Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Its been 25 years...London itenerary needs help please!

Your note for Monday lists enough places for two or three days. To my mind minimum times for visits are National Gallery 2 hours, Soho 1 hour, British Museum 3 hours and British Library 2 hours. You can move one or two of these visits from Monday to Sunday.

Friday-July 28—I agree. Arrive mid-day. Buy at any tube station the tickets for the Tower of London tomorrow. Bus tour lets you see many places without leaving the bus: Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Piccadilly, Old Bailey (I am afraid they are strict on the age requirement for a visitor), St Paul’s, Tower Bridge. Look around South Kensington (the boys can decide whether they want to see the Science Museum later, perhaps on a day when you are at a place for you). Go home and relax

Saturday—I agree, but please cut out the London Dungeon, which is rubbishy, made up of prisoners’ chains and of models of torture instruments. Tower of London (opens at 09.00, Tower Bridge (go down at the south bsank to see how they worked it), and take boat ride on Thames to Greenwich. Lunch outdoors in a pub in Greenwich Market or at the Mitre pub, next to the big church. Perhaps shop at the second hand market, including the thirties things sold in the former town hall, near the railway station. Perhaps walk up to the museum of the history of time in the old Observatory.

Sunday-- British Museum (opens at 10.00). I expect you will want to see the Egyptian things, but lease go with the boys by lift or upstairs to the Anglo Saxon Room to see the prince’s ship burial from Sutton Hoo. The night before that you might read to them from the poem Beowulf, over a thousand years old. I attach a few pages. The boys will see that the hero Beowulf has to fight a horrid sea-ogress, the mother of his enemy Grendel, and that the storyteller likes the idea of a palace beneath the sea, and of an unbeatable sword. These ideas have echoes in the burial room at the British Museum. There are some good Roman silver hoards next door.

British Library (opens at 11.00) for a view and a light lunch, followed either by afternoon tea, taken half way down Marylebone High Street, or if the sun shines by afternoon tea at the southern end of Kew Bridge.

Rest in South Kensington. Keys ceremony at night.

Monday-- Trafalgar Square, Soho. National Gallery, including afternoon tea, Mary Poppins at night.

Tuesday-- Westminster Abbey (opens at 9.30). 11.00 Changing of Horse Guards (easier to see and more comfortable than the changeing at Buckingham Palace), tour of Parliament, and Cabinet War Rooms. Tea beside Temple station, stroll a little in the MiddleTemple

Wednesday-- I agree. Day trip to Warwick Castle. Sorry I do not know about the Birds of Prey experience If time and energy, stop at Avon on Stratford. I know this part is unlikely! I agree

Thursday, I agree. Hampton Court followed in the afternoon by shopping, mostly on Oxford Street. Tea on the first floor of the Royal Institute of British Architects, between Regents Park and Oxford Circus stations. Tonight the British Museum is open until 20.30, so if yiu want a second visit it is a bus ride away

Friday-- Take the Chunnel to Paris

AFTERNOON TEA
Full Afternoon Tea (what you call high tea) is expensive (30 or 40 pounds a person), and is often booked up a month ahead. Examples are
Harrods
Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Knightsbridge
Lanesborough Hotel, Hyde Park Corner
Goring Hotel, by Buckingham Palace
Claridges Hotel
Fortnum & Mason stores
Wolsey Restaurant near Piccadilly
Park Lane Hotel, Piccadilly
The Ritz
Savoy Hotel, the Strand

In recent correspondence and in a newspaper article people have named three alternatives with style but without long advance booking and with more moderate prices
In Selfridge's (Bond Street tube) the Gallery restaurant serves afternoon tea.
The Wolseley restaurant, along from the Ritz in Piccadilly, is classy, anonymous and understated, with extended tea and millefueille afternoon teas.
The National Dining Rooms at the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square serve lovely tea: smoked salmon and creamy haddock sandwich fingers, Bakewell tart and two pots of Darjeeling.

