Greetings from Virginia. I have a business trip to London in a couple of weeks so my wife and I are going several days early. We are arriving Heathrow about 9AM on 7/16 and will be staying at the Waldorf Hilton for 6 nights before moving out near Gatwick for my business obligations. From reading the forum, it looks like we will forego the HO HO bus although we have enjoyed those in other cities. I believe our hotel is relatively centrally located to see many of the tourist sites. I am interested in knowing what people feel like are the must sees. I think we want to go to the British museum, Tower of London, Buckingham Palace and to see a couple of shows. I'd be interested in hearing from veterans as to what you absolutely wouldn't want to miss and we would also appreciate recommendations on plays to see between 7/16 and 7/22. Also, I have heard about walking tours where you just show up and pay a fee and get a guided walking tour. Anyone have experience with these and which ones in particular are recommended. If anyone has any particular favorite restaurants/cafes in the area we would also appreciate those recommendations. Thank you very much for your input. David

Your hotel is in a great location. With five or six days you should be able to see a lot - all you mentioned and quite a bit more (although I'm not sure what you mean by going to Buckingham Palace; as far as I know, you can't actually go inside except during August and September). I would look at guidebooks and web sites to see what particularly interests you, but some of my favorites that you haven't mentioned are the Victoria & Albert Museum, the British Library and the National Portrait Gallery. Westminster Abbey and St Paul's also aren't on your list.

As far as shows, Wicked and Les Mis are two of my favorites. I really wanted to see Oliver! when I was there a few weeks ago, but couldn't get tickets; you might see if there are any available. If you want to see a play rather than a musical, 39 Steps was really fun. Waiting for Godot is supposed to be quite good too, but again I wasn't able to get tickets so haven't seen it myself.

London Walks is probably the tour company you've heard of. I took three walks with them on my last trip and they were all great. You can download their brochure at walks.com; all the walks meet outside a Tube station, and you just show up and pay the guide.

For restaurants, you'll get much better recommendations if you give us an idea of your budget.

Have a great time!

The "musts" will depend on the sorts of things you enjoy - different for everyone. But what really isn't a must (or if so - it is really just a "walk by" ) is Buckingham Palace.

This website lists all of London Walks options by day of the week http://www.walks.com/

But for a list of just some of the major sites -- you wouldn't be able to get to all of these but they can at least get you started w/ research:

• St Pauls
• Westminster Abbey
• the Tower
• British Museum
• Victoria & Albert
• National/National Portrait Galleries
• Tate Britain and Tate Modern
• Cabinet War Rooms
• The Eye
• Imperial War Museum
• A street market -- Burough Market (Thurs-Sat), Portobello Rd Market (Sat) or others
• Lots of other Galleries/museums (Courtauld, Sir John Soanes, Wallace Collection, etc depending on your interests)
• Hampton Court Palace and / or Greenwich
• Windsor Castle
• Theatre/Concerts

was writing while jent103 was posting . . . .

Strongly recommend Jersey Boys and Wicked. Would advise against We Will Rock You - disappointing.

As for the walks, what sorts of things do you enjoy? There are walks themed toward architecture, art, famous murders, history of a particular area, etc.

I would add Kew Botanical Gardens and Regent's park (all the city parks, really) to the above list.

I was in London this May and did 5/6 London Walks.

www.walks.com

St Paul's and Hampstead I liked, and the Hampstead Pub Tour was fun . Fees are 7 pounds unless you get a discount card, which saves you 2 pounds on any subsequent tours. I've been to London before and decided wanted someone else to guide me around to see some stuff off the tourist path, stories, etc..

Thanks everyone. Good information. I suppose we are typical tourists and thought we would like to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. No intention of getting inside. Probably wouldn't include this, but since we have several days, thought we would give it a try. The walking tours sound very interesting and we'll get some info from their web site. Thanks for the recommendations on the plays. Le Mis is one of our favorites from New York and love the music. Have several CDs of the soundtrack.
Regarding restaurants, we are tee-totalers (non-drinkers of alcohol) but do enjoy a good meal. I understand that can be quite expensive in London. I'm thinking L40 - 50 for the 2 of us to get an appetizer and 2 entrees at dinner. Is that possible? Maybe one meal for a special occasion at say L100 for the 2 of us, but most of them in the lower range. Thanks for any ideas. David

Hi Judatt -

Jersey Boys at the Prince Edward Theatre is a fab show! I think your wife will really enjoy the fashion and jewelry collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum. If you want to go for a special lunch or dinner, I recommend Rules, which is the oldest restaurant in London. It's on Maiden Lane in Covent Garden, and their rhubarb apple crumble is superb!

