Bloomsbury and Legal London

Top Reasons to Go

British Museum: From the Rosetta Stone to the Elgin Marbles, this is the golden hoard of booty bought or "borrowed" by centuries of the British Empire.

The Inns of Court: When you hear the word "lawyer," the immediate tendency is to yaum, grimace, or check your wallet, but these gorgeous residences—the heart of Legal London—embody Enlightenment.

Sir John Soane's Museum: This fascinating ex-abode of one of Britain's best architects is full of antiquities, gargoyle heads, and a plethora of chunks of buildings, not to mention the Sarcophagus of Seti I.

British Library: Few traces remain of the personalities that brought Bloomsbury such intellectual fame—Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey, E. M. Forster—so head to this great repository to see the Magna Carta, a Gutenberg Bible, and Shakespeare's First Folio.

Charles Dickens Museum: Pay your respects to the beloved author of Oliver Twist.