I’m going to be spending a week in South England in September (and probably living in London). Any suggestions as to places to visit?
I’m a bit confused - are you visiting south England for a week and then moving to London, or are you visiting England for a total of a week and staying at a hotel in London? It makes a difference, because obviously if you’re moving to London then it would be better to spend the week visiting Stonehenge, Windsor, Bath, Oxford, etc.
Give us some clues about the sort of thing you’re interested in, how much travelling you want to do once you’re here, whether you want to stay in London exclusively or see some of the countryside, how much you want to spend, where in London you’re staying… your OP is a little vague! Even if, say, you want to stay only in London and you’re interested in history… we have 2000 years of it. Narrow it down and I’ll try to help.
There have been several other threads recently asking for the same sort of recommendations. Try poking around those, too.
This isn’t my thread obviously but I’m going to London for 10 days later this month and would also welcome suggestions. I plan to spend most of my time there but I’m up for a couple day or brief overnight trips to close by cities. I’m staying with a friend in Slough for much of the trip (yeah, I know there’s not much to see there), but I know it’s close to Windsor Castle so I’ll probably see that. I also booked a hotel for a weekend in London itself. I got the Hilton Islington for $85/night thanks to Priceline. Anyone know anything particular about the neighborhood? I’ve read there are lot of restaurants around plus it’s a short walking distance from a Tube station so it looks like a great location.
I like history but I’m not particularly well-versed in English history. I will have to do some quick reading up before I go. I like museums and plan to spend a lot of time there, particularly since a lot of them are free. The Victoria and Albert museum sounds interesting; I enjoy crafts and functional objects a lot more than looking at paintings. I’m sure I’ll spend a lot of time just wandering around.
Bath sounds interesting and beautiful. How much is left of the old Roman town? What else is there to do besides walk around and pretend I’m in a Victorian novel there to take the waters?
I forgot to ask about traveling by train. Do you ever need to book in advance or can you pretty much just show up and buy your ticket? Can you save money by purchasing in advance?
I went to London a couple of years ago. LOVED IT! My recommendations in London-proper would include the typical touristy things and were, to me, must sees: The Tower, The Tower Bridge, St. Paul’s Cathedral (take the climb to the top), Houses of Parliament & Big Ben, Westminster Abbey.
Two things that were off the ‘normal’ tourist route that we found fascinating were the underground War Cabinet Rooms that Churchill used during WWII and the British Library.
Take the tube. It’s cheap and easy and I wish we had one here!! I wish I could live there…I absolutely fell in love with London!
Close to the V&A are the Natural History museum and the Science museum (both free admission) also visit the British museum which covers world archeology/history and is a must visit.(Free admission aswell).
As someone else has said the Tower of London is outstanding.
You can almost always just turn up and buy a ticket. It’s expensive though. However, you can sometimes save a fortune buying in advance. http://www.thetrainline.com
When in London, get yourself an Oyster Card. This is very convenient, and it saves you a fortune on the Tube, as well as giving you discounts on some stuff like The London Eye (a must-see) if you use it to pay with.