Due to the inefficiency of frequent flyer tickets, my wife and I arrive in London at &
7:00 pm on a Thursday and have a Fiday 5:45 pm flight back to the states. At least we won't be jet lagged. We haven't been to London in 20 years so I will ask the question; what can we do/see in London for less than 24 hours? Thanks.

This is a tough one. What month? Have a nice dinner (in the West End, wander around a bit)/breakfast/brunch/lunch, wander in a park. If you have an area you haven't seen in previous visits, you could go there. Visit a market - Friday morning has Borough, Spitalfields, Camden markets on.

Oh and you could also go to Daunt Books (Marylebone and other branches too) too buy books for your further travels. Or if you like second hand bookshops, Charing Cross Road. Covent Garden also has a market on weekends.

Do the hop on hop off bus and just see the sights .Have a nice lunch in a pub.

20 years is a long time might see some new sights and some old ones you had forgotten and might enjoy seeing again.

we will be there in the first week of July 2011. It really blows my mind that 10months in advance and I am having trouble with frequent flyer reservations. Thanks

Joeyrm, I second Venezia123's suggestion about the Big Red Bus Tour. Tickets are good for 24 hours and also include an escorted walk (didn't take it) and a cruise of the Thames. I was in London in late June for 2 days and it worked well for me. I stopped and went into the Churchill War Rooms, across to tour the Thames, and then hopped back on back to my hotel at Marble Arch. Commentary is quirkly but informative. Happened to be perfect weather so I enjoyed checking out the scene from the top of the bus. London looked spiffy that day - getting ready for the 2012 Olympics we were told.

Yes - the tickets are "good" for 24 hours - but unfortunately they don't run over night. So you couldn't start the bus tour until the next morning. Since you have to leave central London for LHR by 2 or 2:30 PM at the latest, you really won't get much use out of the Big Bus.

I'd plan on having a nice late-ish dinner, walk around Covent garden and/or the Southbank, a bit of a pub crawl. Then the next morning pick one major site you want to see. Could be the British Museum, or National Gallery, or St Paul's, or Westminster Abbey and the Eye -- whatever you'd like to see. Early lunch, retrieve your bags from the hotel and dash to LHR.

We've just had a really good weekend in London, perhaps you could try:

The Houses of Parliament Tour (book in advance online)
Tate Modern
Globe Theatre Tour
London Eye

All of these are within strolling distance of each other.

The Imperial War Museum is excellent.
A Thames cruise to Greenwich.
Samuel Johnson's House.
The hop on hop off bus is great.
Westminster Abbey (do the guided tour).
Tower of London.
Have a pint or two of ale or lager.
If you decide on the London Eye, you can book online before you go and save a long wait in a queue.

Rather than carrying your bags to and from the airport for the day, you can leave them there for a fee (of course) and just take what you want for the day. Then you can get going a lot easier.

It does somewhat depend upon where you will stay (including the decision about what to do with luggage). You will need to be at airport (LHR?) several hours ahead--I'd urge 3, so with travel time from ?? you might really only have until about 1:30 or so. That leaves time for perhaps one major site and a nice walk and lunch. If you haven't been to the Tower or don't remember it, that's a great morning. Then walk around the Tower Bridge area. Lots of nice photo ops. Or Westminster Abbey and then around that area for lots of nice photo ops. I'd rather "do" one thing to remember well and do a bit of strolling rather than "do" a bus thing or try to cram in trotting by several sites. As peterSale says above the Imperial War Museum and Greenwich are great but rather time-consuming to get to, so I wouldn't think they'd work too well in your limited time.

The nice thing is that we will not have our heavy bags since they will be checked through from the connecting flight. A small carry on will do it. WHat area would you suggest that we get a hotel in. Want to be near the tube from the airport and walking distance to sightseeing areas. Whew, talk about a whirlwind tour.

Bloomsbury/Russell Square is one possibility.

You really can stay just about anywhere in central London - and no hotel is walking distance to more than a handful of sites.

For your very short stay -- I'd do it sort of backwards -- decide which one major site you want to visit on Friday and pick your hotel based on that location. Whatever site it is - tell us your budget and we can recommend good hotels convenient to that attraction and to LHR.

That will make it easy to leave your hand luggage w/ the hotel and get back to it efficiently.

W/ your flight times you really won't have time for the Big Bus tour or the Tower of London -- but most of the other major sites can work.

So . . . What <u>one</u> place do you really really REALLY want to visit?