My own favourite London places at lower costs and with no dress code, but also without grand style, are these. Two hundred yards north of Kensington Palace, west of the gardens, is the Orangery, eighteenth century, with teas and light meals in an eighteenth century chamber. Half way down Marylebone High Street, on the western side, with a French name and good cakes, between Baker Street and Bond Street tuber stations. Another is on the first floor of the Royal Institute of British Architects, half way down Portland Place, between Regents Park and Oxford Circus stations. Another is a café just beside Temple tube station, near a couple of barrows sometimes good for fruit. The family are Italian, Papa here from 1945, and unlike most tea places they make the tea with loose leaves, not the unpleasant tea bags, and brew it good and strong, in the workers or soldiers tradition. They serve slices of sweet mince tart and of apple tart each big enough for two people, or they will give you half you a half slice wrapped in a paper napkin to take home. Nearly as good is open-air tea in Embankment Gardens, on the Embankment. Tea in Somerset House nearby is more elegant, more expensive, and less tasty – an enfeebled product. Befrore 2008 the Royal Festival Hall, over the river, will re-open, with a good tea service on the upper floor.

Correspondents have added other teas at moderate price
The cafe at the Museum of Garden history
Inn the Park at St.James Park
Cafe in the Crypt beneath St Martin in the Fields on Trafalgar Square).

From the first Sunday in May the people of the eighteenth century church at Kew Bridge serve tea weeky from 1.30 to 5.30. Please see http://www.saintanne-kew.org.uk/, then click for teas, which tells you: Teas are served in the Church Hall on Sundays throughout the summer from 1.30 to 5.30 pm. In fine weather tables are available in the churchyard with views of the cricket on Kew Green. The tea is home made: they offer scones and jam, sandwiches, cakes, scones, various teas (in tea bags, I am afraid) and watch cricket on the green. All in all, an old English afternoon. Your quickest way is by District line to Kew Gardens, or faster from Waterloo at 12.50 and hourly in 26 minutes to Kew Bridge.

