentation, or the late hour I went. I’d have done the Parliament tour, but I went right after the election and it wasn’t running. You have to call ahead for that. I looked at Buckingham Palace but skipped the changing ceremony.

You might consider the British Library as well. It’s hard to get to now, because the nearest Tube station was bombed, but it has a good collection of rare holy books, the Magna Carta, original manuscripts, and documents related to a host of literary and scientific giants.

I enjoyed Greenwich. The Cutty Sark is dry-docked there and worth a look. The Nat’l Maritime Museum was a little too touristy in my opinion, and it did not play well to my fear of heights. But the Royal Observatory, a Wren work, was good and the park was beautiful. And I had a bacon butty there. It’s not much but I enjoyed it. Day trips I didn’t take, but will someday, are Hampton Court Palace and Kew Gardens.

Instead of the expensive dinner, why not an expensive tea? You could go to the Ritz or Fortnum and Mason’s. Get the frou-frou moment you want, in a heavily British way, and still have time to dawdle around the theater at night.

A few personal experiences:
Don’t bother with TV. All I found was American imports, repetitive news, and the obnoxious “crazy frog” ad that’s driving Britons insane.

Most places have a cafe that smells like A-1 steak sauce. Poet’s Corner in the Abbey is particularly strong. If you like things smothered in brown sauce (like me), well, it’s all gravy.

Get the Queen’s ale at the Tower. Very strong and very smooth, and in a huge bottle that will leave you tipsy for your trek through the White Tower.

There are Indian restaurants everywhere, and they are scrumptious. I ate a wide variety of ethnic besides native British and Indian - Japanese, Indonesian, Moroccan, Greek, Belgian - and never had a bad meal. Everything is ordered a la carte, though, so the prices can stack up. If there’s a deal where you can get X number of courses for a cheap price, consider doing that.

The Museum let’s you take pictures if you don’t use flash. I got some great shots, and would have had more if I’d had the right speed of film.

There’s a Rodin sculpture immediately south of Parliament that a lot of people miss.

Harrod’s is only worth the food court. The rest of it looks a lot like a Dillard’s. Harvey Nichols is better, but still not worth building a trip around.

30

If the British Library interests you, Campion, then the current Tube disruption shouldn’t put you off. The closed parts are being steadily reopened, so the only closure by the time of your trip should be the central portion of the Piccadilly line, which looks like remaining shut for a few months yet. That does make it a little harder to get to Kings Cross, the station nearest to the Library, but the other lines through the station are now stopping there as normal. There’s also the tube station at Euston, which has been relatively unaffected throughout and is only about a block or two further from the Library anyway.

The caveat is that, unfortunately, foreseeing the exact situation here in a month’s time is impossible. But, at this moment, the inconvience factor shouldn’t be overly stressed.

31

OK, so the name is a little unfortunate in its datedness. It covers all aspects of twentieth-century conflict, from aircraft to espionange to artwork etc. Take a look. (I’d generally rate it as one of the most consistently-excellent museums in the country, in the way its exhibitions are high-quality, with clear purpose, etc.)

32

I love British TV! It was great-my daughter and I would walk ourselves senseless thru London, stop for dinner in a nice pub and then go back to the hotel and turn on the boob tube. We skipped all American imports and just watched channel 4(?).

It was a great way to end a long day of sight seeing. (why we didn’t take in a show eludes me now).

I third the National Gallery. Every time I am in London (all of twice), I stop in and visit the pic of Richard III. There is also a neat pic of our Continental Congress (I think)-but the caption is not a celebratory as one would be over here…heh.

I also second trying to do a few things very well vs alot of stuff in a blur.

I liked Harrod’s, but if you’ve been in a Marshall Field’s or similiar, you’ve been. I liked Marks and Spencer’s better–it gave me a real feel for RL in UK.

Mostly, we walked and stopped where our fancy took us. Of course, I am easily pleased and just taking the Tube counted as a tourist destination for me…

The Eye was good, if a bit steep in price. The Tower is downright scarey (I was not prepared for all the brutal looking armaments), but the Beefeaters are neat.
There’s more, but can’t think at present. We are going over in March of '06. I can hardly wait!

