London
A capital that has been rebuilt after fire, blitz and money, where the world’s great museums are free and the best of it is walked rather than ticked off.
London
A city that has burned down, been bombed and been rebuilt with other people’s money, and which as a result has no single centre and no consistent style — a Norman fortress, a Wren cathedral, Victorian railway sheds and glass towers within sight of each other. It is expensive, and it gives away its greatest collections for nothing.
Explore London on the map
City locations, drawn from our published destination data. Attractions, hotels and restaurants are not mapped yet.
Beyond the temples
A thousand years of state theatre, the world in eight million objects, and a river to walk along.
Westminster and the state
- The Houses of Parliament with the Elizabeth Tower — the clock tower everyone calls Big Ben, which is properly the name of the bell inside it — and Westminster Abbey across the road, where English monarchs have been crowned since 1066 and a great many of them are buried.
- Buckingham Palace and the ceremonial Changing the Guard, which does not run every day and is weather-dependent, so the day is planned around what is actually scheduled rather than assumed.
- Churchill War Rooms, the underground bunker left much as it was in 1945, is the most affecting historical site in the city for many visitors and is easy to miss beside the bigger names.
- The Tower of London at the other end — a Norman keep, a prison, the Crown Jewels and the ravens — and Tower Bridge beside it. Tower Bridge is the ornate one people photograph; London Bridge is the plain one upstream, and the two are confused constantly.
The free museums
- The British Museum — the Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon sculptures, the Sutton Hoo helmet — is free, as are the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, Tate Modern in the old power station, the V&A, the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum. Special exhibitions inside them are ticketed and do sell out.
- The V&A holds the largest collection of South Asian art outside the subcontinent, including Tipu’s Tiger, and is the museum Indian visitors most often say they wish they had given longer.
- Because entry costs nothing, the sane approach is two short museum visits rather than one long one — an hour before lunch and an hour before closing beats a forced four-hour march through galleries you stopped seeing after the first ninety minutes.
The river and the neighbourhoods
- Walk the South Bank from Westminster Bridge to Tower Bridge: Tate Modern, Shakespeare’s Globe, the Millennium Bridge across to St Paul’s, and Borough Market for lunch. It is the single best free afternoon in the city.
- Greenwich, downriver and best reached by boat, holds the Prime Meridian, the Royal Observatory, the tea clipper Cutty Sark and the finest view back at the city. It is a half-day and it feels like leaving London without doing so.
- Covent Garden and Soho for the theatre district, Camden for the markets, Notting Hill for the pastel terraces and Portobello Road, Shoreditch for street art and where the city eats late.
- The royal parks — Hyde Park, St James’s, Regent’s — are genuinely used rather than ornamental, and Kew Gardens further west is a UNESCO-listed botanic garden that repays a whole morning.
Four days in London
Westminster and the river
Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, then across the bridge and east along the South Bank — Tate Modern, the Globe, Borough Market for lunch — finishing over the Millennium Bridge at St Paul’s.
The Tower and the City
The Tower of London at opening for the Crown Jewels, Tower Bridge after, then the City’s lanes and Leadenhall Market. Afternoon in the British Museum, and the evening in Covent Garden or the West End.
Museums and a park
The V&A and the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, an afternoon in Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens, and Notting Hill and Portobello Road towards the end of the day.
Greenwich, or a neighbourhood
The river boat downstream to Greenwich for the Observatory, the Meridian and the view back at the city — or a slower day in Camden, Shoreditch or Hampstead with nothing scheduled.
Arriving & getting around
One of the best public transport systems in Europe, and a city that is walkable in ways the map hides.
Arriving
- Heathrow (LHR) takes most of the direct flights from India and connects to the centre by Underground and by fast rail; Gatwick (LGW) to the south is a train ride further out. Which airport you land at should shape which side of the city you sleep on.
- Indian passport holders need a UK visa, and it is not a Schengen visa — the UK sits outside the Schengen area, so a trip pairing London with Paris or Rome needs both, applied for separately. Requirements move, so it is arranged as part of the booking and started early.
Around the city
- The Underground reaches everything and is the default. Do not buy paper tickets: tap in and out with a contactless card or phone, which is cheaper and automatically caps what you are charged in a day. The same card works on buses, where you tap only on entry.
- Buses are the better sightseeing deal than any tour bus — the front seat upstairs on a normal red double-decker crosses the same bridges on an ordinary fare — and the Thames Clippers river boats are genuine transport rather than a cruise.
