We will be in London for 4 nights in July with our 20 year old daughter and one of our mothers, 73 years young. We are interested in walks that focus on London's history, spies, WWII (not pubs, not the Ripper). Anyone have experience with a particular guide that was very entertaining or a walk that memorable?

Alan's "Spies & Spycatchers" walk on Saturday afternoon meets your criteria. If you are in London on July 17, Edward Petherbridge's Sunday morning "Theatreland Walk" is an absolute must for being entertaining and informative. The best walk that London Walks offers.

I second the recommendation for the Spycatcher walk. I took it with Allan, who is very knowledgeable and very funny.

Thanks for your input. That was just the information I was looking for.

I am going to piggyback onto to this thread with a question of my own:

Has anyone done anyone done the Dickens walk? Looks interesting, and we both love Dickens, but I was just wondering if anyone had been on any of the literary walks. We also may do one of the pub walks, just for fun!

The highpoint of our trip to London was our 2 London Walks tours guided by Shaughn, an actor whose full name is Shaughn Seymour and who has appeared in a wide range of British TV shows, such as Miss Marple, Poirot, Sharpe, etc. He is absolutely hilarious.

I took the Dickens walk a couple of years ago and I think it is a must for any Dickens fan.

The Literary Bloomsbury Walk is also very good.

I liked the walk that left from the Tower of London dock, took a boat down the Thames to Greenwich where the walk was around Greenwich. A really "neat" day. After the walk, we were left on our own for further exploring, then walked under the Thames to catch the train through Docklands then the tube to our hotel. There is an eating place in Greenwich that has the most amazing Rubarb crumble.

There is a fairly new walk called The Blitz: London at War, which is offered only on Thursday afternoons. I took this one in May and enjoyed it very much. We went to the sites of much of the bombing damage, and learned about the extraordinary efforts to save St. Paul's Cathedral. Helen, our guide was excellent. She shared many stories of everyday life in London during the war -- rationing, sheltering in the tube stations, etc. (It is sort of a shock to be reminded how much the war impacted the civilian population in London -- so many killed, wounded and made homeless.)