... London (Westminster\Hyde park area in particular)

Nalz

Hi folks

Looking for some hints and tips for our London trip in mid January. I'm bringing herself as a surprise to see the Lion King in Lyceum Theatre. We're staying a total of 3 nights, and have half a day before we fly back on a Saturday.

What I've planned so far is:
(a) first day I've nothing planned!
(b) second day go to showm, during the day nothing planned
(c) third day go to London zoo, do something after that (like what!) go out for a decent slap up meal
(d) fourth half day, just chill maybe do something small before flight home

I hear London eye and the bus tour is quite good. Might sneak in a footy ground tour if I'm lucky or even a game

Attached is where we're staying on the map (red cross green circle) so anything that's really close or a few tube stops away would be deadly.

Thanks a million,
Trilla

grimm2005

You're in a very central location so pretty much everything of note will be a short tube ride away, everything is very well connected by the tube so you needn't worry about things being in the local area.

If you're into museums, you are spoilt for choice and many of them, particularly the major ones are free. The Natural History museum is probably my favourite and there's some brilliant exhibits here, the Science museum next door is also very cool. The British museum is probably the biggest and is quite colossal, could spend ages in here. Some of the other more famous ones are the Tate Modern and the Victoria and Albert museums also. And these are just a few of the many museums in London!

Some of the more pricey touristy things I'd recommend would be the London Eye and Madame Tussauds. There's also the Aquarium and London Dungeon on the south bank by the London Eye. You can get combo tickets to these attractions to lower the cost and 2 for 1 entry tickets if you have valid train tickets.

It might not be the best time for it being winter, but there's a hop on/hop off boat tour which starts at Westminster (near the London Eye) and stops at the Tower of London which I highly recommend spending a few hours here, and you can also check out Tower Bridge and go to the top if you wish. The boat then continues on to Greenwhich which is a nice, slower paced area of London with a huge park that has some great views of the city from the top. It's also where "Greenwich Mean Time" gets its name.

Alternatively you could also do the hop on, hop off bus tour. This is great and also includes the hop on hop off boat tour and walking tours as well. There's also the Shard skyscraper which has a viewing skydeck on the top or alternatively you could visit one of the cocktail bars on the 30th-ish or 50th-ish floors before or after your Lion King show maybe. Or you could go to the O2 dome and climb to the top of it for something different. This is called "Up at the O2" and is fun and not too challenging. There are loads of restaurants inside as well as a British music museum and a bowling alley.

If you are big movie buffs, a visit to the BFI IMAX cinema in Waterloo is a great experience as this has a huge IMAX screen, the biggest in the UK, unlike any we have in this country. I'd also recommend a show at the Comedy Store near Leicester Square if you have a free night. It's probably the most famous in London and they put on some hilarious improv shows.

The Camden markets are great as well. Huge sprawling permanent markets where you could easily while away a few hours finding interesting things to buy and eating out of the numerous food stalls.

If she's a big Harry Potter fan, there's a WB Studios Tour which is where they filmed all the films and all the sets are intact and they apparently have fantastic tours here although this is a little outside London and would require a good half to full day so perhaps wouldn't work out for your time frame.

This is just scratching the surface of what you could do in London but might give you some ideas!

Nalz

Thanks so much for that!