First time in London
 

Im going to be in London for 2 weeks for work. I'm going to fly in the weekend before and leave the weekend after. So I intend to be there for 3 weekends. There is a lot it do and I'm sure it won't be my last time there so with all the usual touristy things to do I wanted to do some not so touristy things but I have been told there is so much todo that I should get the touristy things done this trip. Thought I would get this forums opinion.

Oh forgot to mention when - it will be the middle of May

Sorry not too clear about what you are asking...the best thing to do is buy a good guide book like top 10 London or check out the destinations link above. That will give you a good idea of the big tourist sites. Pick out the ones that interest you and plan to do 2 a day, grouped by location.

Off the top of my head here are some ideas

Tower of london
St Paul's
Westminster abbey
Parliament
Buckingham palace
The eye
National gallery
West end show
British museum

Of course there are tonnes more!

Also check out www.walks.com for great walking tours

Have fun!!

eurocheapo.com/london good city guide lots of cheap free things to do would do those first. British Museum Tate Globe Theatre would be high on my to do list.Head for the spires of Oxford stay at the mercure.com haunts of CS Lewis JRR Tolkein. Perhaps the Cotswolds Bath from there if time. londontown.comm many other great options. 1 pound stering=$1.60 today highest it has been in a while.Things will not be cheap.

Happy Travels!

I now this sounds really touristy but you should take a ride on the Big Red Bus which will give you a great overview of London. You can hop on and off wherever you please.It is also very relaxing and a good thing to do the first day when you are a bit tired from traveling. I will add Churchill's War Rooms to the above list. Also visit Venice (still in London!) and take one of the boats down the canal. There are some great not as well known spots like Postman's Park, the Crypt at St. Pauls, the Monument. See if you can get a copy of "City Secrets: London" by Robert Kahn. Good book to look at after you have exhausted the other guides. Are you staying in the city or outside? All the different neighborhoods are fun to walk around and explore.

Yay for you! You will be able to fit in a good bit in your time.

A few suggestions:
Do you have a good map/guide book? Begin to get familiar with them.

You do realize how huge London is, right? As you begin to make plans, look at maps and group things by neighborhood/area.

Use something like Googlemaps or walkit.com which has a London app to see how far stuff is actually apart.

Get familiar with the Transport for London site.

Read some trip reports here if you haven't already. For example, we spent 2 weeks in London in 2008--here's the link

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...-day-trips.cfm

We saw most of the "touristy" stuff--e.g., the Tower, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's, all the Parks, the British Museum, Travalgar Square, all along the Thames, Greenwich, the outside of Buckingham Palace and Big Ben--plus lots of not-so-usual sites like Southwark Cathedral, Postman's Park, a ride on Regent's Canal system, going inside the Tower Bridge, the British Library, Museum of London, a play at the Globe--plus we had 5 day trips!

With your time you could certainly not run out of things to do in the city, but you have time for a few day trips, like maybe Oxford or Dover or Salisbury--all fairly easily done via public transportation.

If you plan to do the "touristy" things first thing in the morning over several mornings, and then see "stuff" around them, you will be able to see lots of non-touristy stuff too.

Bring good walking shoes, rain gear, and layers.

And one last thing--for really good feedback/info/answers here, I'd suggest you post some specific questions after you've done a bit of research on your own, if you have such. Don't just tack on specific questions to this thread. If your heading is more specific for specific questions/issues, your responses may be more helpful. I mean, the heading for this one is fine, but as you do your homework and come up with other questions, you might find better results from posting new threads rather than adding to this on.