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Help me plan a London trip!
Akilae
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
The missus and I are looking into going to London for the holidays. We're New Yorkers and are familiar with most metropolises, but London, and the greater London area, offer almost overwhelming choices. Does anybody have any suggestions on what to eat, what to see, or even which areas to stay?
A few preliminary thoughts we have right now:
The Usual Tourist stuff (Buckingham, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, etc...)
British Museum, Victoria & Albert
221B Baker St. (We're both Sherlock Holmes fans, so...)
We have in mind to visit a henge as a day trip. Stonehenge supposedly isn't that great. Does anybody know a better henge?
A few preliminary thoughts we have right now:
The Usual Tourist stuff (Buckingham, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, etc...)
British Museum, Victoria & Albert
221B Baker St. (We're both Sherlock Holmes fans, so...)
We have in mind to visit a henge as a day trip. Stonehenge supposedly isn't that great. Does anybody know a better henge?
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Still a bit of a trek, though
The only downside to it is just that you have to pay attention when you're waiting for the guide, since sometimes the meet point isn't very clear and because you just show up and pay on the spot.
If you are into food, Burough Market. Super busy and popular but can get some really great street food. Theres an amazing cheese shop there called Neals Yard Dairy if you are into cheese.
Kew Gardens/Royal Botanical Gardens is really pretty.
London Eye - I've never actually done it, but apparently it is worth it for the view. Book tickets ahead of time
Just walking around
- There is a WW2 era cruiser, the HMS Belfast, on the river which one can visit. If you're interest in naval history and/or engineering it is worth going and it is just in the city center.
- There are amazing book shops in London.
- Public transport is pretty decent in London and it is a big city so you will need it to get around. Make sure to get the Visitor Oyster card instead of buying individual tickets as it like half price that way.
- Make sure you know your pin-numbers for the credit cards as signatures aren't used in many places.
- Note that several airports are listed as London airports, but not all of them are really that close to London and transport to and from airports can consume both time and money. Luton is one of those airports and it is undergoing some big changes and it can be chaos, so best avoid that one.
PS. British Museum deserves at least a full day.
As in Christmas season?? Because hoo boy, Christmas markets. Since you're going to be on the south bank at some point anyway, there is a fun one there – I would recommend maybe doing the Tate or Globe Theatre or whatever during the day, then at nightfall head to the southbank winter market. The bar at the BFI right there also isn't bad if it looks like something good is playing, although it's definitely a bar and not a pub.
I don't know if you're into shopping, but if you're doing some time at the national gallery, you can walk right down to Fortnum & Mason which is basically just the best fancy food shop for all your tea and snack needs (and Christmas crackers! and figgy pudding!!). It's also right next to the Piccadilly Market in the churchyard at St. James, which isn't huge or crazy but I feel like a lot of the best gifts I've brought back for family members have been from things like this market. And Liberty of London is just a hop north, which probably puts every US department store you've ever been to to the deepest shame.
BlindZenDriver is right about the book stores – just, every time you see a little book shop, go inside. You will not be disappointed (until you go to check your bags for the flight home and they weight like 90lbs). And as far as British Museum being a day: specifically look up ahead of time what collections they have. Honestly, you will probably get tired out before you see everything so definitely strategize.
And, depending very much on who exactly you guys are, my biggest London regret has always been not finding time to go to the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons. Some day!
Also, it's might be touristy, but definitely do go to Rules. It's London's oldest restaurant, and it is genuinely quite tasty and not very expensive (not cheap, but not crazy expensive – though if you go, you probably will want to wear something that doesn't scream "American tourist" since it's the quite literally the kind of place they put in James Bond movies and Downton Abbey and shit). Definitely the kind of place you want to treat yourself to for a lovely holiday meal.
Alright, we have currently on the books:
-City of London & Westminster
-British Museum. Gotta see what the Brits stole from the Parthenon.
-HMS Belfast
-The Globe
-Shopping. I'm not, but the missus is. Fortnum & Mason is a must for the tea. We're torn on Harrods just to see all the moneyed people. Probably not since we're short on time as it is.
-Avebury day trip
-I really, really want to do Southampton for a whole day. The Victory! The Mary Rose! The Warrior! Maybe I should just skip the Belfast...
-Still debating between Oxford and Cambridge, either/or or neither.
-Rules does look interesting, we will need to go for a bite.
You can pick up a pre-paid chip & PIN credit card from the currency exchange at the airport before leaving the US and I really recommend this. You'll lose some money on the affair but I had a couple of businesses flat out refuse to take a US-style card.
