gooti and I will be headed off to London in a few weeks. We will have 6 full days there – we already have a few things we want to check out. But, I’m hoping that I can get some good suggestions for things we may be overlooking or don’t know about.
On our list at this point:
The Tate
Museum of Natural History
St Paul’s Cathedral
Greenwich
Jack the Ripper walking tour
Things as a “maybe” :
Madame-Tussauds
Stonehenge/Bath
London Eye
We will be staying with a friend there. At this point we are thinking we will not rent a car, although it isn’t out of the question.
Any doper advice on:[ul][li]Comments on things in our list already[/li][li]transportation (tube or just busses, or rent a car?)[/li][li]Cool spots to see[/li][li]Good Bars to hit[/li][li]A nice Hotel – We will probably get a hotel room for a night or two while there. My friend lives in the NE section of Town, Finsbury Park. I’d imagine we would want to stay somewhere sort of near by, although open to all good suggestions.[/li][li]Anything else we should know. [/li][/ul]
Thanks in advance!
I realize they’re typical tourist destinations, but I greatly enjoyed Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London. I suspect the boat cruise on the Thames would have been a richer, more rewarding experience had I not fallen asleep thanks to a wicked case of jet lag.
The hop on/off double decker bus is great for a first visit to London. I also second ** Fionn**'s advice. Stonehenge was a bit of a disappointment. Bath is beautiful. You can get around the city by just the tube. And trains can get you to Bath. I liked the Millennium Eye. Good views for photographs and videos. I really enjoyed a play at the new Shakespeare Globe Theatre.
If you’re going to be in London for 6 days, you might want to think about a weekly travel card. Its valid on buses, trains and trams, and you can get to most places with it. Traffic can be murder and finding parking is difficult.
Stonehenge would be a full day side trip and isn’t really worth it - by the time you reach the middle of nowhere from London it will be crawling with tourists. The bus tours of London can be quite good, however.
If you’re seeing the Natural History Museum, you could also see the Science Museum which is next door (the new Wellcome wing is quite impressive). There’s also the British Museum, but you could spend weeks in there happily.
Public transportation in London is - for all we Londoners complain about it - excellent. Buses and tubes are regular and serve many destinations, and are relatively safe and cheap. You can rent cars easily enough - EasyRentacar (aka EasyCar) are ubiquitous and cheap.
If the weather is nice Primrose Hill in north London (nearest tube: Chalk Farm) has great views of London. Hampstead is nice to wander round on a Sunday. Camden markets are usually packed but an entertaining venue for clothes, CDs and odd bits and pieces on weekends.
Can’t recommend hotels, with bars it really depends what kind you like - London has everything from down-to-earth pubs to gastropubs, cheap cocktail bars to expensive semi-nightclub bars.
I hope you know that the Tate has now split into two museums - Tate Britain (where the old Tate was - currently with a major Turner exhibition) and Tate Modern (in an old power station near Southwark Tube). Both are well worth a visit…
For myself, I would second Westminster Abbey, and advise skipping Madame Taussauds. Also take in some of London’s parks (Regents, St James, Hyde)
–stop at a bookstore and get a London A-Z. Pocket-sized, has maps of every last tiny side street in the city.
–stop at a newsstand, get a Time Out magazine. Everything you ever wanted to know about what goes on in London. Bars, restaurants, nightclubs, theatre. etc. etc. etc.
And definitely see a play somewhere. Not necessarily the West End, often you can find really good stuff in small, out-of-the-way theatres (this is where Time Out comes in handy). And theatre is CHEAP over there. Nearly everything is about 8-10 quid.
Absolutely second these points. A-Z is indispensible, Time Out also has cheap vouchers. Great suggestion. Also second tirial’s point about travelcards - a seven-day Zone 1 & 2 Visitor Travelcard [zones 1 and 2 will cover 99% of the places you are likely to see in London, and you can buy cheap extension tickets for longer journeys] can be bought abroad and is valid on buses, night buses, tubes, trains (excluding the Heathrow Express), and I think offers discounts on commuter river boats - £19.50 seems to be the current price for 7 days.
Note: you can’t buy Visitor Travelcards in London. If you’re short on time, wait until you get here and just buy a Zone 1 & 2 Weekly Travelcard, which will be around £21 (I think; I just get buses).
The Millennium Eye is an absolute must. Tussauds is overrated. My personal favourites are the Natural History and British Museums. The British Library is also surprisinlgy interesting but King’s Cross station (nearest Tube) is like some post-Apocalyptic disaster. You have to go to Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square because all tourists do. It’s compulsory. You do not qualify as having visited London unles you do.
