This is quite new and you’re likely to be in the area anyway - an interesting hour or two: Handel and Hendrix. They were next door neighbours, a couple of hundred years apart. Both homes now open to the public.
It’s a circle, it doesn’t have a point.
The old church behind the station is worth finding if you go back - not to be confused with the new old St. Pancras church. Got some proper history; for example the now underground River Fleet used to run right by it on the way down to the Thames, and iirc Boudica got here or hereabouts before the Romans beat her back. I remember thinking it was all worth a gander: St Pancras Old Church - Wikipedia
It makes a nice contrast to all the 21-century transportation doings at and between Kings Cross and St Pancras, while the old wharehouses at the back are now super campuses for universities and Google.
I love London.
Most of the high points have already been mentioned, but one wasn’t that I found utterly fascinating. If you’ve any interest at all in your system of law, a visit to the Old Bailey is essential.
It’s been a few years, but when when I did it, we were permitted to sit in the gallery and observe a trial underway. Very proper, wigs and points of order, spectators expected to sit very quietly with their hands in their laps and no leaning over the balcony.
We weren’t there long, maybe half an hour. We happened to hit a pretty juicy case. I appreciated the opportunity immensely and learned a lot.
Take a Cuban cigar and a Sunday Times to Hampstead Heath and watch the children flying kites. Then stop at Camden Locks on the way home to eat amazing food at the Sunday Market.
Isn’t it the former Berner Street, site of the Stride murder that’s now a playground? The two murders took place on the same night.
No monument to Judas Priest yet a Ripper walk-along tour? For SHAME, England!
What Would You Do As A Tourist in London?
Take the train to Paris.
It was awfully tempting anyway last time I was there.
Otherwise I’d like to see more museums (went to the British Museum and Tower of London) and find some areas to take a walk. I’d like to see St. Paul’s Cathedral, The Royal Observatory in Greenwich, some old churches. A colleague and I took a train out to Windsor Castle. That was pretty neat.
Not sure about Berner Street. Mitre Square is definitely a play area for a daycare, though. It was only a couple blocks from my hotel. On my walking tour, our guide had the good taste to wait until the kids were inside before approaching the Square and giving her exposition. The spot where Eddowes was found is now marked by a tree - within the gated play area.
Jonesing for London today, which brought me back to this thread.
SanVito, I know people who would make Platform 9 3/4 their top priority if they visited the city. They’d miss the Tower, they’d miss the British Museum, they’d miss Parliament, they’d miss Westminster Abbey, but no way would they miss that platform.
I’ve lived in London my whole life and my work just moved to a new area half way up Gray’s Inn Road. We decided to do a walking tour to learn about the area and it was astounding. There’s so much history in London it’s insane. Every street seems to have a fascinating story. So take a walking tour (use London Walks as all their guides are properly qualified), and pick an area. You will not be disappointed.
Go to a pub with a beer engine, real ale, and pour a whole buncha pints down my neck. I brew my own beer, have made a few hundred gallons of real ale, and never experienced a pub somewhere in the UK.
I have in Hong Kong and the US, but so far not with a real beer engine pulling the pints.
Wait in line with rest of party at Hard Rock Cafe. Remember that we maybe had a coupon for the place back at the hotel and the line was so long I probably had time to get it. Get on the subway, go back to the hotel, find out the coupon was to Planet Hollywood, then get back on the subway and arrive after the party had already been seated.
And visit the Tower of London.
That’s what I remember. I’m sure there’s more to do, but we were only there for the day and it was the day after flying in.
People are weird
Indeed they are. Handel & Hendrix was a joy for me, but no one from my high school graduating class in rural Nebraska would cross the street to see it.
Fiendish Astronaut is dead on. I browsed London on Atlas Obscura the other night. It featured hundreds of sites (mostly just neighborhood curiousities, albeit intriguing ones) that would be Top 10 attractions in arugably any major city in the US, at least to the eclectically minded. The British Museum alone is this in microcosm. I vaguely remember walking past Lindow Man, which would be a highlight for most macabre folks like myself; I basically ignored the bloke in favor of the Queen of the Night and what’s left of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. I’ve been a vampire enthusiast most of my life, but Bram Stoker’s Lyceum Theatre and John Williams’ staked burial at crossroads (the latter just a short walk from my hotel) didn’t even register on my radar. Neither did the Methodist museum and John Wesley’s grave, also just up the road from where I stayed. (I’m quite the atheist now, but I was raised Methodist and my mother is very taken with the history of the faith.) I don’t really regret missing these attractions (what of my list above would I have displaced to take them in?), but they do underscore the astounding concentration of history and culture in the city. Ergo, I’m jonesing hard right now.
Samuel Johnson was right. When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.
I’m not that surprised, given that Platform 9 3/4 (which is just a brick wall with a sign saying “PLATFORM 9 3/4” at the top of it, and a cart with a suitcase and a birdcage on it all embedded into the wall so they look like they’re going through it) is right next to what I am pretty sure is the definitive Harry Potter gift shop. There’s usually a line to get your picture taken standing in front of it.
Nice thread. We’ll be going to London for the first time in late October. So, the British Museum, huh?
Yep, if you like that sort of thing.
I was prepared for a lot, but I didn’t get out of bed that morning thinking I’d see a chunk of one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Try to hit it on a Friday night when they’re open late. During normal hours, the Rosetta Stone is mobbed like the Beatles in 1964. On Friday night the crowd is thinner, so you can get a better look at things.
Also: don’t go to London with the intention of eating British food. Sure, look up a good fish and chip restaurant (I like Poppies) or a nice roast meal but London is arguably the best food city in the world because of its range of food from all over the world. You’ll find almost every cuisine you can think of at all price ranges. Use the Internet or an app to find the good ones, try to avoid the chain restaurants or anything on a major road in a touristy location. The food is one of the joys of London, but it’ll be Korean, Indian, Japanese, Brazilian etc etc fare that’ll fill you with joy.
Sad that only one of you mentioned the site I most anticipate of our upcoming London visit: HMS Belfast. But then, you’re not the naval history geek I am.
This is a great thread. Will have to see some of these sights.