So much this. If you're able, then London begs to be walked.
I think that my ideal day of walking in London, seeing it all for the first time, would go something like this:
That walk leaves out far, far more than it includes, but I think it does a good job of hitting the biggest things things and a few of the less obvious cool things.
As previously mentioned, walking is great, but for when you don't want to, just get an Oyster Card and pre-load it. It's good for both metro and busses, and there's a daily max, and at the end of the trip, you can turn it in for the balance (trying to remember where, I think it was at the station by the airport for me).
British museum is the most impressive collection of stolen goods over been impressed/been bothered by how I was impressed by.
Look at what you want to do, and weigh getting a city card off that. London's wasn't a good deal for me, but you never know.
Shakespeare's Theater tour was cool, didn't see a show, but I imagine it'd be real cold at Christmas.
I'd also ask a local to recommend a pub and grab some cider, too. Also, get some Indian food while you're there.
One thing that nobody's yet suggested that we did last year is a canal tour -- it's pretty relaxing, it's informative about things I'd never known before, and it gets you to Camden (which is worth seeing) in a pleasant way. (that said, winter might make this less fun if it's grey and rainy).
The Science museum is worth seeing, and it's just down the road from the V&A and the Natural History Museum. The British Library is another pretty great place with Significant Artifacts in there; a Gutenberg Bible, Leonardo da Vinci's notebook, a Magna Carta, Handel's Messiah (Handel's copy), Scott's final "for god's sake look after our people" diary entry, etc.
Oxford and/or Cambridge might be worth a day trip if there's something you especially wanted to see (the Bodleian/Ashmolean in Oxford, the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge, for instance), but just to wander around and look at old buildings there's plenty of that in London.
The Hunterian is fantastic museum if you're into biology/medicine/jars, its not that big though (only a few hours) but is free.
For food I recommend the historical pubs you get out towards the east of centre - places like the Mayflower in Rotherhilde (yes its built on the wharf the Mayflower departed from, but the pub came some decades after so its only 3.5 centuries old), or the Seven Stars, the The Black Friar, or the Cittie of Yorke tend to have amazing food and atmosphere albeit being a bit crowded at times - but being there over christmas might actually be a benefit near the City as so many people will be away.
Ooo yeah, taxi's will be pretty astronomical as well. No trains from the airports either. If you're coming in late on christmas day it might be easier to just get an airport hotel and travel the following morning (though Boxing Day is reduced service), unless you know anyone well enough to volunteer to come pick you up.
This sounds a pretty ideal route for what we had in mind. Thanks for the turn-by-turn!
Thanks for the suggestions! Free toilet tips are much appreciated.
I want to see the Cutty Sark, but the missus is already giving me dirty looks about overindulging in my Aubrey–Maturin related interests. Portsmouth with its all-ships-in-one-destination was the easier sell. Otherwise I'd also be swinging by the Imperial War Museum...
We are trying to hit up a few good pubs and have cellar temperatured beer. Not exactly The World's End style, but it seems the British thing to do.
Will do for the pubs!
We'll probably bite the bullet and pay up for the Christmas taxi, seeing how our hotel reservation is none-changeable and non-refundable.
On the flipside, I suppose this means London will be deserted for Christmas and Boxing Days, so we won't have to fight it out with the crowd!
If you're liking ships like Cutty Sark, the replica of the Golden Hind between Tower Bridge and Shakespeare's Theatre can be incorporated into Shadowhope's walk (just do a few hundred meter detour when you leave the Shard)
Deserted and closed on Christmas day! You might find it difficult to find a restaurant that is open and selling things other than Christmas dinner (pre-booked.) Book a Christmas dinner in advance and celebrate the season with the Londoners too lazy to cook at home! 100% of the attractions will be closed. A good day for a long walk in the park!
Everything will be open for Boxing Day. It's the UK equivalent of the Black Friday sales. Attractions will still be closed, but the shops and restaurants will be mobbed.
How early are Christmas dinners available for reservations? We've been looking at some places, like Rules, and there's nothing available. Is it too early, or are we too late?
Brits take Christmas dinner *very* seriously, it's like Thanksgiving for Americans.
I lived in Oxford all of my life, apart from the 3 years I studied Chemistry at Southampton, so if you've any questions...
It is very easy to get to Oxford from London, both in terms of trains (3-4 every hour almost depending on the route you take) and buses (2-4 every hour, and runs late into the night).
