London - 2 Day Itinerary help
 

I will be spending 2 days in London with my husband and 18 year old son at the end of February. We will be there on a Friday and Saturday. I am trying to figure out an itinerary that will include:

Westminster Abbey
Cabinet War Room
Tower of London
Walk by: Buckingham Palace, Parliament/Big Ben, possibly Trafalgar Square
British Museum - if possible.

I would love to get to the Portobello Road Market on Saturday, Can anyone suggest the best way to organize this? Also, any suggestions for transportantion - we would love to walk as much as we can, weather permitting.

Thanks so much.

You can do all that --assuming you have all day on Fri and Sat and don't arrive/depart on those days. If you arrive Fri morning and leave Saturday afternoon or evening --probably not.

You can do Westminster Abbey and the War rooms one day and the Tower of London and British Museum the other day.

Portobello Rd is best early on Saturday AM -- it gets very crowded after about 10-10:30 AM. So get there early. 8:00-ish, or 9:00 at he latest and leave as the hordes start arriving. Because you'd be at Portobello Rd Sat morning, it would be best to do the Tower and Br museum on Friday. You want to get to the Tower at opening time so do the first,then after lunch head over to the museum.

So: Fri - Tower/British Museum
Sat - Port. Road, Westminster Abbey (Parliament/Big Ben are essentially across the street so you automatically see them), Cab War Rooms and then walk through HorseGuards Parade/Jt James's Park to Trafalgar Sq. This would be a full but totally doable day as long as you get away from the market by 10AM or so.

The Abbey/Parliament/War Rooms/Trafalgar Sq is totally walkable (only way to do it really). Otherwise you will need to use the tube since you are crossing vast sections of central London.

I hope you'll get advice from posters with much, much more London expertise than I have. But, FWIW, here's a link to my trip report from June '09. DS (then just shy of 20) and I were there for three days/four nights (Friday evening to Tuesday morning) and did many of the same things you hope to do.

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...-to-london.cfm

Ah, good, Janis posted as I was composing. Definitely a Fodorite with London expertise!

Thanks so much. Your suggestions are so helpful. We will be arriving on Thursday (not sure what time, most likely evening), and departing on Sunday, so we will have 2 full days, possibly an extra half day, if we get in early enough on Thursday.

We are not completely sure about British Museum - any other suggestions that might be interesting to an 18 year old boy?


Thanks again

janis has great suggestions! Instead of British Museum you could head over Tower Bridge to Borough Market http://www.boroughmarket.org.uk/ which is the foodies market in London and then down south bank (gorgeous views of St Pauls, lots of riverside pubs) to Waterloo. Its my favourite part of London.

Depends on what interests him. London has everything so there is something for everybody. The British Museum is fantastic of course. Interestingly -- lots of kids really enjoy the Imperial War museum.

I think an 18 year old young man would probably enjoy the British Museum or the Imperial War Museum more than Borough Market, which is a great market, but with limited time I'd head to one of those Museums. Might be hard to squeeze Imperial War Museum in, though, if you leave in your other most excellent choices.

Just want to add - I meant grab lunch at the market, then walk south bank as there are lots of riverside pubs to relax in offering lovely views over the river and St Pauls.

I agree the Imperial War Museum would also be a great choice!

Thanks so much for all of your suggestions, The Imperial War Museum looks great as well - If we have an extra half day, I will probably include it. The British Museum will most likely stay on the list. Given the short time in London, I was willing to skip it in place of another hightlight.

Janis, thanks for the itinerary -it is so helpful. Do you have any restaurant/pub suggestions? We are pretty casual eaters. We would love to visit some great pubs.

Thanks again to all.

Well -- there are decent cafes right IN the Tower of London and the British Museum (and others nearby). Also -- across the road from the Tower is St Katharine's Marina w/ several good/casual places to eat. And across Tower bridge are many more including at the Globe and in the Tate Modern.

For the Saturday, one -- not a pub but nice place to eat if the weather is nice in 'Inn The Park'. A restaurant and cafe on the lake in St James's Park 1/2 way between the War Rooms and Trafalgar sq. You can have a a full menu or more casual cafeteria-type choices.

We went to London once this past summer with our ten year old son and really loved it! Here are my suggestions.

First, the British Museum is open late on Thursday and Friday evenings until about 9PM. Not all galleries are open though. There website says which ones are and aren't available on each night.

I would tweak Janisj's suggestion just a bit. I offered our one day itinerary to another poster on a previous thread. We did this in one day and we really packed a lot in that day.

Tower of London first thing in the morning. They open at 9AM. Go see crown jewels first, double back to catch a free beefeater tour with the guide and tour the arms and armour exhibit in the white tower.--fabulous--son loved it. Eat in the Tower cafeteria. Expect to spend 3-4 hours there.

Took city cruise boat ride right from Tower --you see Tower Bridge. Take boat to Westminster. See Parliament and Big Ben and outside of Westminster Abbey. (You would need a couple of hours to tour the inside of the Abbey and would have to factor that into your schedule. It is not feasible to do with the rest of the itinerary outlined here). Walk to Cabinet War Rooms late afternoon. They close around 6PM.

You can then walk over the Westminster Bridge and take the London Eye. You didn't mention it as a must see so you may or may not choose to do it in the evening. It is one packed day but definitely doable. We did it with a senior tugging along with us.

My son also really liked the Imperial War Museum. Another great place where we spent many hours. The British Museum is also fabulous.

My twist on it . . . I personally wouldn't try to squeeze in 3 major sites plus a cruise on one day. Is it doable -- yes. But you'd have to go at a dead run.

The Tower -- maybe 9:30 - 1:30 if you eat there. 12:30-ish if you don't. The boat trip takes 40 minutes and runs every 35 minutes so say you get to Westminster by 2:15/2:30 - and spend 2 hours at the Abbey. It is now nearly 4:30 which only gives you a little over an hour at the War Rooms. All of this is <i>doable</i> but you'd have to hit your marks exactly.

The reason you can include three major attractions when one is Portobello Rd is because that runs in the early AM when nothing else is open--and what else would you be doing except enjoying some extra shut eye. :)

A good rule of thumb is no more than 2 major sites in one day--or one major and one 'minor' if the major takes up half a day like Hampton Court Palace.

By the time you factor in travel to/from, refreshments, gift shop, loo breaks, and such -- most "Major" attractions eat up about 4 hours.