CRITIQUE OUR LONDON ITINERARY
Mar 20th, 2005, 07:06 AM
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CRITIQUE OUR LONDON ITINERARY
Hi We leave in two days for London, THANKS for all your help. Please let me know if the following sounds do-able, too much, too little, or ?? I wrote this once, and in the middle of editing it, GONE, so hope this is not on here twice. We're a midddle aged-couple & teen son. *Arrive LHR Wednesday 07:15, checkin our luggage at SW7 hotel by 11:00, wander around, find groceries, check-in, have lunch in the room & rest, London Walks Along The Thames Pub Walk. **Thursday: Harrod's, wandering around, Old Westminster London Walks 14:00 and stay at Cabinet War Rooms. Dinner, then British Museum (18:00-20:00), wander. **Good Friday: DH has a race in Hyde Park along the Serpentine, so enjoy the park till 13:00, then shopping for food & souvenirs at Fortnum & Mason or Marks & Spencer (which?), hotel so DH can shower, Afternoon Tea somewhere (ideas in SW7?), and then theater ("regular or Reduced Shakespeare). **Saturday: Move to hotel in SW1 (don't ask, poor planning), leave our luggage there early & fly London Eye 11:30, then Tower of London, lunch, train to Windsor. **Easter Sunday: St Paul's services, river taxi, Brighton, evening walk along Thames described on this site. **Monday: back to LHR 07:00. Now that I've typed it, does not look like enough! So, any sugegstions would be appreciated. Thanks Sue
Mar 20th, 2005, 07:41 AM
#2
Thursday: Why dinner so early (4 or 5 pm)? I'd grab a snack after the CWR and spend more time looking around the British Museum. The cafes at the Brit Mus are very plesant. Then you can have a proper dinner at an hour more people in London are dining. Or does it have something to do with your husband racing the next day?
Friday: F&M is an upscale department store with a very nice food hall and probably a better choice for gift food items. M&S is a middling department store with a very large supermarket. If you do go with M&S, the one on Oxford Street is one of the biggest.
Saturday: Sorry to say, it looks nearly impossible. You're in London on a holiday weekend so you ought to expect larger than normal crowds at the sights you're planning to see. This is going to hamper your already overcrowded schedule. Tower of London requires at least two and probably 4 or more hours to see, especially if you take one of the highly recommended Beefeater Tours. Then you've got to get lunch, get to Waterloo and grab a train to Windsor which is really a minimum half day trip (including travel). Don't schedule the London Eye unless you know the weather is clear, otherwise it's a dud. And queues at the Eye on the Sat before Easter will be long if it's a nice day.
Pick Windsor or the Tower.
Sunday: You probably mean a river taxi to Greenwich, not Brighton?
Sorry to be negative, but I think you'll have to scale it back a bit. Good luck to you all and especially your husband in his race.
Friday: F&M is an upscale department store with a very nice food hall and probably a better choice for gift food items. M&S is a middling department store with a very large supermarket. If you do go with M&S, the one on Oxford Street is one of the biggest.
Saturday: Sorry to say, it looks nearly impossible. You're in London on a holiday weekend so you ought to expect larger than normal crowds at the sights you're planning to see. This is going to hamper your already overcrowded schedule. Tower of London requires at least two and probably 4 or more hours to see, especially if you take one of the highly recommended Beefeater Tours. Then you've got to get lunch, get to Waterloo and grab a train to Windsor which is really a minimum half day trip (including travel). Don't schedule the London Eye unless you know the weather is clear, otherwise it's a dud. And queues at the Eye on the Sat before Easter will be long if it's a nice day.
Pick Windsor or the Tower.
Sunday: You probably mean a river taxi to Greenwich, not Brighton?
Sorry to be negative, but I think you'll have to scale it back a bit. Good luck to you all and especially your husband in his race.