One of the trains takes you past Bicester Village (it isn't a village before you ask) where they sell a tonne of designer stuff at discounted prices. It is incredibly popular (I'm pretty sure the station announces itself in Chinese) if you want to do some shopping, which you might want to do at Christmas and the £ being relatively weak. Plus, they'll probably tart the place up for that time of the year.
There's lots of nice pubs in Oxford as well.
http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/ is the portal I use. Pro-Tip: ifyou're booking well in advance, always check the "other fares available". Sometimes you can get first class tickets for only a little more, which is well worth it on Intercity journeys.
That's good to know! I was actually looking into this for tickets to Portsmouth and Salisbury, and saw some comments says there's little difference between buying prior and buying at the ticket window. Now I know better!
Sadly, we might cut Oxbridge from the itinerary. Too little time, and there are other spots we really want to hit. Bicester doesn't sound like it'll be our particular spot of tea, being pretty much an outlet and all.
It's a pity though, I had wanted to see the Bodleian Library, but Victory and Mary Rose win out!
I can certainly understand not having the time to stray outside of London, although I'll note that if it does snow in Oxford, it basically looks like Hogwarts / Narnia (conversely in the Summer, its like Wind in the Willows). That said, the UK struggles to cope with any weather that isn't grey / overcast, so if it snowed, you probably couldn't get to Oxford.
The one disadvantage of there being so much to see / do in London, is that people don't get the chance to see other places that you could easily have a lovely time at. Bristol / Bath / Oxbridge / Somerset / Cornwall / The New Forest / Lake District / etc...
There's a lovely French Professor working down the corridor from me, and she absolutely loves the UK, because you can travel really short distances and get completely different landscapes (her favourite place to holiday is Cornwall).
Anyway, have a lovely time in London!
If I remember correctly, I don't think you can get _into_ the Bodleian without a card, and definitely not the stacks / long-term storage -- so you can look at the buildings from the outside, but that's about it unless you're a student at Oxford (or possibly if you can get some sort of cross-institution access). If you want famous books, the British Library is in London and actively visitor-friendly.
The Bodleian library is absolutely vast and is situated in loads of places above ground (a significant chunk is underground, and thus joins a bunch of the buildings all up). They've just revamped one of the buildings (I think this took 2 years to do) to be visitor friendly, and they have a bunch of tours that take you around and show you bits (including the Radcliffe Camera).
Their website goes into more detail.
There might be areas you can only get in with an Oxford University card, but there's still a lot to see anyway. You've also got the Blackwell's bookshop right next to it, with the famous Norrington room, plus there's an absolute tonne of Colleges within 5-15 mins walking distance (Christ Church, St Johns, New College, Trinity, Magdalen, etc..), in addition to some old pubs, like the Turf, or the Eagle and Child (also known as the Bird n Brat) where C. S. Lewis would heckle Tolkien about elves.
The walking route suggested by @Shadowhope was terrific. We split it up over several days since the holiday schedule meant a few things were easier to hit on different days. The lack of public transportation on the first day, and an unwillingness to hail a cab (not that there were many available!) meant we walked around the city and went on the London Walks Christmas walk, staying on our feet for over 8 hours. Oxford Street during Boxing Day was quite a thing, and the crowd to get into Selfridge's was an awesome sight. Portsmouth was interesting for the naval history, and the sheer lack of foreign tourists. Stonehenge was... pretty much what everybody else says about it.
We ended up missing out on Tower of London. The crowd to get in was crazy. Instead, we spent time at St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, and Shakespeare's Globe.
Some random observations:
-Brits take Christmas seriously. Quite a few restaurants we wanted to try out were closed from the 24th all the way into the new year.
-Coming from NYC, London's underground was an amusing comparison. There were stations that were so over capacity that the crowd to get on the trains was up the escalator, out the station, down the block, and around the corner. Track work and signal failures also seemed to occur with relative frequency. When things worked, they were swell, with trains one minute apart. When things failed... they seemed to fail in a rather serious manner.
-Londoners give no fucks when crossing streets, even worse than New York jaywalkers.
-London winter weather is every bit as dreary as rumored.
-Speaking of London winters, there are places on the internet that claim London's indoors and underground trains are overheated during winter. After experiencing it for ourselves, we felt New York interiors were downright tropical by comparison.
-Canned pre-mixed cocktails are civilization.
They do huge amounts of track work during the holiday period. After all no one will be using it because...