15 hour stopover in London: suggestions?
 

I'm off to Ethiopia on Friday - but will have a 15-hour stopover in London. What should I do with the time? (Outside of grabbing a pint or two!) Suggestions welcome!

What time do you arrive? You'll need different suggestions for noon arrival compared with midnight!
Bear in mind you will have to be back at the airport about 3 hours before your flight.

Sassy_cat is right. w/o knowing <i>which</i> 15 hours of a day it is impossible to give suggestions/advice.

I arrive at 6:30 am - and leave at 9:30 pm.

What about SoHo? The one issue is that I am packing light for Ethiopia: just carry on if i can swing it, so I can't buy much in London.

Question #2 - are you arriving and departing out of the same airports?

You really have from 9 am to about 5:30 or 6 in London, what will you do in Soho, walk around for eight hours?

Since I've no idea what your interests are it's difficult to suggest what to do. The tube from Heathrow takes about 40/45 minutes to the centre of London and Piccadilly which puts you right next to Soho. But what else are you thinking about doing? Interests?

You'll have about 10 hours to spend in London not 15. It'll likely take a couple of hours or close to it by the time you disembark, go through passport control and actually get into London. You'll need anouther 3+ hours to return to airport, go through check-in, security etc.

Here's an idea. If you know London well considering sampling what Ethiopian treasures there might be there. London is such a cosmopolitan city. Both the British museum and Victoria and Albert Museum have sections. See http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore...and_egypt.aspx and http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/article...from-ethiopia/ Try an Ethiopian restaurant. http://www.timeout.com/london/restau...ue/2:874/addis Ask there about special things to check out when you get finally get there. It's a nice way in an English speaking environment to get psyched for your arrival.

You probably don't want to buy much in London anyway.

I like laurie_ann's suggestion to try Ethiopian food and sample some culture but maybe you'd prefer to eat some fish and chips or get a curry to offset those pints you suggested grabbing.

If you've not been to London before and the weather is good then I'd suggest you take a ride (flight) on the London Eye, visit an art gallery or museum for an hour or two (depending on your interests), eat lunch and get outside and walk to offset jet lag, (either stroll around a park, walk along the Thames or window shop if you prefer). This can easily be accomplished within 8 hours of leaving Heathrow.

Give yourself plenty of time to get back to the airport.