I’m heading to England for 10 days of a solo trip in May. Here’s some ideas I’ve come up during my research. Comments and/or suggestions are welcome. Suggestions of good pubs with good beer are especially welcome.
Liverpool- 3 days including arrival day. Staying in Liverpool city centre.
National Trust tour of John Lennon and Paul McCartney houses.
The Beatles Story
Magical Mystery Tour bus tour
Tate Liverpool
Liverpool Anglican Cathedral ( maybe just for a service)
Liverpool One ( probably to eat and just look around)
Casbah coffee club (not sure on this one, as I know it’s not particularly convenient)
Manchester, 2 days, staying near Manchester Picadilly train station.
I thought I’d try to tour one of the football stadiums, there won’t be matches while I’m there. Not sure which one.
Chetham’s Library
Manchester Art Gallery
People’s Musuem
London, 4 days, including departure day, staying near Shoreditch.
Tour of Houses of Parliament (I’ll be there on a Saturday so I can prebook this)
Beatles Walk from Walks.com
British Museum
National Gallery
At least one show, probably Wicked
Westminster Abbey
Obviously, in London, there are enough attractions to fill a month. But feel free to suggest your favorites
In London take a river boat from Westminster to Greenwich. The boat in itself is a fun way to see the city. At Greenwich is the Royal Observatory through which the Prime Meridian runs and is the place where Greenwich Mean Time was established. It is a beautiful building, has great views, and houses a museum dedicated to astronomy and time-keeping. There is also the National Maritime Museum and Cutty Sark nearby.
Here are some things I’ve enjoyed in London, your tastes may vary.
-Imperial War Museum (near Greenwich Observatory and the Cutty Sark)
-Army Museum in Chelsea
-Tate Modern (unless you really like modern/contemporary art, which I do, this one is really about the building–so I’d skip if you have limited time)
-Wellington’s house (not just for history buffs–there are some amazing things like his 100-and-umpty piece silver service, gift of the grateful nation of Portugal)
-Sir John Soane’s house–the art, ephemera, and natural history collection of an eccentric, crammed into his very-large-but-not-large-enough house
-Victoria & Albert–design as opposed to pure art. Clothing, furniture, everyday items, plus some oddball stuff like a mechanical “toy” made for the Tipu Sultan that shows a British soldier being eaten by a tiger
-Walk west along the south bank from Tower Bridge, looking in on Southwark Cathedral and the farmer’s market if you’re there on the right day, ending up at the Globe Theater for a tour. The Globe has a great little museum as well and demonstrations of stage swordfighting, how men dressed as women, and other bits of stagecraft.
-The Puppet Barge in Marylebone (I think that’s the right neighborhood) offers shows on a converted canal boat for both children and adults, though as an adult I enjoyed the kids’ shows too. Good pub right there at the bridge. Plus you can stroll along the canals and see old barges now fitted up as houseboats.
-Kew Gardens is nice if the weather is, especially if there’s a bank holiday with special events
-Hampstead Heath is a nice big park to stroll in, with just about the only vista of London you’ll get besides the London Eye (never been on the Eye but seems like a good idea)
-Tower of London is great, perhaps an all-day kind of affair because there are multiple things to see and the lines can be long, but it’s a medieval castle/jail/torture chamber/zoo/etc! There are real Beefeaters–they wear the garb, but these are not re-enactors, they are retired military who live in cottages on the grounds. You can peek in the windows of their cottages and see laundry drying in the kitchen, then turn around to see the place of execution on Tower Green.
-Shows–these are much more affordable than in the US. By all means see Wicked if you want to, but there are loads of options from Shakespeare to musicals to comedy to contemporary drama, consider seeing something you wouldn’t or couldn’t in the US.
Surely you mean the National Maritime Museum? The Imperial War Museum is quite a distance from Greenwich, though well worth a visit if you are at all interested in tanks and fighter planes.
I’m not sure it would be worth touring the City of Manchester stadium myself, unless you are a supporter of them. It’s a relatively modern, not especially interesting stadium with little in the way of history behind it. I would go for Old Trafford instead, I’m not a United fan but have done the tour and it was pretty good.