EXTRACT FROM THE POEM BEOWULF

{He is a whole day reaching the bottom of the sea.}
…the wave-current swallowed
The doughty-in-battle. Then a day's-length elapsed ere
He was able to see the sea at its bottom.
Early she found then who fifty of winters
25 The course of the currents kept in her fury,
Grisly and greedy, that the grim one's dominion
{Grendel's mother knows that some one has reached her domains.}
Some one of men from above was exploring.
Forth did she grab them, grappled the warrior
With horrible clutches; yet no sooner she injured
30 His body unscathed: the burnie out-guarded,
That she proved but powerless to pierce through the armor,
The limb-mail locked, with loath-grabbing fingers.
The sea-wolf bare then, when bottomward came she,
{She grabs him, and bears him to her den.}
The ring-prince homeward, that he after was powerless
35 (He had daring to do it) to deal with his weapons,
But many a mere-beast tormented him swimming,
{Sea-monsters bite and strike him.}
Flood-beasts no few with fierce-biting tusks did
Break through his burnie, the brave one pursued they.
The earl then discovered he was down in some cavern
40 Where no water whatever anywise harmed him,
And the clutch of the current could come not anear him,
Since the roofed-hall prevented; brightness a-gleaming
Fire-light he saw, flashing resplendent.
The good one saw then the sea-bottom's monster,
{Beowulf attacks the mother of Grendel.}
45 The mighty mere-woman; he made a great onset
With weapon-of-battle, his hand not desisted
From striking, that war-blade struck on her head then
A battle-song greedy. The stranger perceived then
{The sword will not bite.}
The sword would not bite, her life would not injure,
50 But the falchion failed the folk-prince when straitened:
Erst had it often onsets encountered,
Oft cloven the helmet, the fated one's armor:
'Twas the first time that ever the excellent jewel
Had failed of its fame. Firm-mooded after,
55 Not heedless of valor, but mindful of glory,
Was Higelac's kinsman; the hero-chief angry
Cast then his carved-sword covered with jewels
That it lay on the earth, hard and steel-pointed;
{The hero throws down all weapons, and again trusts to his hand-grip.}
He hoped in his strength, his hand-grapple sturdy.
60 So any must act whenever he thinketh
To gain him in battle glory unending,
And is reckless of living. The lord of the War-Geats
(He shrank not from battle) seized by the shoulder[67]
The mother of Grendel; then mighty in struggle
65 Swung he his enemy, since his anger was kindled,
That she fell to the floor. With furious grapple
{Beowulf falls.}
She gave him requital[68] early thereafter,
And stretched out to grab him; the strongest of warriors
Faint-mooded stumbled, till he fell in his traces
{The monster sits on him with drawn sword.}
70 Footgoing champion. Then she sat on the hall-guest
And wielded her war-knife wide-bladed, flashing,
For her son would take vengeance, her one only bairn.
{His armor saves his life.}
His breast-armor woven bode on his shoulder;
It guarded his life, the entrance defended
75 'Gainst sword-point and edges. Ecgtheow's son there
Had fatally journeyed, champion of Geatmen,
In the arms of the ocean, had the armor not given,
Close-woven corslet, comfort and succor,
{God arranged for his escape.}
And had God most holy not awarded the victory,
80 All-knowing Lord; easily did heaven's
Ruler most righteous arrange it with justice;[69]
Uprose he erect ready for battle.
Then he saw mid the war-gems a weapon of victory,
An ancient giant-sword, of edges a-doughty,
Glory of warriors: of weapons 'twas choicest,
Only 'twas larger than any man else was
5 Able to bear to the battle-encounter,
The good and splendid work of the giants.
He grasped then the sword-hilt, knight of the Scyldings,
Bold and battle-grim, brandished his ring-sword,
Hopeless of living, hotly he smote her,
10 That the fiend-woman's neck firmly it grappled,
{and fells the female monster.}
Broke through her bone-joints, the bill fully pierced her
Fate-cursed body, she fell to the ground then:
The hand-sword was bloody, the hero exulted.
The brand was brilliant, brightly it glimmered,
15 Just as from heaven gemlike shineth
The torch of the firmament. He glanced 'long the building,
And turned by the wall then, Higelac's vassal
Raging and wrathful raised his battle-sword
Strong by the handle. The edge was not useless
20 To the hero-in-battle, but he speedily wished to
Give Grendel requital for the many assaults he
Had worked on the West-Danes not once, but often,
When he slew in slumber the subjects of Hrothgar,
Swallowed down fifteen sleeping retainers
25 Of the folk of the Danemen, and fully as many
Carried away, a horrible prey.
He gave him requital, grim-raging champion,
{Beowulf sees the body of Grendel, and cuts off his head.}
When he saw on his rest-place weary of conflict
Grendel lying, of life-joys bereaved,
30 As the battle at Heorot erstwhile had scathed him;
His body far bounded, a blow when he suffered,
Death having seized him, sword-smiting heavy,
And he cut off his head then. Early this noticed
The clever carles who as comrades of Hrothgar
{The waters are gory.}
35 Gazed on the sea-deeps, that the surging wave-currents
Were mightily mingled, the mere-flood was gory:
Of the good one the gray-haired together held converse,
{Beowulf is given up for dead.}
The hoary of head, that they hoped not to see again
The atheling ever, that exulting in victory
40 He'd return there to visit the distinguished folk-ruler:
Then many concluded the mere-wolf had killed him.[70]
The ninth hour came then. From the ness-edge departed
The bold-mooded Scyldings; the gold-friend of heroes
Homeward betook him. The strangers sat down then
45 Soul-sick, sorrowful, the sea-waves regarding:
They wished and yet weened not their well-loved friend-lord
{The giant-sword melts.}
To see any more. The sword-blade began then,
The blood having touched it, contracting and shriveling
With battle-icicles; 'twas a wonderful marvel
50 That it melted entirely, likest to ice when
The Father unbindeth the bond of the frost and
Unwindeth the wave-bands, He who wieldeth dominion
Of times and of tides: a truth-firm Creator.
Nor took he of jewels more in the dwelling,
55 Lord of the Weders, though they lay all around him,
Than the head and the handle handsome with jewels;
The brand early melted, burnt was the weapon:[71]
So hot was the blood, the strange-spirit poisonous