- Walk more than you plan to. Covent Garden to Leicester Square is one Underground stop and about three minutes on foot, and much of the centre is like that. Traffic drives on the LEFT, so look right first when crossing — the pavement markings at crossings tell you which way.
Onward
- London’s terminals put Bath, Oxford, Cambridge, York and Edinburgh within a fast train, which is why English itineraries radiate from the city. Fares rise steeply the later they are booked, so onward legs are booked with the trip rather than on the day.
- The countryside and the day trips — Bath and Stonehenge, the Cotswolds, the colleges — belong to the England region page, which sets out what is worth leaving the city for and how long each takes.
London in practice
The handful of things that decide whether the days work.
Permanent collections at the national museums cost nothing and usually need no ticket, though some ask you to reserve a free timed slot at busy periods. Special exhibitions are ticketed, are the ones that sell out, and are worth deciding on before you travel rather than at the door. The Tower of London and Westminster Abbey are paid and busy, and both reward the first slot of the day.
London is close to cashless. A contactless card or phone works on all public transport, in almost every shop and in most pubs, and using one on the Underground is cheaper than paper tickets and caps your daily spend automatically. The currency is the pound sterling — not the euro, which catches out travellers arriving from the continent.
The reputation for rain is exaggerated; the reputation for changeability is not. A day can hold sun, wind and a shower whatever the forecast said, so a light waterproof and layers matter more than the season. Summer days run very long and winter afternoons end early, which affects how much daylight sightseeing a day actually contains.
Restaurants frequently add a discretionary service charge to the bill, in which case nothing further is expected — check before tipping twice. There is no tipping in pubs when you order at the bar, and none in taxis beyond rounding up. Nobody will chase you for it.
London tap water is safe and any restaurant or pub will give you a jug of it without charge if you ask for tap water. Refill points are common. It is a small thing that adds up in a city where bottled water is priced like a soft drink.
How to be a good guest
A reserved city that is far friendlier than its reputation, and one of the most Indian cities outside India.
Manners
- Queue. It is not a stereotype and jumping one is the fastest way to annoy a Londoner. Stand on the RIGHT on escalators so people can walk past on the left — this one is enforced by tutting.
- Let passengers off the train before boarding, keep bags off seats when it is busy, and do not talk loudly on the Underground. None of it is written down and all of it is noticed.
- Please and thank you go on almost every sentence, including to bus drivers as you get off. Apologising when someone else bumps into you is normal and should not be resisted.
Eating
- The old jokes about English food are long out of date. London eats extremely well and extremely internationally, and the food markets — Borough, Maltby Street, Brick Lane — are the cheapest way into it.
- Indian food here is a destination in its own right. Brick Lane is the famous one, but Southall and Tooting are where London’s Punjabi and South Indian cooking actually lives, and several London restaurants have redefined Indian fine dining. Homesickness is not a risk in this city.
- Vegetarian and vegan travellers are better served in London than almost anywhere in Europe — every chain menu labels them, and dedicated vegetarian restaurants are mainstream rather than niche. Tell your specialist and it goes into the bookings.
- The pub is a social institution rather than only a bar: order and pay at the counter, there is no table service in most, and many serve genuinely good food at lunch. Sunday roast is the one meal worth planning for.
Insider tips
What regular visitors do differently.
Timing
- Take the Tower of London at opening and go straight to the Crown Jewels before the queue forms — it is the one part of the site where arriving late genuinely costs you an hour.
- Avoid the Underground between roughly eight and nine thirty in the morning and five and six thirty in the evening. It is not dangerous, it is simply unpleasant, and a bus or a walk at those hours is more pleasant and often barely slower.
Getting more out of it
- Get day-of theatre tickets rather than booking blind: the West End sells returns and discounted seats on the day from the official booth in Leicester Square, and a play in a Victorian theatre is one of the things London does better than anywhere.
- Take a river boat rather than the Tube at least once, ideally down to Greenwich. It costs a transport fare, it is covered by the same contactless card, and you see the city the way it was built to be seen.
- Give the city one day with no museum in it — a park, a market, a neighbourhood and a pub lunch. London rewards being lived in far more than it rewards being completed.
Out of the city
What is a genuine day out, and what needs its own nights.
Related to London
Journeys that include London — each one visits the city as part of its itinerary.
Common questions
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