Other options - the Tower of London and the Crown Jewels. The Jewels are surreal. Remember all those old pirate movies where the chests of loot are opened and improbably huge fake gems and jewels are “liberated”? Well, the Crown Jewels have gems that are improbably huge but are not fake.
Travel on the Tube and buses and get a weekly travel card for the duration. If you must go by cab only take a black (licensed) cab. They are teh only cabs that can legally be hailed in the street. They are expensive but you get what you pay for. Unlicensed minicabs will illegally tout for business in the centre of the city and are cheaper but less likely to know the way to your hotel.
Don’t hire a car unless you’re planning on going outside of London. Complete waste of money - nowhere to park and too easy to get lost.
Enjoy the city. It has absolutely everything - good, bad and in between.
If you happen to be staying in Finsbury Park you’re on a winner. Its on two sepatate tube ( = metro = London Underground, the transport system, not the political movement) lines which will have you in the centre of town in less than 20 minutes. The area itself will never be an area of outstanding natural beauty, although you do get a nice panorama of the city from the top of the hill in the middle of finsbury park itself. I wouldn’t choose to go drinking in Finsbury Park, there’s nothing wrong with the pubs, there’s just nothing particularly right about them either. There are however a number of good restaurants within 10 minutes of Finsbury Park Station. If you walk down the Blackstock Road there is an excellent vietnamese restaurant called Au Lac. Also on the Blackstock road there is a pretty good cheap’n’cheerful Mexican place called Exquisite. Up the Stroud Green Road is a very good Thai restaurant called Cats.
As for stuff to do - i agree with all the suggestions above, including don’t go Madame Tussaud’s. If you’re up for a little excursion from town, there are a number of Stately Homes in the counties surrounding London that are worth a visit, Hampton Court, for example. I would stress again, don’t hire a car. Parking is extremely difficult and wickedly expensive in the centre.
I thoroughly enjoyed the Jack the Ripper walk that i went on. A few slightly less well known attractions of london follow:
I second the Hampton Court Palace idea - i live relatively near it and its absolutely amazing. it WILL take you a whole day though…
and definitely don’t bother with the car. get the travelcard and use tube/bus etc.
BUT
be aware that from about 7:30 - 9:30am and 4:30 to 6:30pm these are ridiculously busy - so you should probably plan to avoid travelling at all during those times (or stick to cabs) - otherwise it won’t be a pleasant experience. It gets VERY busy and people can get cranky and unhelpful.
Missed the bit about you staying in Finsbury Park. For hotels, there is a row of them along Seven Sisters Road, opposite the park itself (runs east from Finsbury Park station). For excellent eating and drinking, take the Tube to Highbury & Islington and stroll down Upper Street towards the Angel. Once you’re past the grotty bits near Highbury Corner, it’s a great place for eats and drinks.
Oh, and if you’re walking down Upper Street around 5:15 to 5:30 pm on a weekday evening, wave at every 43 bus coming up from the Angel. If I see you, I’ll wave back.
Eh, the 43 just isn’t in the same league as the 168.
If you’re going to be in London soon, the Body Worlds exhibition is on until the end of this month and may be interesting.
The National Gallery is also a cheap option for sightseeing, as is the House of Commons (if it’s open and you get there early for the public viewing gallery). If you plan to do the Eye booking in advance might be a good idea as the queues can get quite long. You could also try day trips to Oxford or Cambridge (not sure about the former but the latter is only around 45 minutes from London by train).
I second most of what everyone’s already said and I’ll add another vote for the Tower of London -you really can’t miss that and it’s well worth the visit.
Another suggestion is London Walks . They do walking tours of various parts of London. Each walk is about 2 - 2.5 hours and they’re GREAT. I can’t recommend them enough. The last time I was in London with my mother, we went on four of them in a week: 2 pub walks - along the Thames and in Kensington, a walk through “Legal London” - the Inns of Court, and Secret London -near St. Paul’s Cathedral (which is, itself, worth visiting as well). The tour guides are wonderful and really know their stuff. They do a Ripper walk as well and I’ve heard it’s one of the best. They also do some all-day walks (an all day trip with a walk in the morning and a walk in the afternoon) to Oxford/Cotswolds, Stonehenge/Salisbury, Canterbury/Leeds Castle and others. Look at their Web site for full descriptions.
I’m going to London again at the end of October and I am already trying do decide how many London Walks I can fit in and which ones to choose (there are about 6 that I’m interested in…)
