London's East End
 

What is there to see in London's East end?

Museum of Childhood in Bethnall Green, <BR>Geffreye Museum, the Sunday flower market in Columbia Road, the shops and restaurants in Brick Lane, Spitalfields Market. I'm sure that people can come up with loads more.

Take a look at http://www.britannia.com/travel/london/cockney/

From the east end, take a walk through the pedestrian tunnel under the Thames to Greenwich. See the famous observatory, naval museum, and the Cutty Sark. Lots of great pubs and shops in Greenwich. If you aren't close to the tunnel, you can catch the little rail line (sorry, forgot its proper name) to the tunnel entry.

Thought of the rail line's name: Docklands Light Railway, I believe.

The whole Jack the Ripper thing, the Ragged School Museum in Mile End (as near as you'll get to a museum of East End life until the Museum of Docklands finally sorts out its funding), the Dennis Severs house at 18 Folgate Street (not a museum or tourist experience, they will tell you: a walk through a Georgian house as if the resident family are just a step ahead of you, designed to make you think about the changes in thought and feeling over the centuries). The Thames Barrier at Woolwich is a massive piece of engineering but the visitor centre a bit of a disappointment - slightly shabby now and essentially oriented towards school parties. The story of the modern East End for us is regeneration from and through massive social dislocation and change (loss of the docks and much basic industry, successive waves of migration and so on): but since this is exemplified in North American- style developments at Canary Wharf, it may not look all that remarkable or interesting to transatlantic visitors. Likewise, I still get a thrill counting up herons and cormorants fishing my stretch of the Thames in the East End, but it may not be so obvious to visitors just what a success story this is.