My family and I are visiting Italy with my parents for the first part of June next summer. My husband and I would like to add on a few days in London afterward and before we fly home.
We will be traveling with our daughters ages 11 and 14. Our budget is “middle class”. Can you suggest some places to stay and things to not miss? I’d like to keep everything we do somewhat located together, so not spending too much time traveling. We won’t have a car either, so walking distance or public transportation is better.
We enjoy history museums and science museums. We like to eat at local places. Our home is in the desert so walking through parks and green spaces is a novelty and we always have a great time at botanical gardens.
Sorry. Walking distance to wherever we end up lodging. I guess I’d like to know a neighborhood or area that we can stay in that will give us access to a variety of things to do and see. Hotel recommendations are appreciated. I know staying in London will be expensive, but are there any places that are a little more modestly priced, but still in a tourist-friendly area?
The Hilton London Paddington is centrally located, with Hyde park a short stroll away, and the Paddington train station along with instant access to rail or tube right below.
As an American tourist who has spent a considerable amount of time in London I highly recommend it. The rooms are nice but not over-the-top expensive.
Don’t miss the Tate Modern, the best way to visit is via a boat ride up the Thames.
How much time is too much time travelling? The tube is pretty convenient.
The Science Museum and the Natural History Museum are practically next to each other, but you wouldn’t want to get (well, pay for) a hotel in South Kensington…
On transport - you wouldn’t want to be driving in London under any circumstances, but the public transport is excellent so don’t focus too much on walking distance per se. You’ll be able to get to where you want to go.
What you will need to use the public transport is an Oyster card. This is a pre-paid card that you swipe at the barriers as you enter and exit the station, and as you board a bus. There’s a display at each point that will tell you how much money is left. Information on Visitor Oyster Cards is here. (NB - the kids can travel free!)
For a long weekend I would put £30 on each adult card.
Things to do: The Natural History Museum and Science Museum at South Kensington are excellent. The Museum of London at the Barbican is also really good, and not far from St Paul’s. If you want parks and gardens, Regents Park is pretty and has an open-air theatre it might be worth checking out. Hyde Park is expansive. Kew Gardens is a great place to spend a day if its nice, but it’s pricey to get in so only go if you can be there for several hours. You can get there by overland rail, tube or by boat on the Thames.
Also reachable by boat is Greenwich. The boat down usually has some sort of narrated guide to the sights you pass on both banks of the river; the boat back is much quicker and doesn’t. At Greenwich there’s the royal observatory, pie and mash shops, the Naval College and the Cutty Sark.
The Horniman Museum at Forest Hill is well worth a visit - it’s a little way out of the city, but accessible via tube+overground. It’s a proper ‘old school’ Victorian museum with glass cases of bugs, artifacts and fossils, etc (this sort of thing is sadly lacking from the Natural History Museum now).
Definitely get an Oyster card - it takes all the worry and fuss out of travelling, but also, take a look at a surface map of the parts of London you’re travelling between. I love the tube and always enjoy zipping about the city on it when I visit, but sometimes, stations that look far apart on the schematic tube map are just across the road from one another.
I recently went alone to London for a trip to the British Museum and just decided to walk for a bit when I came out - after 5 or 10 minutes, I found myself in Leicester Square, so I grabbed a takeaway lunch in Chinatown and walked another 10 minutes to St James’ Park (the Queen’s front garden) to eat it. From there, I noticed I could see the London Eye, so I also went on foot back to Waterloo.
The British Museum (or the Museum of Imperial Plunder, as I like to call it) is also very good - the upstairs gallery of Roman objects is my favourite.
Lightlystarched, I am not sure what your middle class budget amounts to so a few suggestions.
If you stay somewhere like Kensington you have the tube and bus services. You can walk to places like Harrods and even Buckingham Palace if you feel energetic. Of course there is also Kensington Palace and so much other stuff around. Get a Big Bus Ticket (or a rival company) and you will see a lot- you jump on and off and reboard the next bus that comes along. Normally they arrive every 20 minutes. You can also get elevated entrance to some museums.
If your budget is large enough the Royal Garden is great.
