3sica

hi fodorites

After doing some reading online and in the forums, I am getting doubtful about my decision to spend 3 days in London, before moving on to Paris for 6 days.
We are going to spend our 4th wedding anniversary in London, and it is also our first ever trip to Europe. Can anyone please help with recommending some must sees in London that can be crammed into 3, well 2.5 days to be exact... (since I arrive at LHR 6.20am on Wed and training to Paris on Saturday afternoon)
Another thing is accomodation... we wanted a nice place, more English style than contemporary. Of course it would be nice to have a beautiful hotel for our anniversary (we got married in a very colonial style hotel back in Singapore, Raffles Hotel if anyone has heard of it).

Any help? Quite lost...TIA!

nona1

You can do plenty in a couple of days. It would take forever to see EVERYTHING anyway, so don't stress about how much you don't see, just enjoy what you do.

What sort of things do you like doing? Museums? Galleries? Historic sites? Quirky stuff? Shopping? Music? Parks and gardens? Is food a big deal to you?

3sica

Well, shopping is my HUGE passion, but I would love to see a bit of everything...Quirky would be nice, history is a must i guess in Europe...

I have some sights that I would definitely wanna see:
Tower of London
Buckingham Palace
Big Ben
Westminster Abbey
Thames River Cruise
London's Eye
Harrods (but of coz...hahaha)

My problem may be in planning the routes to take properly so as to make full use of my limited time there...Do you think it would be better to do a walking tour with a guide? so that I dont miss anything out?

Im pretty easy with food, hoping that my hubby (who is quite traditionally Chinese in taste) would not starve for the 10 days we are in Europe (I am NOT going to look for chinese food in Europe, we have it at home everyday!!)
But in keeping with our anniversary tradition of having Japanese for dinner that night, we are hoping to go to Nobu.

oops think im blabbering...

daveesl

Actually, what you want to do is pretty easy. You could consider staying at the Guoman Charing Cross hotel. It isn't the "greatest" but it is pretty nice and the location is perfect.

http://www.guoman.com/charing-cross/

So, say by the time you get in and freshen up it is about noon. From the hotel, walk down about a block to the Thames. Turn right, you'll see the Eye on the other side of the river, Big Ben and Westminster will be a few blocks up on your side of the river. I'd walk up to Parliament first, then you can also see Westminster. Do the eye on the way back. Depending on how tired you are, Trafalgar Square is only a couple of blocks up from the hotel.

The hotel sits right on top of the Charing Cross underground station, so using the tube is easy.

On Thursday you can walk down to Buckingham from the hotel, maybe 8-10 blocks. Get there by about 10am to get a good spot to see the changing of the guard. Take the tube from St. James to Tower Hill (or a cab). You are a couple of block from the Tower of London. You can probably plan a cruise for the evening.

Friday you could do the British Museum, but another thought is at Trafalgar is the National Gallery. Too bad you aren't there on Sunday, Speakers Corner is always fun.

3sica

argh.... you are making me feel torn between spending the weekend in london or paris!!
thanks though dave...

I am trying very hard to visualise everything... any other sights to recommend? i dont have to see all on my list if there are others that will be more worthy of my time...

daveesl

Covent Garden in the evening is fun, maybe 5 blocks from the hotel. Lots of street performers and stuff. We also make it a habit to go to Picadilly at midnight, just to see the crazies.

On the day for the Tower, you could also drop by St. Pauls. I personally like walking down the banks of the Thames in the early morning or sitting in one of the beautiful small parks.

It is really easy to get to the train station for your Paris trip from Charing Cross.

yk

Many people recommend the Rembrandt hotel in London. What's your budget for hotels?

Here's what I'd do with the limited time you have:

Wed arrival day:
You'll be tired, so take it easy
I'd walk around Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, and do London Eye

Thurs:
early start with Tower of London
St Paul's cathedral
walk along thames, cross via Millennium bridge and take a peek inside Tate Modern
Borough Market for food

Fri:
Westminster Abbey
Victoria & Albert Museum
Harrods

Sat:
Walk around Covent Garden & Trafalgar Sq before your train to Paris.

I would not bother with a Thames cruise. It's time-consuming and not particularly scenic (compared to Seine cruise).

pjsparlor536

I just returned from London and paris, I just posted my trip about paris, we were there 3 days, but I am starting a new post on london in 2.5 days, so if you want to see how we did you can read my thread,
PJ

janisj

yk has given you a very good - and easy going - plan. Buckingham Palace and Big Ben are just "walk by's" w/o going inside. So they basically take no time - just the walking from one point to the other.

As for taking a walking tour - the places you want to see are spread over most of Central london and some are several miles apart so no single walking tour would cover more than a couple of them.

The Rembrandt, Rubens at the Palace, and Royal Horse Guards are all moderately priced (for London) traditional hotels in good locations. What is your budget.

3sica

thanks for all the advise... my trip is starting to take a more solid shape...
thanks yk for the detailed planning, and the heads up about the thames cruise (i will DEFINITELY do the Seine one of course), will give it a miss.

