Been doing a lot of reading and there is so much to see. What top things would you do in London for one week in late October? I like history, museums and seeing sites.<BR>

TTT

You can do so much in a week! The longest I've spent in London is 3 days. I've done several day long visits, and a few couple day visits. You'll love it. You have to do the usual...Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, St Paul's Cathedral...if you go there on a weekday around 4ish, you might get lucky enough to stay for a choral evensong...very awesome. The Tower Bridge, Harrods, the London Eye, Houses of Parliament, what else? Take a ferry up to Greenwich, see the division of the east and west hemispheres. Take a train to Stratford upon Avon, Shakespeare's birthplace. Have lunch, wander around. Its very quaint. I stay at Kensington Park hotel usually. Good location. Right nere the Glouceser Rd tube stop. There's a great pub right there, the Rat and Parrot. I always feel very safe walking around there at night. Walk through Green Park. Check out Piccadilly Circus. Good luck. Enjoy!

You can do so much in a week! The longest I've spent in London is 3 days. I've done several day long visits, and a few couple day visits. You'll love it. You have to do the usual...Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, St Paul's Cathedral...if you go there on a weekday around 4ish, you might get lucky enough to stay for a choral evensong...very awesome. The Tower Bridge, Harrods, the London Eye, Houses of Parliament, what else? Take a ferry up to Greenwich, see the division of the east and west hemispheres. Take a train to Stratford upon Avon, Shakespeare's birthplace. Have lunch, wander around. Its very quaint. I stay at Kensington Park hotel usually. Good location. Right nere the Glouceser Rd tube stop. There's a great pub right there, the Rat and Parrot. I always feel very safe walking around there at night. Walk through Green Park. Check out Piccadilly Circus. You have to set aside an afternoon for the British Museum. Very big, check out the website beforehand and pick out the main things you want to see. Otherwise you'll wander for hours. I've heard that the Albert and Victoria museum (I think that's the name of it) is cool, but I haven't been there yet. Good luck. Enjoy.

While I’m not a fan of tourbuses, people who have visited me in London have uniformly recommended the “hop on-hop off” tourbus (combined with a ticket for the river cruise) as a first day activity in London (if you have never visited before). These buses have itineraries that cover the main sights and destinations in central London, so they’ll give you an overview of the city’s layout and provide transportation to the places you want to visit. You can hop off the bus for a closer look, or decide that the drive-by is good enough. And the bus operates as something of a “buspass” for a 24 hour period. The river cruise component is also quite interesting (but be prepared for rowdy children).<BR><BR>After your first day, I’d recommend the Tower of London (you can easily spend 3-4 hours there), the City of London museum (good for London’s history) and Greenwich (you can take the Docklands Light Railway from the city to Greenwich, which will give you an overland view of East London and Canary Wharf). Greenwich is a pretty village that has been absorbed by London. It has a great maritime museum, a beautiful waterfront with nice pubs. Kew Gardens is very pretty and worth the 1 hour trip from central London (by tube or train). Regent’s Park Canal. Sir John Soanes’ museum is quirky Victoriana, and the Victoria & Albert museum has a terrific exhibition of clothing. If you like climbing, you can walk up the stairs at the Monument for a good view of London, and if you really like heights you can go on the London Eye. Skip Madame Tussauds and any dungeon-oriented exhibitions – horrible tourist claptrap. Go shopping at the Marble Arch Marks & Spencer. Take a daytrip from London by coach (bus) to visit some of the castles and sights outside London – but choose carefully (the tours that just drive by villages are dull – you want a tour that gives you time to explore a place). Go to Hampstead Heath and have brunch at Kenwood House. Take some of the short walking tours advertised in Time Out magazine.<BR><BR>Another hotel that is worth checking out is the Holiday Inn in Regent’s Park. It’s very central, but less expensive than other central London hotels, in a safe neighbourhood within a few minutes walk of half a dozen tube lines (including the lines that connect with Paddington and Victoria stations).<BR>

Thanks Shelagh and Kate.<BR>

Promptly leave the city. Just kidding, kind of. I would spend some time in Bath, though, perhaps with a tour of the Stonehenge and Avebury. Always wanted to hit Warwick, but haven't made it.

As you like history and museums, the British Museum in Bloomsbury should be on your list. It has fantastic things like original hand written manuscripts by the Brontes, but be warned, rooms and rooms full of bloody plates and urns.<BR><BR>The National Gallery is gorgeous, huge, and a little deceptively named - because it has one of the world's finest collections of art by painters of all nationalities. <BR><BR>Walk in the parks, especially Kensington Gardens, even in the autumn - they clear your head from the buzz of the city, and are central, so provide shortish cuts - you can walk from Oxford Street to Knightsbridge (and Harrods) through Hyde Park, for instance, rather than taking the tube. The tube is no fun at all.<BR><BR>Wander through Covent Garden and buy clothes for hip young female friends or relatives - it's full of little shops often selling hard-to-get and hip things, and there are street performers. It's touristy, but somewhere I still go, even though I've lived here several years, because it just feels warm and friendly. <BR><BR>The same with the Portobello Rd market, for antiques, and, further along it, bric a brac, on Saturdays. Watch your bag here, it's so crowded there are pickpockets. In this area, there are a lot of extremely chi-chi boutiques and shops along Ledbury Road (parallel to Portobello), and lovely new restaurants on the All Saints Road. <BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>

Windsor Castle and Hampton Court are two castles I would suggest seeing while in London. They're relatively easy to get to by train. I went in <BR>November and there were few tourists about. <BR>

The London Eye<BR>The Vic and Albert Museum<BR>Windsor Castle<BR>Kew Gardens<BR>Dinner Cruise on the Thames<BR>The Imperial War Museum<BR>The Tate Modern (next to the London Eye)<BR>Walk along the Mall to Buck House<BR>Petticoat Lane Sunday market<BR>Greenwich Observatory<BR>Boat trip from Camden Lock along the canal to Regents Park<BR>That should just about take up your whole week.<BR><BR><BR>

Theatre, theatre, theatre!!!

<BR>Day trips - Stonehenge, Bath, the Cotswolds, Stratford-Upon Avon if you are a Shakespeare buff...and Liverpool if you are a Beatles fan.

For only a week I think there's too much to see just in London. Looking back my favorites were:<BR>British Museum (try to get a tour as it's so huge)<BR>Westminster Abbey (at the same time you may get into the Houses of Parliament)<BR>National Art Gallery and St Martins-in-the Field (next door)<BR>Big Bus tour (I took it the first two days as it was so convenient for overview and hopping on and off)<BR>Tower of London<BR>Boat trip to Greenwich<BR>Hampton Court<BR>St Paul's Cathedral<BR>I can send you my trip report for that one week (out of a month in England) if you e-mail me directly. I've been reading all your posts for a long time and know you're very well traveled.<BR><BR>I do have 2 recommendations for dinner - Bumbles and Carriages, both at Buckingham Palace Rd and Bressendon in the Victoria Station area.<BR><BR>