Canuck_girl24

I'm going to be in London for a couple days but only have an afternoon of free time. I'm hoping to visit (abridged version) Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, Tate Modern and shops around Oxford & Regent. Any suggestions for order of visiting/times/transportation??

Gavin

Any one of your sites could easily use up an afternoon. Westminster Abbey takes time just to get inside as can the Tower of London. Tate Modern is free and you can pop in quickly for a short visit before or after the Tower of London which is close by. The shopping could be done in the evening if that is available. Tower tickets can be bought at Underground stations to save time. Unfortunately the Tower is more crowded in the PM. You will have to save something for another visit. My best advice is pick the one most important to you and just do it. For me that would be Westminster Abbey. You can Google for the web sites to get hours of admission.

loru100

Hello fellow Canuck! My husband and I did London "Amazing Race" style a couple of years ago. I still remember almost jogging through the Tower of London we went so fast! We were there first thing in the morning and did our own looking around before one of their pre-arranged tours, which I would highly recommend. Doesn't cost anything and the guides are Yeoman Warders (Beefeaters) who were excellent. We did Tower of London in the morning and Windsor Castle in the afternoon with a pre-arranged tour. I would also recommend one of the hop-on/hop-off bus tours which takes you pretty much anywhere you'd want to go We saw a lot in one day using that.

Canuck_girl24

Gavin-the ticket for the Tower from the Underground, is that just admission or is there a no-lineup feature? Should I look into getting one of the attraction passes to save time or is it really worth it for 2 or 3 places?

Sally

For Westminister Abbey, go to the 5 pm Evensong service. There is no line. Get there a few minutes before 5pm and just tell the guard at the front gate that you wish to go to Evensong and then you walk right in. The service is lovely with the boys' choir singing it. We went last week and sat in the Poet's Corner, nose to nose with William Blake's statue.

You won't be able to sight see in the cathedral after the service, but the experience of sitting there, listening to the music and the service, and walking through the cathedral is a wonderful one.

Kayb95

I don't think there is any possible way you can see all of those things in one afternoon. Probably the closest thing to it would be one of the hop on/off bus tours like <b>www.bigbus.co.uk</b>. And then you probably still wouldn't have time to actually go in to any of those places and take the tour. Keep in mind that most things close around 6 PM.

As the others suggest, I would rank the attractions in order of importance to you and try to squeeze in maybe two of them.

Is the Tate open late any evenings that you could possibly do that on one of your other nights in London? Same goes for the shopping - some of that may be able to be done in the evenings.

Gavin

The purpose of buying the Tower of London ticket at an Underground station is avoid the time it takes to do so at the gate. I have only been there once and there was no wait of any kind but we got there first thing in the morning. The place got very crowded by the afternoon when we decided it was time leave.

Canuck_girl24

Sally-Thanks for the head's up on the 5:00 service. I had only seen the standard closing time of 3:45 before. That'll give me more room to wander.