Please help with itinerary in london!
 

My first trip to London and for only 5 days at the end of the month. Please tell me in what groupings I should see things as to make the most of my time:

St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Kensington Palace, Thames boat tour, London Eye,Tower of London, Hampton Court, change of horse guards, National Gallery, and a market or two (should I bother with the markets if I'm not interested in antiques?) Will fit in the pub crawls and Ripper tour at night! :) I will be staying in Marble arch area so shopping is around the corner (thank God!)
Thank you for ANY input!

These places group pretty easily . . .

1) Hampton Court Palace is pretty much a full day by itself. Don't decide ahead of time which day - wait til you see what the westher is like.

2) Horse Guards and the Nat'l Gallery are practically around the corner from each other.

3) Go to the Tower right at opening time - then after touring it, take the boat from Tower pier to Westminster pier. this will be directly across the river from the Eye. Westminster pier is also a very short distance from the Abbey. So you might want to do the Tower > Thames boat trip > W. Abbey and finally the Eye at dusk.

4) If you are there on a Saturday you could do Portabello Rd EARLY in the morning, then walk over to Kensington Palace. Have tea or lunch in the Orangery and tour the palace. Port. rd. is great even if you aren't really into antiques - if only for the people watching. But you must get there EARLY -- like 7 or 8 AM and leave by 10 AM

Hello from London.
I'm an expat, have lived here for over a year, and I have a few recommendations.

First, and this is anathema to all the "cool kid" "independent"travelers who post here- on your first trip to London, take the bus tour. Particularly on a short trip like yours, you dont want to be spending half your expensive time going the wrong way when you get out of the tube. In fact, you will do a lot of that anyway, its unavoidable, but here are the reasons I recommend the tour.
1) London is BIG. Very big. Like the size of LA with the population density of NYC. The Bus tour allows you to see all the major sites in under three hours, if you wish, leaving you with no "I cant beleive I didnt get to see the" regrets. At least youve "seen" everything, and if you tried to do all those things by tube it would take 3 days.
2) Its great for your first day- gives you a sense of where things are, what you may want to see, and you can spend most of the time sitting if youre tired.
3)That said, I recommend seeing the Tower from the bus. Theyre hop on hop off, so you can go at your own pace. While many other attractions are grouped together, the Tower is really an outlier, on the southeastern edge of the "City" area. Again, think easy transport to maximise quality time at attractions.
4) Theyre easy and not expensive- they leave from in front of Baker St station.
5) Right off the bat you get the "Im in London"! feeling.


Once youve got that in the bag, I would recommend a day seeing the National Gallery, with tea at the top floor Portrait Restaurant or a hearty and cheap meal in the basement cafe at St Martin in the Fields (across the street.)If you can, pick up a flier for a concer there in th e evenin- their music is legendary. Then, if you like amble down Whitehall St. (towards Big Ben)check out the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, and I highly recommend a side trip to the Cabinet War rooms which are just round the corner near St James park (easily found on the Web) You could also reverse this plan.
Alternatively, you could plan to start south, do the London Eye, Parliament, Abbey, Tate Britain, Cabinet War rooms (just throwing together all the stuff in that area) and work your way north up Whitehall to Trafalgar Sq (home of Ntl Gallery, St Martin in the Fields, et al) the palace where they executed Charles I, called the Banqueting Room, designed by Inigo Jones, very cool building is on the way to the National Gallery (maybe see the new "To Kill a King" movie before you come and check it out?), which stays open late on Thursdays (check the website)
If you want to cruise the Thames, I say read "Longitude" by Dava Sobel and cruise out to Greenwich, which is an amazing place. On your first trip though, theres so much in the city to see you might want to stick to that.

My vote would be to ditch the markets. If youre from a small town or somewhere you dont have access to city markets maybe its a worth it, but my experience is that theres not much here you cant get at home.
best of luck!

I agree with above poster gal moxie about the bus tour . Some of the hop on hop off bus companies the (green bus) at the end of the tour day they have a free gaslight pub crawl (great pubs and tour). I would tour the tower of london at the end of the day that way you will be right at the tower tube station where the the ripper tour starts at dusk .

WOnderful! Tell me, can I pick up the hop on hop off at marble arch or do I have to go to Baker st?

Also , I am going at probably the worst time tourist wise. Would I benefit from getting a heritage or other pass for some to the attractions (even if I won't be seeing all they offer ) to avoid the annoyance of the lines?

Gal Moxie, the book and movie idea is fantastic!

