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Things to do in London
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london.md

Museums

The "main" museums are:

  • British Museum: basically this is all the treasures (art and artefacts) that Britain has stolen from around the world
  • National Gallery: paintings
  • National Portrait Gallery (around the corner): paintings of people, photographs of people (closed for renovations for the rest of the year)
  • Victoria & Albert Gallery: sculpture, architecture, medieval stuff, tapestries, rugs
  • Natural History Museum: the building alone is worth the visit, the exhibits are nice too
  • Tate Modern: London's equivalent of the MOMA

Other notable museums:

  • Royal Observatory: where the Prime Meridien was set. Neat place to check out if you happen to be in Greenwich, which also has the National Maritime Museum and the Cutty Sark
  • Museum of London: great for understanding the history of the city, near the Barbican
  • Transit Museum: really good history of London's groundbreaking transit system
  • Science Museum: what it says on the tin
  • British Library: has a room full of precious documents (the original magna carta, old bibles, old qu'rans, beethoven's tuning fork) that is definitely worth a few minutes if you happen to be near Euston
  • Estorick Collection: a small modern Italian art museum that is a 10-minute walk from our flat
  • Wellcome Collection: lots of medical stuff
  • Royal Academy of Art: often has some interesting exhibits
  • There are a bunch of museums I've been meaning to go to for ages but haven't gotten around to: Old Operating Theatre, Imperial War Museum, Handel and Hendrix House, William Morris Gallery, Clowns Gallery-Museum of clown eggs, and countless others

Books

  • Foyles: my favourite bookstore
  • Daunt: another great bookstore, specialising in travel books
  • Stanfords: specialises in maps
  • Gosh! Comics: a nice comic book store in Soho
  • Charing Cross and Cecil Court - famous for their antiquarian bookstores, though I understand it's a shadow of what it once was

Buildings / churches

  • St. Pauls — the most well-known church in London, along with Westminster Abbey
  • Tower Bridge – sort of a must-see. We've never been inside, though, and have been meaning to
  • Tower of London – the easiest castle to get to. You've got to check out the crown jewels. And the ravens
  • Monument – if you're near it, it's sort of fun to climb
  • Leadenhall Market – very Harry Potter-esque market near the famous Lloyd's bank building on Leadenhall street
  • Westminster Cathedral – I always got this confused with Westminster Abbey, but this one is Catholic and an impressively dark building. Worth checking out if you're near it, but not really a destination
  • Barbican — probably the most amazing example of brutalist architecture (think Embarcadero Center and Hyatt Regency on steroids). They have a really cool conservatory/greenhouse. If you go to Museum of London or to a show or exhibit at the Barbican, it's worth spending a little extra time wandering around and getting lost in the complex

Neighbourhoods to see

  • Soho - a real social centre of the city, with a bit of Haight and a lot of Castro in its vibe, and overlaps a bit with Chinatown
  • Covent Garden - fairly touristy, but it's nice to check out the Covent Garden Market (lots of food options), Seven Dials, etc., easy to walk through to Soho
  • Borough and Southbank - it's great to go to Borough Market, an enormous and ancient food market, and then walk along the southern bank of the Thames, past the Globe, the Tate Modern, and Southbank (we took Jay along this). There will be a Christmas market up at Southbank
  • Camden Lock - very Haight St., lots of counterculture. It's very nice to reach Camden by walking along Regent's Canal from King's Cross on a Saturday until you get to Camden Lock, where there's a food market that opens up into the outdoor shopping area with all the funny stores
  • Marylebone — it's got some nice shops and nice food and is generally a very pleasant neighbourhood to walk around. Feels a bit like the Marina, I suppose
  • Shoreditch - coffee, hipster restaurants (Keu has really good fusion banh mi), cocktail bars. Box Park is a shipping-container complex that has some nice food and shops.
  • Spitalfields, Brick Lane, Whitechapel – Spitalfields has a big food market. Brick Lane is famous for the Bengali/Bangladeshi food, beigels, vintage clothes, and the Sunday Upmarket. Whitechapel is famous for Jack the Ripper
  • Dalston - I particularly like hanging out at the Dalston Eastern Curve Park (tucked away park behind some buildings)

