London--Best to see and do in March?
 

Hi Fodorite Experts,
Trying to plan activities and sightseeing around London in March and hoping to get your helpful input.

Traveling to London this month. Spending a week there. Usually our London trips have been in the summer. I know some sightseeing activities are more geared for summer and aren't available in March like Buckingham Palace, touring Parliament...

Would appreciate your great input on sightseeing activities. So far was thinking V&A museum, Borough Market, Southwark Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Harrods, St. Martins in the Field, boating on the Thames (too cold still?)....

London is such an incredible city. Can't wait to go back to England!!! :)

Thank you for taking the time to respond and share your thoughts.

Check out Londonwalks.com- they always have great walks and may give you ideas for March.

Perhaps check the Theatre schedules and see if there are any specific plays/actors that are on while you're there.

I always check the ENO and ROH schedule to see if I can take in an opera while in London during opera season.

Also check various museums to see if there are special exhibits (eg, the Darwin exhibit at Natural History Museum right now).

Thanks for the great input. Can you please give me a heads-up on some of the sightseeing activities that wouldn't be open yet? I know about Buckingham Palace, and touring Parliament not being options...
Curious what else there might be? So I don't plan my day incorrectly. :)

Also forgot to add, plan on going to St. James Park(hope those amazing birds are full force :) ), and Hyde Park. Good idea about the theater, and didn't realize it was OPera season. Yup London Walks is a great service, never used yet, but heard great things...

Places in London don't have off seasons like some rural stately homes/castle do. About the only things closed are the open air theatres (Globe/Regents Park) though you can still do a tour of the Globe. Everything else will be open and busy.

B'ham Palace is only open Aug/Sept so it is closed most of the year, not just in the "off season"

We just returned from ten days in England, mostly London. From our experience--warm weather, lots to do--we decided that March may be our favorite time to go. I posted our trip report in three sections just last weekend, take a look to see the kinds of things we did.

It appears that some things are closed in March, mainly stately homes such as Syon House--but we found so much else to do that even after seven whole full days in London we didn't get to do all that we'd planned. There are some very interesting museum exhibits: Darwin at the nat. history museum, as yk mentioned; Byzantium at the Royal Academy; a Flemish painting exhibit at the Courtauld.

We had only a half day of rain in all that time. I had given a great deal of thought to the kind of coat I'd need on the trip, and the one I finally chose filled the bill perfectly . . . except it really didn't need to be waterproof. We took a wonderful two-hour London walk one day, and we ourselves did lots and lots of walking: on Hampstead Heath, and just around London.

We particularly enjoyed going to evensong at Westminster Abbey: it's a nice way not just to see but to experience the abbey. Evensongs are at 5 p.m. and you queue up to get in at 4:30.

English National Opera tickets were showing up at the TKTS booth in Leicester Square; you can see a list of what's on sale at http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/desti...ndon_daily.htm
I believe Donmar Theater is presenting Madame de Sade is at the Wyndham, with Judi Dench. I don't know anything about the play, but I'm sure that Dame Judi's performance will be great. If it's like Twelfth Night, which we were lucky enough to see, tickets won't be offered at TKTS, but the producers release tickets every morning at 10 a.m. You could queue up there around 9:30 and then, if you don't get seats, go over to TKTS to see what's available.

Have a wonderful time--I hope this helps!

Go to a football match -- there are about 10 teams in and around London in the top two leagues. A match at a Championship side venue (Crystal Palace, QPR, Charlton) should be far more affordable than matches at Fulham or Tottenham (and the prices for Chelsea or Arsenal will be sky high).

Oops--I see I pasted in the wrong link for the TKTS listings. It's http://www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk/tkts/

The other link is to a list of what's open on what days, which is also helpful.

Maybe 4th time will work, I keep trying to post but am bounced out. As you're a return visitor to London, I want to recommend the Museum of London (used to be Museum of the City of London) near the Barbican Centre and tube stop or not too far from St. Paul's. The structure incorporates part of the London City Wall. I particularly liked the Roman era exhibits and Victorian London.

Re: Thames cruises generally have indoor seating but more fun to sit out front or on top. If you get a nice day, just head down and jump on one.

Is the Museum of London done with all the renovations? When I thought about visiting last Nov, the website indicated that many galleries are closed due to the renovation.

The lower level, history from 1960s to the present, so still worth a visit, or not, depending on the OP.

should read,"...1960s to the present, is closed...."

Thanks for adding your great suggestions. Lots of good stuff here. The football idea sounds particularly fun!

Good about the museums. Have to check out the latest exhibits.

If you want a workout, climb up all 311 steps of the newly refurbished Monument in the City. Wonderful views of London from the top and you get a nice certificate after your climb.:P

We did a river trip on the Thames -- Winchester to Greenwich -- last week and sat outside on top. It was a bright sunny day and very pleasant if a bit windy. But if you pick your day by weather, boating can be fine now.

Temps have been in the high 50's so unless you catch a downpour, anything sholud be fine. There is a new exhibit at the Queen's Gallery, also the Imperial War Museum has 4 new ,. I don't have my list for next week handy but check www.whatsonwhen.com for new stuff.

Museum of London renovations:

It was never true that "many galleries are closed for renovation".

The bottom - and IMHO always the least interesting - floor was closed last year and will stay that way till some time on 2010. That means the accessible part of the museum now covers only the period from the stone age to 1666, the year of the Great Fire.

There's still nothing to touch it in the world. The prehistoric bit is extraordinary (the things that were going on at Heathrow in those days), and the Roman bit is by far the best account of daily life anywhere in the former Empire (the Roman one of course: Britain's stuffed with museums about daily life in our empire, and our former colonies seem unable to stop wasting their taxpayers' money on fatuous propaganda about how my forbears never stopped exploiting them). The best bit, though, is the shortish account of life between the sad day our Roman rulers left in 410 and the arrival of our French-Scandinavian ones in 1066. Most of us have a huge gap in our understanding of those 650 years: the Museum of London explains it excellently.

And, being English, without a hint of the "ah, poor oppressed us" claptrap with which lesser nations stuff accounts of their colonised history.

Re: Museum of London. Thanks, Flanner, my eyesight is going-I read it as 1960 to present closed but it's 1666 as you say.

Totally agree with you that it is still well worth a visit. I was amazed at the artifacts found in the Thames mud and whilst The City was being built up and re-built and built again.