I agree that a bus tour is great! I would go to the Tower of London first to beat the crowds, then take one of the hop-on/off tours from there. There are a couple of them, and they basically follow similar itineraries. You can buy a combo ticket that includes the bus tour and a Thames River tour; we did that, and felt we got a great overview from 2 different perspectives.

You didn't mention theatre, but a good day could go like this: 1st stop, Westminster Abbey(we spent a couple of hours here, it's my husband's favorite spot in London), take photos of Big Ben and Parliament, then walk across Westminster Bridge to ride the London Eye; walk across the footbridge toward Charing Cross Station, and pick a place for lunch.(Possibly in the Trafalgar Square area) After lunch, either tour the National Gallery or just look around, then walk to Leicester Square to buy 1/2 price tickets at TKTS, go home for a brief rest, and see your play that evening, with your choice of early dinner before the theatre or a late supper after.

The neat thing about the major museums is now that they don't charge admission, you can go in for a quick overview, and decide if you want to spend more time or come back later.

We love London, and there is no way to do or see everything in 5 days, but you can do a lot. I would skip the street markets, unless you are a die-hard fan of flea markets, your time can be better spent elsewhere.

tana: As the others said, the hop-on-hop-off tours are really wonderful and you should definitely take one. I didnt mention it because I was merely grouping the places you listed you wanted to see.

You can catch the tour buses all over London - every place on their route. It is good to take it on your first day - a good way to be outside but still sitting down if you are jet lagged and tired. Since they are good for 24 hours you could use it both on your 1st and 2nd day.

I would not use the tour bus to GET TO the tower tho'. You want to be there at or just before opening time. So take the tube to the tower. From there you can jump on a bus -- or take the boat back up stream to Westminster. Since you want to take a river trip this is the most practical one for you since you want to see both the Tower and the Eye and the river boat connects the two.

For a short trip and just to London you won't save a lot with a Great British Heritage Pass or other discount passes. But Kensington Palace, Hampton Court and the Tower are covered by the heritage pass so if you group these three on 3 consecutive days, the 3-day GBHP would be cost effective.

Try to combine the London Eye with the Thames Cruise. British Airways sells a combination eye/cruise package on their website, which is very convenient. You may find that if you don't buy your London Eye tickets ahead of time, they can get sold out.

Hi!

My wife were there in May. We both highly recommend trying to fit in the British Museum. It's quite incredible with its showing of things like the Rosetta Stone, Elgin Marbles, etc.

Hi Tana:

We took a neat little side trip to the Chislehurst Caves (www.chislehurstcaves.co.uk - was included with the 'London Pass', ~20 min on the train & included with the '6 zone' transit pass) - 3 sets of caves, from the Druids & early Anglo-Saxons which were used as shelter during the bombing of London.

We also did a daytrip out to Bath (Roman Baths, etc, took the train & had the 'Bath Pass' rather than an organized tour).

We were there for 4 days & did all you listed except the London Eye and also say Les Mis.

Z

Good question, tana and great answers, especially from moxie_gal.

tana,

Per your question regarding the on-off buses and Marble Arch. Yes, both of the main companies stop on Park Lane, just barely south of the Marble Arch. You can buy 24 hr tickets right there and it seems to be a start/end point as the buses tend to sit there for a long while.

thanks everyone for your input. Seems like the tower and the London Eye are the two that have the longest lines! I have read best to go to the tower in the morning and another best to go in the evening. Are the lines shorter in the evening also? I don't want to miss the crown jewels either... How long do these lines get? Hours long?
I will play the Eye by ear (ha, ha!) since I want to go on a day it is not raining. Thanks again!

Definitely Westminster Abbey, Tower of London (go at opening), London Eye, & take a look at Buckingham Palace. I also recommend Madame Toussouds wax museum. As for the markets, I went to the Portebello Rd one on a Saturday and like you am not into antiques. It was good for the experience though. Very crowded, walked around for an hour and then had lunch. Notting Hill is really lovely. The camden markets sound unique also, I went to Camden during the week and had a pub lunch there. Quite a different style there.
Best shopping was on Oxford and Regent street! And don't forget Harrods Department store, that is a must, just to see it, it's huge.
5 days is definitely doable. I did it in 4 and I pretty much saw everything except museums (next time).

I would also highly recommend adding the Cabinet War Rooms tour to your agenda, as well as afternoon tea at a nice hotel. These aren't the "normal" top items on a tourist list, but were two of my most favorite things we did. Read up on the Cabinet Rooms if it's your thing - it was very cool. We had tea at Claridge's - so very, very nice and relaxing and English!