My budget for the hotel is prob 200,220euro per night (we are thinking of staying 1 more night in London). I am considering The Rembrandt and Ruebens (in fact I love all the redcarnation hotels: 41, Ruebens, Montague,Chesterfield)
Thing i have to confess is, I am not a no fuss, no frills person when it comes to hotels. I love pretty, posh rooms...but I was a bit taken back at the prices I had been seeing for London and Paris. In Singapore, I will pay 400SGD for a Ritz Carlton weekend, but in London and Paris, that doesn't seem to go very far... and this coincides with our Anniversary, so we wanted to have a nicer room if possible...
Initially was tempted by the suite at Chesterfield Mayfair, but 3nights would cost 862GBP...

lynclarke

Read some of Rick Steves' suggestions like go around the corner from the palace to the barracks and watch the beginning of the guard ceremony- the guys get inspected, the band starts up, and then they march out the gates toward the palace. You will see a lot more than standing in front of the palace IMHO, also horse guard changing of the guard is up close and personal. Get your tickets for the Eye at the tourist infomation place and you won't have to stand in line. Don't forget Harrod's food court in the basement. Leave yourself pub time. There is a little pub just down the street from the Goodge tube station which is tiny and famous for their sausages. We have had some really good Chinese food in the Chinatown (my husband is half Japanese),and we spent a lovely morning get umbrella lessons from the traditional umbrella shop salemen. By the way, we stayed at the Scala House penthouse (because there were two couples-) great balcony 200+ feet which we LOVED!
Tower of London is a must - go early and start with the jewels. Three days will go by in a nanosecond!

TeresaJolly

If you want to stay in in the heart of London an you want a good standard check out Dukes Hotel off St James's. It is just in front of St James's Palace (Prince Charles home in London). Bond Street is the best street for shopping. Harrods is just huge and you can loose the will to live if you are in there too long. Harvey Nichols is great and they have a great restaurant. A real must is afternoon tea at the Berkley, it is best to book, I promise that you will remember it for ever, Have a look at the pictures of it on the web. Rules restaurant in Covent gerden is the oldest in London and is very good and interesting with typical English fare.
Take some comfortable shoes and top up your credit card. You will have a great time

charlieandann

I would skip Buckingham Palace and visit:
British Museum
National Gallery
Victoria and Albert Museum
all three of the above museums have a "highlights tour"
Tower of London
boat ride on the Thames (absolutely wonderful!!)
walk along the river on the Southwark side; drop in the Tate Modern
walk around City of London (the square mile)
hop on/hop off bus (stay on for the whole circuit)
Hampton Court is GREAT but you may not have time for it (it's a whole day)
Harrod's food court
Any amount of time in London is worth having!!

evecolorado

3sica--What is the date you will be leaving London for Paris? If it is Saturday, June 13, the Trooping of the Colour will be going on that morning (up until 1 p.m.)

Scene24

Here's a tip on the London Eye. You can avoid long lines by buying your tickets the day before your 'flight'. My wife and I, and four friends, bought our tickets on a Monday afternoon; we showed up thirty minutes before the Eye opened the next morning, and were the first people in line. (Not only did we have the whole day ahead of us, and get great views of morning London - but also we were able to get some interesting photos of the empty pod ahead of us.)

yk

Scene24 - So you're saying that there were NO LINES when you bought your ticket on Monday afternoon? Or did you buy them online? If there were no lines for the EYE on Monday afternoon, why not just take the "flight" at that time?

And you still lined up for 30 minutes before the Eye opened... I don't get it. Couldn't you have just bought your ticket on that Tuesday morning when you arrived 30 minutes early??? I'm not sure what kind of "tip" this is. Please enlighten me.

sf7307

FWIW, we went on the London Eye with advance tickets (it was a gift, picked up at Will Call) at sundown on the last Sunday in August last year and there was pretty much nobody else there.

janisj

yk - there is seldom a queue for <u>advance tickets</u>" sales. They are sold in a different counter than current tickets. So I can only assume Scene24 meant there was no line to buy tix for the next day.

Nowadays there usually isn't a long line at either counter -- except for some weekend afternoons and holidays. So buying ahead of time or at the time probably doesn't make that much difference.

BTW - you don't have to queue up at all to buy tix - you can order them by phone and pick them up a few minutes before your timed flight.

Lynclarke: Two little notes 1) Harrods Food halls are not in the basement and 2) Scala House closed a couple of years ago. ( a sad loss for visitors for sure )

yk

Thanks for the explanation, Janis. I guess it's a good idea to buy the advance ticket IF you know what the weather forecast is for the day of your visit... Sounds like calling is the easiest option - eg, call in the AM for an afternoon ticket.

3sica

lynclark - YES i definitely wanna see the Crown Jewels! Hmm... what do you mean by highlights tour?

TeresaJolly - I think my husband is going to confiscate all my cards for this trip! HAHA... I have heard soooo much about Harrods in London, the one we have in Singapore is simply a small corner at one of our big malls (I loved some of their vinyl bags!)it is like a MUST visit for me, just live the LV flagship boutique in Paris Champs Elysees!

charlieandann - i like the idea of the hop on/off bus...
is there a website that shows the bus routes? so that i can know where i can board the bus?

evecolorado - sadly I will not be in Europe anymore on the 13th, I will be gng back to Dubai on that day from Paris/Nice. Really wish I have much longer than 12 days!

Thanks everyone else for the tips on booking tix for the London Eye... now... if anyone can vote if I should see it in the morning or evening....