There are two of you, so go to the Days Out Guide website and start printing 2for1 vouchers. Plenty of posts on this forum on how to use these. Click my name for some of them. Just remember, do NOT get your seven-day travelcard at a Tube station, get it at a National Rail ticket booth (like at Paddington if you take the Heathrow Express into town or Charing Cross -- the closest national rail station to your hotel). It should be a flimsy orange card, not a solid blue one.

The 2for1 offers will apply to London Walks, British Library's Henry VIII exhibition, Tower, Cabinet War Rooms, Hampton Ct. Palace and more. If you go to Windsor Castle, buy tickets at the train station (Waterloo or Paddington, whichever one from which you catch the train to Windsor) and they cost 12 quid, not 15.50.

You can easily eat for 50 quid or less at dinner. This is especially true because you are abstemious. Moderate restaurants in London seemed to have GBP prices about 80-85% of the dollar number we'd expect in the US (e.g., 10.50 in London for a dish that usually goes for 12.95 in US), which means it's slightly more expensive when accounting for exchange rate (which is hovering around 1.60/1). There are so many restaurants in central London that you can just walk down the street and find someplace less costly.

And if you want fish and chips, there's a pub near the Tower that's excellent -- just follow the signs to the Tower exit from the tube at Tower Hill, go left and away from the Tower and it's under the Docklands Railway. Can't remember the name.

you've been given some great information. One of my favorite things that is truly unique is the Cabinet War Rooms - they are close to Westminster. They are the underground rooms where Churchill worked ... they are left as they were during that time. v cool.

re restaurants - what is your budget?

janisj - in case you missed it in an earlier post: <i>"I'm thinking L40 - 50 for the 2 of us to get an appetizer and 2 entrees at dinner. Is that possible? Maybe one meal for a special occasion at say L100 for the 2 of us, but most of them in the lower range. Thanks for any ideas. David"</i>

opps - thanks jent.

Sure that's a totally doable budget. There are so many restaurants to choose from you won't have any problem. And for your splurge meal - what sort of cuisine?

The higher end places like Rules and such won't necessarily fit. Rules is very good BTW, <u>VERY traditional</u>, but more like £60-£70 and up per person depending on the wine you choose. I had dinner there again just a couple of months ago and I think my bill was £66 and I only had one glass of wine. But I'll have to go back to my notes and check.

janis -- you've missed two things now. The OP and spouse don't drink alcoholic beverages.

I think she was making the point that her meal was that much and would be less if you don't drink wine with it (but the cost didn't include a bottle, for example).

at least that's how I read it...

Greetings, everyone. Thanks for the great info - much appreciated. BigRuss's comment above creates a question. I had not thought to buy a 7 day travelcard - thinking that once we get to our hotel there will be at least a couple of days where we just walk where we are going. I thought I would get us each an oyster card for the travel that we do. However, I'm thinking that with the 2 for 1 offers it might be better to go ahead with the 7 day travelcard. Any thoughts? Thanks everyone. David

You can walk to a lot from your hotel, for sure. But the travelcards will let you ride the Tube and the buses whenever you want without worrying about fare costs. They cost about &pound;25 (for zones 1 & 2, which is all you need unless you take the tube from Heathrow) and really are worth it, in my opinion. If you want to go to the V&A, British Library, Tower of London... any of that, it's not really in walking distance of your hotel. (Well, the British Library, maybe, if you're an enthusiastic walker.) (And as BigRuss mentioned, if you want to take advantage of the 2 for 1 offers, you need to buy the paper travelcards at a rail station, not the Oysters).

Definitely get the 7-day PAPER travelcard with the RAIL LOGO on it (for both of you) so that you can take advantage of the 2-for-1 offers. Even if you think you'll be walking, London is HUGE, plus you will already be spending a lot of time walking WITHIN the sites, so you definitely want to save your energy and use tubes and buses to get from one place to another.

See this website for more info on PAPER Travelcard and 2-for-1:
http://www.londontoolkit.com/briefing/travelcard.htm

I did the London Walk tour at Westminster at 6pm. It was solid, though not spectacular. It was unfortunately pouring rain, but afterwards, at around 9pm, I went into the Parliament and watched a session.

I really liked the Cabinet War Rooms but I'm a history buff.

I did go to the Changing of the Guard, and arrived just as they were marching down the boulevard. Once they got to the gate, though, it was jammed packed with people so I couldn't really see anything (since I didn't arrive early). It wasn't all that exciting, though, so I left partway through.

If you group sights you want to see by day, based on which ones are close together, you can just use an Oyster Card.

Don't go to the Wax Museum... I found that a complete waste of time since I left the British Museum after 30 min to do that.

Sorry, I forgot to add... for flexibility wise, I agree that London is huge and the paper travelcard sounds good.