Your other three choices are pretty good. Right by Chethams is the National Football Museum if you are at all interested in the sport. If you are heading down to the Peoples Museum, that end of Manchester also holds the John Rylands Library and the Museum of Science and Industry, both of which are well worth visiting if you are in the city. I’ll stick links below.
For a good pint, if you are up near Piccadilly station, it’s a short walk into the Northern Quarter where pretty much all the best pubs in the centre are.
Sounds like you’ve already got a decent itinerary for London, so I’ll just throw in a few suggestions to fill in any odd bits of time you might have
Take a walk over Waterloo Bridge after dark. The view is, in my opinion, one of the best in London
Take a walk over the Millenium Footbridge, it links the City of London to Bankside, and you’ll have a great view of St. Paul’s one side, and could maybe take in a stroll round The Globe and Tate Modern on the south side
Have a pint in Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese off Fleet Street. Very Dickensian, and used to be my watering-hole when I worked nearby
If you are at all a fan of rugby, take the short train ride from London to Twickenham and tour the stadium, then have a pint at the William Webb Ellis in town. Smashing!
The IWM also has exhibits that aren’t just gear-driven–they have one about life during the Blitz and I think something about the Holocaust. But it’s been a while…which is why I made the geographical mistake.
Serious drinkers in Manchester head for Stockport, but I wouldn’t recommend this as a tourist destination. If you’re in the city centre then http://britons-protection.com/ is a great place to drink, although the ale is not distinguished. [By the large exhibition centre near Deansgate]
Best real alehouse I know of in the centre is http://www.marblebeers.com/marble-arch/, although it’s a bit out on a limb [Oldham Rd, heading to bandit country]
If you’re feeling homesick for excessively alcoholic, over-hopped ale served by a twat with a beard, then I can recommend http://www.portstreetbeerhouse.co.uk/ in the Northern Quarter.
Good choice of Manchester pubs, but I’d swap Britons Protection for Peveril of the Peak. And close to MOSI there’s the Knott Bar which is the current local CAMRA pub of the year.
For beardy twatness in London you’ve got The Rake at Borough Market.
I’ll skip over London and add to the Liverpool advice.
If you’re interested in Manchester Art Gallery, then the Walker Art Gallery in central Liverpool is very similar in scale, style and quality. It’s right next to the “World Museum”, but that’s a bit hit and miss. However, it’s also directly across the road from Saint George’s Hall, which is one of the really great bits of architecture in the city.
The Anglican cathedral is gobsmacking, but there’s not a lot to see inside. Meanwhile, the famous occupant of the graveyard in the old quarry below is William Huskisson, the world’s first railway fatality. It would then seem remiss not to stroll along Hope Street to see “Paddy’s Wigwam”, the Catholic equivalent. That takes you past Philharmonic Hall, where you can easily pop in to see the memorial plaque in the lobby to the band on the Titanic.
That’s across the road from the Philharmonic, already linked to above, which is the city’s truly must-see pub (to the point where there are annual all-gender special tours of the Gents toilets). This whole area up the hill is thick with pubs, varying from hidden gems to heaving meat markets - the university and John Moore’s poly are hereabouts. The one I’d point tourists to would otherwise probably be Ye Crack; close to the arts college, it’s the one with the obvious “John and Paul drank in here” tradition. Also worth noting that much of the surviving Georgian architecture in the city is up hereabouts as well.
If you’re interested in 19th century British art, then the third great collection of it in the area is the Lady Lever Gallery, an easy train trip away in Port Sunlight, across the river. That’s on the line out to Chester, which is an obvious day-trip if you’ve got the time. Pretty walled cathedral city with Roman remains and lots of old buildings.
I think you’ve got a pretty good itinerary there, but since you’re staying near Shoreditch I’d recommend [urlhttp://www.dennissevershouse.co.uk/]Denis Sever’s House too - you should have time with the other things you have planned.
are hereabouts. The one I’d point tourists to would otherwise probably be