Mar 20th, 2005, 07:58 AM
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>>>it does not look like enough"<<<< i disagree.
easter sunday is far too busy. brighton is a full day affair. i'm sure someone will look up the train times and try to prove that it can all be done but trust me, i live in london and go to brighton all the time...it's a full day and i'm exhausted at the end of it. you will probably walk a lot in brighton (i always do).
saturday .... moving hotels, tower of london, london eye, and windsor!!! this is perhaps doable but very ambitious.
for thursday, it will be difficult to have dinner before your 18:00 to 20:00 visit to the british museum. i assume the walk is 2 hours so that will take you to 16:00. Does the walk include the cabinet war rooms or is that something that you plan to visit after the walk? if so, that + dinner is not possible before 18:00. Most real restaurants are not open at 5:00 anyway (6-7 at the earliest). Also, two hours is very little for the BM.
fortnum and mason is better for food/souvenirs.
i assume that you are all in good shape considering the run, however, don't underestimate the energy it takes to move around london. Relaxing spots in London can be few and far between (especially if you don't know exactly where you are going). therefore, a day out in the city can be rather punishing.
easter sunday is far too busy. brighton is a full day affair. i'm sure someone will look up the train times and try to prove that it can all be done but trust me, i live in london and go to brighton all the time...it's a full day and i'm exhausted at the end of it. you will probably walk a lot in brighton (i always do).
saturday .... moving hotels, tower of london, london eye, and windsor!!! this is perhaps doable but very ambitious.
for thursday, it will be difficult to have dinner before your 18:00 to 20:00 visit to the british museum. i assume the walk is 2 hours so that will take you to 16:00. Does the walk include the cabinet war rooms or is that something that you plan to visit after the walk? if so, that + dinner is not possible before 18:00. Most real restaurants are not open at 5:00 anyway (6-7 at the earliest). Also, two hours is very little for the BM.
fortnum and mason is better for food/souvenirs.
i assume that you are all in good shape considering the run, however, don't underestimate the energy it takes to move around london. Relaxing spots in London can be few and far between (especially if you don't know exactly where you are going). therefore, a day out in the city can be rather punishing.
Mar 20th, 2005, 08:31 AM
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THANKS! I only meant "some type of cruise on the Thames" when I wrote "river taxi", and also meant going to Brighton by bus or train. Hmm, guess we'll scale back some as you've suggested. This is part of our 20th Anniversary-So-Let's Travel-Alot-This-Year plans (NYC & Canada in the fall), so we'll probably come back for our 25th Anniversary & experience Ireland, Scotland, England more fully. Phew, now I can stop planning & start packing! Happy trails. Sue
Mar 20th, 2005, 10:53 AM
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I'm probably not goung to be as gentle as the others -- Two of your planned days are impossible, and one is very ambitious.
Thursday is far too ambitious - as the others mention there is no way you can tour the Cab War Rooms after the afternoon London Walk, eat dinner and visit the British Museum. It is just doable but still pretty frantic if you ditch dinner until afterwards. One hint - the cafes in the Great Court at the Br Museum stay open late and don't close when the museum does.
Saturday is totally nuts. You won't be done at the Eye until after noon and that Saturday (if the weather is decent) will be one of the busiest days of the year at the Tower. If you want to see much you really should go to the Tower right at opening time - not mid-day on Easter weekend. But assuming you stick to this plan - noon-ish finish at the Eye, lunch til 1 p.m., Tower until late afternoon. There is not even a tiny window of time to squeeze in a 1/2 day trip to Windsor.
Sunday is also pretty nutty. St Pauls for Easter service will be awe inspiring - but then you want to take a boat trip and THEN take the train to Brighton, and THEN take an evening walk along the Thames???
Why Brighton? If you were in London for a week or two it might make sense for a day trip - but for this trip it just doesn't work.
Thursday is far too ambitious - as the others mention there is no way you can tour the Cab War Rooms after the afternoon London Walk, eat dinner and visit the British Museum. It is just doable but still pretty frantic if you ditch dinner until afterwards. One hint - the cafes in the Great Court at the Br Museum stay open late and don't close when the museum does.
Saturday is totally nuts. You won't be done at the Eye until after noon and that Saturday (if the weather is decent) will be one of the busiest days of the year at the Tower. If you want to see much you really should go to the Tower right at opening time - not mid-day on Easter weekend. But assuming you stick to this plan - noon-ish finish at the Eye, lunch til 1 p.m., Tower until late afternoon. There is not even a tiny window of time to squeeze in a 1/2 day trip to Windsor.
Sunday is also pretty nutty. St Pauls for Easter service will be awe inspiring - but then you want to take a boat trip and THEN take the train to Brighton, and THEN take an evening walk along the Thames???
Why Brighton? If you were in London for a week or two it might make sense for a day trip - but for this trip it just doesn't work.