Food to try

  • Neals Yard Dairy — you should definitely swing by the original Covent Garden location early in your trip and get a selection of cheeses to try during your stay here. They generally prefer that you try every cheese before you buy it. I particularly love Montgomery Cheddar and Stichelton, but everything they have is pretty amazing.
  • Hawksmoor — the most famous steakhouse group. The one in Covent Garden is especially nice, but all the ones we've been to have been good. They do a really nice Sunday roast, but it's beef only.
  • The Jugged Hare – lots of seasonal game, including their signature dish, jugged hare.
  • (Covent Garden) Battersea Pie Station — if you're in the neighborhood, they do a really nice pie and mash. Not super traditional, but I love this place.
  • M Manze – if you're curious to try traditional East London pie & mash and jellied eels, this would be the place to go. Definitely not to everyone's taste
  • Dishoom — a very hip Parsi restaurant. We took Jay to the one in King's Cross for breakfast, but it's a great place to go for lunch or dinner, though be prepared to queue for a bit (they will bring you tea while you wait). The King's Cross location is great, but Shoreditch and Covent Garden (the original) are really good too.
  • Hopper's — a hip Sri Lankan place, can be quite spicy, but the food is great
  • Bao — a hip Taiwanese place, each location is quite different. We took Jay to the original branch in Soho, but the others are all really good too. And their even earlier spot is a stall in Netil Market, which is worth checking out too (they mostly just do the gua bao and fried chicken).
  • The Gate – vegetarian haute cuisine
  • (Covent Garden) Rock and Soul Plaice — I've yet to have anyone recommend a really good place for fish and chips. Most British people turn their nose up at this restaurant, but it's the best fish and chips I've had thus far. I think the main objection to it is the price.

Honorable mentions:

  • The Princess of Shoreditch (british food)
  • Blacklock (british food)
  • Yauatcha (fancy dim sum)
  • Kati Roll (indian fast food)
  • Saravanaa Bhavan (tamil food)
  • The Queen of Sheba (yemeni food)

Afternoon Tea:

  • The Diamond Jubilee Room at Fortnum and Mason is probably my favourite
  • We really enjoyed taking Oliver and Ewan for a kid-friendly afternoon tea at The Chesterfield
  • The Palm Court at the Langham hotel is also really nice
  • The Ritz and the Savoy are also famous for their fancy afternoon teas, but I don't think we've been

Shops

  • Liberty is a beautiful department store to walk through, close to Oxford Circus. It's known especially for their fabrics. The building was constructed out of timber reclaimed from a pair of ships
  • Harrods is an experience, a weird blend of gaudy Las Vegas aesthetic and classy. It's usually quite crowded, and it's hard to imagine being able to afford much that they have, but I enjoy going there anyways
  • Fortnum and Mason is a very classy, very British sort of department store
  • Regent Street (fancy), Oxford Street (middle class), Bond Street (fancy), Savile Row (very fancy), and St. James' are all really famous streets for shopping, with stores that have been around for centuries

Parks

  • Regents Park is very curated and very pleasant to walk through
  • Hyde Park
  • St. James' Park, Green Park, the Mall, and Buckingham Palace
  • Hampstead Heath (great view of London from Parliament Hill) and Highgate Cemetery (where Karl Marx and Douglas Adams are)
  • Alexandra Palace (another good view of London) - they have ice skating in the winter
  • Primrose Hill (another good view — London's a fairly flat city, so that makes these spots pretty exciting)
  • There are countless other lovely parks too numerous to mention. Battersea Park, London Fields, Victoria Park, Clissold Park are all nice

Day trips

Greenwich is a great day trip. The Greenwich Market is really nice. The Royal Observatory is a small museum worth visiting (it's where the Prime meridian is). The Maritime museum and Meantime brewery are there, as is the Cutty Sark (which I've not seen). Greenwich Park is nice to walk round. You can walk through the Old Royal Naval College (now occupied by University of Greenwich and Trinity College), see the Painted Hall and the beautiful Chapel of St Peter & St Paul, and have a nice pub lunch at the Trafalgar Tavern and see the Nelson Room.

Hampton Court is a good half-day trip. It's a great castle with a lot of history, including the oldest hedge maze in the world.

Windsor Castle is also worth a visit.

Kew Gardens is a good place to walk around if the weather is nice. It's the largest botanical gardens in the world. Richmond Park is somewhat nearby and is also supposed to be great, but I've not been (like Nara, they are known for their deer). And Richmond is a cute little town to walk around and there'll be lots of places to eat there.

Shows

  • Henry V at the Globe - going to the Globe is an experience and definitely a must-do for Shakespeare fans
  • Little Angel Puppet Theatre - we adore this theatre. It's in our neighbourhood and it's the only dedicated puppet theatre in London, apparently. Generally focused towards small children, but that never stopped us from going
  • Almeida Theatre is easily the most notable theatre in walking distance from us
  • Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap - the longest running play in the world, by many decades. It's quite fun, and classic Agatha Christie
  • Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
  • My Neighbour Totoro – I was quite dubious about this, but everything I've read about it seems to indicate that it's a great show
  • The Royal Ballet will, of course, be doing The Nutcracker, and The Royal Opera will, of course, be doing The Magic Flute (not sure why that became a christmas thing)

Getting out of London

There are a lot of options for a 1-day or 2-day trip out of London, and we've not done very many of them. The Cotswolds are very nice. St. Ives is a beautiful town to visit. Bath is worth a visit. We enjoyed Margate. And also Colchester (the UK's oldest city!) and Constable country. On our to-do list are the Isle of Wight, the New Forest, Canterbury, Cambridge and Ely, along with many others. King's Cross opens up a lot of options to the north and east of London, and renting a car is pretty easy.

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