If not there are plenty of other hotels around such as the Copthorne Tara although that is a little tired.
One thing I would suggest- English Pub Meals in London are not a bargain. We found it cheaper eating in a decent restaurant than going to a pub. And it is always off the shelf food- go to the pub around the corner and same menu. (Some locals may be able to point out a few pubs that are different but we never found one within London).
Much of London is free. The British museum is wonderful (my own take - they did a great job looting cultural treasures as an empire). The treasures room at the British Library is just a few blocks away - you can see a Guttenburg bible, a Magna Carta, old illuminated manuscripts, Beatles lyrics written on scraps of paper, pages from Da Vinci and Michelangelo’s notebooks… (my daughter, who has been to DC, was sort of “I’ve seen one of those, and one of those, and one of those…”)
The underground is easy to use. Look into getting a place through VBRO or Airbnb - its likely to be a lot cheaper than a hotel.
Four people get into the Tower of London for about $100 U.S. with a family ticket. Its possibly the easiest “castle” to see, although both Windsor and Hampton Court are easy to get to from London as well. Any of these will take about half a day - more or less depending on how detailed you get.
You can also consider a London Pass with travel. It would cover a bunch of attractions that have admission fees - including the Tower and Windsor, plus your transportation. Buy Now - London Pass Prices. If you do a bunch of free stuff, it won’t be a good deal, but it might not be a bad deal if you start looking at stuff that charges admission. Early June is not yet high tourist season in London, so you can get a lot done with a plan (I was just there in July, and you can’t move quick in July).
My wife and I got a London Pass when we were there last year, and we found it only provided a modest savings even after we dedicated several days to trying to hit all of the attractions included in the pass. For a long weekend, there are plenty of free attractions to keep a family occupied.
That’s sort of my thought as well, but the advantage would be that you’d be able to go on the fly without worrying about admission or transit costs. I think its a better deal for a week than two days though - with two days, you aren’t going to get enough done to make it worthwhile.
Its the sort of option that you don’t want to discover exists three days into your trip and think it would be a good idea
Do not waste time on the Tate Modern. It’s a steaming pile of something. The British Tate and National Gallery to me are must sees, as is the Horse Guards. London has tons of parks–you can’t go wrong with Hyde or St. James. Regent’s has the zoo and you can walk for a few miles along the canal down to Little Venice. The replica of the Mayflower (along the Thames) is free and kids love that stuff. The Thames boat ride to Greenwich and back is heaps of fun and the museums in Greenwich are free (except if you want to stand on the International Date Line, then it’s £7. I think the London Eye is the bee’s knees except it’s expensive.
www.walks.com has fun walks that are about 2 hours each and relatively inexpensive, like £9 for adults. Interesting and you learn a lot.
The Apex Temple Court Hotel is excellently located. It is mainly used during the week in related to the nearby High Court and Inns of Court so over the weekend you can get a very good rate (if you’re ‘few days’ happens to be the weekend). Restaurant a bit expensive for evening dining but otherwise first class. Go for the rooms on the upper levels that face into the courtyard for a really quiet night’s sleep - also good size for London hotel rooms (which can be barely bigger than the bed).
Location is near (walking distance) both St Paul’s Cathedral, Temple (Dan Brown connections if that is not old hat) and West End shopping (both Holborn and Covent Garden). Smaller museums nearby include Samuel Pepys’s house (the diarist/dictionary guy) and you have Lincoln Inn Fields nearby (otherwise admit a bit far from the classic West End parks to walk). Good bus and tube connections (tip - you the buses routes that go along the Thames if nothing else as far nicer than tube travel).
Imperial War Museum is short tube ride south of the river (Here Be Dragons - I’m a North Londoner!) as is the National Theatre Complex. Access to River buses too and I would recommend using one for a trip down to Greenwich for the National Naval Museum and the Observatory. How cool is standing with a foot in each hemisphere? There is also a museum there where they have Harrison’s Clocks (the guy that solves how to figure out Longitude using clocks and the sun - rather than the star maps that were the bookies favourites).
Also agree walking tours can be an excellent way to understand the city and more fun that that bloody open top bus thing all the tourists do.
