abcd1234

Me and my girlfriend arrive in London, this upcoming Saturday morning, at 11AM!! I have a airport transfer taking me to my hotel in Westminster. I was hoping you could take a looked at a tentative itinerary we came up with. I was hoping you could take a look at it and give us some suggestions. I know that this may be too much, or to little, and we are open to hear any reasonable suggestions. We are young, early 20s, just trying to enjoy London. We would like to see the major sites, maybe do some shopping, get to some nice pubs and just have an overall great time. We do not really care if we miss something, we just want to keep the trip as much fun as possible while enjoying the beautiful city and sites.

Saturday:
Check in out hotel.
Meeting a few friends to hit the main sites, Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Dowing Street, Cabinet War Rooms. Basically as much as we can do within a short time schedule, if we do not get it done we will go there Sunday.

Sunday: Central London, Soho/Mayfair
Piccadilly Circus, Regent Street, Grosvenor Square, Hyde Park, Marble Arch.

Monday: Covent Garden, St. Pauls Church, British Museum, Temple Chruch, St. Pauls Cathedral

Tuesday: Victoria Enbankment, London Eye, Globe Theatre, Tower Bridge, Tower of London.

Wednesday:
Fly out to Rome around 2:05. We are taking the Gatwick Express from Victoria, what time do you suggest we leave our hotel to get to our flight, check in, check the bags etc in time?

Also, I am a big Harry Potter fan and would love to take a Harry Potter tour if possible. Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks for all your help. We greatly appreciate it all!!

nytraveler

Well, Lonodn has a host of great museums and you've managed to miss all of them. At a minimum I would spend a little time nthe British Museum and head for the Library to see the Magna Carta (yes, one of the real ones).

jamikins

He does have the British Museum on Monday...

Kate

Sunday seems a bit uneventful, unless you plan to do a lot of shopping. Is there any great reason you want to see Grosvenor Square? It's just one of many residential squares in Mayfair, except this one is rather spoilt by the excessive security around the US embassy. And Piccadilly is realy just a busy traffic intersection. Also, if the weather is poor, it's all-day-outdoors day. Covent Garden is right by Soho, so you might want to tag that onto Sunday and give yourself more time to see the much bigger sights on Monday (British Museum, St Pauls etc).

jent103

You have a pretty packed itinerary, but you have grouped things pretty well for the most part.

If you have time/inclination on day one, you might move the London Eye to that evening. It's much closer to Westminster (across the river) than the Tower.

I don't think Sunday will really take you long - Piccadilly Circus is worth about five minutes (more if you want to do souvenir shopping or something); I'm not really sure what to see on Regent Street or Grosvenor Square. Unless you spend a long time in Hyde Park, I think you can probably do other things on Sunday. Maybe go to St Paul's, if opening hours allow, since your Monday is very packed (assuming you spend a decent amount of time in the British Museum).

You are missing a lot of museums, but maybe they're not your thing. Big deal. (If you haven't researched them, though, do check them out - London has some very cool ones. The V&A and National Portrait Gallery are my favorites.)

London Walks has three different Harry Potter walks - the Monday one might fit in your schedule:

http://www.walks.com/London_Walks_Ho...r/default.aspx

I haven't taken this specific walk, but have taken three others with the company and highly recommend them.

Check with your airline about how early they recommend you be at the airport. If it's three hours (not unusual for international flights), I'd probably leave my hotel around 9:30ish. But I like to have plenty of time.

texasbookworm

Suggest getting to Tower at opening and go straight to Crown Jewels. Allow 3-5 hours for your time there. The Tower Bridge Exhibition is ok--if you have 2for1 voucher, it is worth it, but otherwise I think it's a bit overpriced. But walking across the bridge is free. Then walk along the Southbank to the Globe and Victoria Embankment. Fit the Eye in if you really want to spend the money when you can when the weather is good.

Might think about going to St. Paul's on a day with decent weather and then walk to the Golden Gallery which puts you outside (on two levels) for spectacular views--you can take pics from there, but not inside.

You don't have Westminster Abbey on your list--it's WAY cool! Maybe switch Sunday and Tuesday and go to Westminster Abbey first thing Tuesday. Not sure what your idea is about your current Sunday plan--just strolling and people watching? That's fine--but there are lots of things open that you could go into (but not the churches).