My husband and I will be visiting London in May. My husband has a deliciously morbid curiousity regarding Jack the Ripper. Does anyone have any suggestions about which walking tour may be the best one? There seems so many. Fodors Guide to London 2008 suggests "Blood and Tears: Jack the Ripper and other East End Murderers". Has anyone taken this tour? I don't want to go with a group that is so large, you can't hear the guide. Please advise. Thank you so much.

I took the one on the Original London Walks & had a great time. It was a misty night so the atmosphere was good but the only disappointing thing was that so much of that area isn't the same since the war that we were at one point literally standing in a parking lot looking at the spot where one of the murders happened.

It was a large group but still we were able to hear the leader & thought it was great fun.

I used to be a Jack the Ripper guide and I always felt that I was rather cheating my clients. There is barely a stone left of the area, thanks to both the Luftwaffe and our town planners. The area is now mainly full of office blocks or social housing (the tenants of which really really hate the tours).

There are other walks that will give you more of a feel for London at the time - the London by Gaslight one is good and doesn't get the crowds.

You might also enjoy the Haunted London walk (could be called the Ghost walk). We had a terrific guide.

Listen to CW - there are other/better walks that take you through areas w/ more atmosphere/victorian era bldgs.

There is <u>nothing</u> left of the original ripper sites - so you hear the guide saying things like &quot;The car park over there covers the spot where 'xyz's' body was found&quot;, and &quot;that apartment block is on the site of the 'such and such' pub&quot;

And how would you like to be one of the residents --- having groups of 100-200+ people tramping through their neighborhood listening to a guide talking (talking <b>loud</b under their open windows, telling stories about women being disemboweled??

I remember that parking lot! Even so, I very much enjoyed the Jack the Ripper walk - we did the one through the Original London Walks, and the positive experience was largely due to the fact that our guide was Donald Rumbelow, who is a Ripper expert and very entertaining. The group was fairly large, but it wasn't a problem. By the way, I've found Original London Walks in general to be excellent - I've done several walks with them over the years.

With the walking tours who do you remcommend the most to use? We will only be in london for 48 hours in December. I would like to plan one...I have 4 children (18,17,15,11) with us.

The thing my daughters enjoyed the most in Rome were the catacombs - to give you an idea of what they like etc.

&quot;<i>The group was fairly large, but it wasn't a problem.</i>&quot; Maybe not a problem for you or the rest of the group - but what about the poor folks who live there???

The Donald (Rumbelow - not Trump) has made a cottage industry out of these walks . . . . .

I've taken the Original London Walk's Jack the Ripper tour- it was a large group and the scene over-run by commercial buildings, but it was fun... if you want to skip the actual tour, but still get some Jack the Ripper feeling- head to 10
Bells (the pub where Jack allegedly hung out) and grab a pint... that said, if it's important to your husband, take the tour- stand closest to the guide (even though we were in a large group and were often at the back of the pack, we could still hear everything) if you can and have fun...

I once witnessed a stand up argument between a resident and a tour guide on a &quot;hidden Bath&quot; walk. It very nearly ended in physical violence. I was quite enjoying the walk, but hadn't before realised what a pain it must be for people living there.

Twice a night for much of the year, Oiks come and try and stare through your their windows! In summer it would be very difficult to keep one's windows open because of the streams of tourists.

dawnnoelm,
I did a pub walk that was very enjoyable, but probably not what you're looking for! I can't remember all the ones that I've done, but the London Highlights was good for first time visits, and the Little Venice walk was enjoyable. Their guides are great. Take a look at their web page and see what sounds interesting to you.

janisj,
We were at each location probably less than 5-10 minutes and I believe the walks are three nights a week. Many of the places we stopped were not residential. We weren't peering into windows, or anything like that. I'm quite familiar with the disruption tourism can cause, as here in DC the next few weeks will bring hordes of cherry blossom tourists and school kids, clogging the streets with their tour buses, standing on the left on metro escalators, and jaywalking in front of my car as I try to drive home, but I'll deal. If you don't like being &quot;on the tourist path&quot; there are plenty of other places one can choose to live.

Thank you hlg - I will check those out!

We took the Original London Walks Jack the Ripper Walking tour, and thoroughly enjoyed it. If your husband has an interest in Jack the Ripper, he should find it very interesting.

It's been a few years, but we took the &quot;Haunted London&quot; walk and really enjoyed it.

I will mention that choosing a walk that will have a smaller group definitely has its advantages, though.

The walk we went on had a crowd of about 25 people. Some of the places we stopped at were rather cramped and not everyone could get into a spot to hear the guide well. People would jockey for position to be close enough to the guide to hear at each stop.

We enjoyed the tour, but it would have been much more enjoyable without the big crowd.

&quot;<i> If you don't like being &quot;on the tourist path&quot; there are plenty of other places one can choose to live. </i>&quot; Those folks didn't invite Mr Rumbelow into their neighborhood! That part of the east end was never on the tourist path until London Walks invaded.

David (Cholmondley_Warner) likely knows more about this than most people. He lives in London and used to guide Ripper tours. And he is telling the truth when he says &quot;the tenants of which really really hate the tours&quot;

Don't get me wrong - most Original London Walks are terrific. But this one is mainly to sell Donald's books. There are so many better to choose from.

janisj, I agree with you and CW regarding Jack the Ripper walks, but I've found that trying to convince others is like whipping a dead horse.

While most of the walks are worth recommending, several are similar to J.R. in that all you're seeing is a collection of sites that bear no resemblance to the original. The one redeeming factor is that you do get a bit of a history lesson.

&quot; If you don't like being &quot;on the tourist path&quot; there are plenty of other places one can choose to live. &quot;

Not funny for the locals, but it hit my funny bone.
It reminded me of the American tourist who wondered why the Queen had chosen to built Windsor Castle under a busy flight-path.

historytraveler: Yep - that poor horse died long ago

Three of the least worthy places that get the most visitors are ripper walks, Leeds Castle, and Loch Ness. None of them are great - just famous.

The Buckingham Palace/flight path analogy would only be appropriate if the Ripper murders had happened recently, such that residents wouldn't have known of them when choosing to live there. I'm sorry, but if you choose to buy or rent an apartment in a historic building you are crazy not to expect some tourist interest.

In any event, I think the disruption caused by these tours is being blown way out of proportion, at least with respect to the Original London Walk since, as mentioned, care was taken to stop in non-residential spots while Mr. Rumbelow was talking. The OP asked for a recommendation, not a discourse on ethics. To that end, ObsessiveTraveler, if your husband has an interest in Jack the Ripper he will surely enjoy the tour given by Mr. Rumbelow that I and several others have recommended here.

I took the Original London Walks with Donald (also bought his book at the end of the walk). I loved it. So did my 73 year old mom... my then 19 year old daughter was not as excited about it. We did the Sherlock Holmes one a few years back, I also liked that one a lot. In York we did a Ghost walk that was excellence and in Dublin did a pub tour that was also excellence. Maybe I just like these kind of walks, but I do these over a musuem anyday... just my opinion.