London Vacation
 

Hi Everyone!

My fiance and I are headed to London next week on vacation. We will be in London for 5 days and Liverpool for 2.5 days. Here is our list of sites to see during this trip, more specifically when we are in London. I'd love to get your thoughts! These are what we plan on doing together on the same day...

One Day:
- London Eye
- Palace of Westminster/Big Ben - photo ops
- Buckingham Palace - Changing of the Guard
- Westminster Abbey - tour

Another Day:
- St. Paul's Cathedral
- Tower of London - full tour

Another Day:
- We are seeing a play at Prince of Wales Theatre
- British Museum

Another Day:
- Windsor Castle

Anything to add/subtract? Advice is more than welcome!

Good on you for not trying to cram everything possible into your trip! Your groupings make sense. You'll have some time on your British Museum day; although you certainly <i>could</i> spend all day in there, most people don't have that tolerance! That day would be good for wandering around Covent Garden/Trafalgar Square, but honestly if it's me I'd probably just see what I felt like/was interested in doing on that day.

I haven't done the changing of the guard myself, but you might search here for other threads on it - there are some tips and alternatives you might find helpful.

As far as things to add, it depends on your interests. Some possibilities: On your St Paul's day, you could visit the Tate Modern if that's of interest - even if you're not into modern art, the facility is very cool (a former power plant), and it's free and very close to the Globe Theatre, so worth a quick visit at least. Also if you're into museums, the Victoria & Albert and National Portrait Gallery are two of my favorites, and of course the National Gallery is right on Trafalgar Square.

London Walks (walks.com) are very good and have tons of options; on my recent trip, I downloaded their current PDF to my phone and did a couple that happened to work out with my interests and schedule (you just show up, no need to reserve space). I've lost count of how many I've done over the years, but they've all been great.

Hope you'll also post about your Liverpool plans;
There is a great deal on this Forum about London
but Liverpool is often given short-shrift.

Have a wonderful journey!

Personally, I would give the changing of the guards a miss. It's too time consuming and, IMO, not worth it on your first trip to London.

Go to the War Rooms the same day as the Abbey. They're close enough.

Don't count on any particular day for the Eye - London weather changes too frequently for that.

We've had some fun on two trips to Liverpool. Things we've done:

The waterfront and Tate Liverpool
The Beatles Experience
The Cavern Club
The Walker Museum of art
The Lady Lever Gallery and Port Sunlighy. ( love these)
Lots of fun shopping streets and a few galleries

We wanted to take a ferry ride but didn't get a good weather window.

I will look up our hotel if you are interested.

The Maritime Museum in Liverpool is very interesting too.

That should be Port Sunlight

Try doing the Horse Guards instead of the Changing of the guard. You get up close while they are waiting their turn. They gather at horse guards parade to line up.