33

I’m not worried about that. From what I can see across the pond (yes, my eyesight is that good!), the authorities have done a great job of getting things up and running again.

don Jaime, my second favoritest painting in the world is in the Tate, so I’ll not miss it. I’ve never seen it in person, and although I’m sure it will not be in person what it seems like in a book, I still want to go see it.

34

There’s a public holiday at the end of August and many businesses will be closed.

If you’re visiting Cambridge, don’t forget the Imperial War Museum at Duxford. The American hangar is quite something, and if you’re there for the bank holiday, there’ll be an air show too.

35

No trip to London is complete without seeing Henry VIII’s codpiece.

I was in London for a meeting and a co-worker talked me into going out to Windsor Castle. It was definitely one of the highlights of my trip. It’s an hour’s train ride from London, I found that interesting too. Interesting enough, anyway.

After a couple of days I had black flecks in my boogers. I queried the SDMB and was assured this is normal.

36

A couple of other places we enjoyed when we were there in 1997:

  • The Sherlock Holmes house on Baker Street–it’s not 221b, but it’s close, and they’ve got the whole house set up to look exactly as Doyle described it in the stories. Very cool.

  • Dickens’ house, if you’re into that sort of thing.

  • The Jack the Ripper tour, which is very cool (albeit gory) and even includes a spooky underground boat ride.

Unfortunately I can’t remember exactly where any of these were located (except the Holmes house) but if you’re interested you can probably find them on Google or in a travel guide.

37

Would be to make sure you have some really comfy boots/shoes, and get plenty of walking practice in beforehand.
Then spend most of your time just walking around the central bit. There’s lots of nifty little places to be seen, and just the bit between St Katherine’s Dock and Westminster could keep most people occupied for a week. Not sure what your particular preferences are, but just that tiny section has everything from a WW2 battlecruiser to cathedrals to roman ruins and pretty much everything in between. A lot of it is most easily accessed and seen from foot, but your feet may hurt as a result.

I second the suggestion of the Museum of London - I used to live just up the road and took visitors there all the time. Its key advantage is that it lives up to its name and gives you a good overview of London history that you can canter round in a couple of hours to get a feel for the city. The British Museum, on the other hand, is a museum of humanity and you could live there for a month.

I’m not a theater person and can’t help you there, but one suggestion might be to look up some places mentioned in any London-set plays you like and visit them. I always get a kick out of seeing places mentioned in old stories.

One cheesy tourist thing that is actually very nice is a boat ride - tourist boats with commentary run up and down the river from various places. Best bet is probably from Tower Bridge to Westminster or vice versa.

I presume you have already found the website for visitors?

38

My favourite parts:

  1. The Imperial War Museum. Best museum I’ve ever seen, far and away, no comparison.

  2. The British Museum. Worth going just to see the Rosetta Stone. I just stood and stared at it for hours. After a few hours I found the endless displays of stolen artifacts got a little repetitive, but geez, the HISTORY.

  3. Westminster Abbey. Wow.

  4. Westminster Palace (e.g. Parliament.) True story; when we were in London we went with Mrs RickJay’s family. Mrs. RickJay’s Dad’s girlfriend is a screeching harpy who starts fights and one night we couldn’t take it anymore and took off on our own back into town.

We were walking by Westminster Palace at about 7:30, maybe 8 at night, and Mrs. RickJay noticed an open door with some cops. “Let’s see if they’ll let us in!” she said. I played along, figuring no chance.

They did indeed let us in. We were the only tourists in the joint. Walked around for an hour and a half. It was phenomenal.

  1. Tower of London. Again, can get a bit repetitive.
39

So which painting is this? I have to go again sometime. The plane was lifting off before I realized I had missed Blake’s watercolors. I’m surprised we didn’t turn back to find out what that loud slapping noise from the back of the aircraft was.

Second on practice walking. I walked a mile every day for a month and still had blisters within 24 hours.

40

John Everett Millais’s Ophelia. Yeah, she’s dead. I’m just morbid that way. I also like it for the story: the model spent days in a bathtub and got really sick.

slaphead: well, of course I’ve found the website. In fact (after you posted it), I bookmarked it! :smiley:

:eek: Uh, ok. Thanks for the heads up.