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Hey all,
I have a few days in London at the end of June and am looking for recommendations on how to spend my time. I'll be staying in the Shepherds Bush - Hammersmith area and wonder what "must-dos" you recommend.
Phantom Peak?
Have you done Phantom Peak? It looks cool but wondering if its worth it.
Spent a few days in London last month on a family trip and stayed near Marble Arch.
Did various museum and tourist site visits and Id recommend a tourbus trip. Good value, flexible, and very interesting. We also saw Hamilton at the Victoria Theatre - it was wonderful.
Its quite a nice walk into central London from Shepherd's Bush. Through Holland Park, you can pop into the Design Museum, then along Kensington High Street, then you have the Science and Natural History Museums, then through Hyde Park, across Hyde Park Corner, down to Buckingham Palace, then along the Mall to Trafalgar Square or through St James's Park to Parliament Square. From there its a good to walk along the South Bank. Plenty more to see and do that way all the way to Tower Bridge. Then jump on a bus back.
South Bank walk is a good call. Goes past loads of interesting things in a couple of miles. Globe, Golden Hind, HMS Belfast, Tate museum.
The rooftop garden bar in the Walkie Talkie building is petty good, but you have to pre-book.
The Emirates Cable Car is amazing, get the Jubilee Line to North Greenwhich, amazing views over London, way way better than the London Eye. The get a Uber Boat Ferry from North Greenwich Pier up to Battersea Power Station and have a walk around in the restored Power Station.
The Grant Museum of Zoology is a quirky little place, well worth a quick visit if you're near Euston.
War museum. You can easily spend all day there.
Central London things as above, walk down to kew gardens. The walk into central London as outlined above, I did it by bike across the parks, well worth it, follow the river too where there's no park. There are boats back to kew.
just you, or with others? Have you been to London (much) before so do you need / want to see the main sights or not important.
If it was me - I like some of thes CoL self guided walks. Take you to some lesser known places but also you pass a number of the main sites anyway.
https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/walks-and-itineraries/self-guided-walks-and-trails
Trip down the Thames on a river bus is quite nice. Go for a good curry, climb the Monument, get in a row with a cabbie whilst cycling. Boris bikes around town on a quiet Sunday morning, Brick Lane for hipsters. Usual museum stuff, blah blah art galleries kind of depends what you like, London being enormous and all.
House of Parliament tour os definitely worth doing.
Tate Modern if you've not been before
Gordon's Bar under Embankment tube station (if it is still there). Good wine list and decent food. If you prefer Whisky, Salt Bar up near Marble Arch/Edgware road is worth a visit. If you are lucky you'll see Tony Blair and can heckle him.
On the sites front, I'd second Tate Modern. The building itself is imposing and probably worth a visit. Maybe throw in the V&A as well?
Pick one of the major Cycleways, rent a Santander / Lime bike and cycle into town in the morning rush, just for the staggering number of cyclists. It's really quite an amazing feeling.
Staying in Hammersmith is a bit of a pain because the utter cretins in Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea are thoroughly anti-cycling and have done nothing to link up the Cycleways but if you drop down onto the river at Millbank you can pick up that route into Westminster and along Embankment.
Honestly, it's incredible being in a gigantic amorphous mass of riders on all sorts of bikes.
And then once you're in town, dock the bike and do whatever!
Sky Garden is worth a visit - top floor of the "Walkie Talkie" building. Tickets are free but need to be booked online: https://skygarden.london/
Sells out quickly though - get online first thing Monday morning for the next tranche of tickets.
Tate > river taxi > Tate Modern > walk across the bridge to see St Pauls.
As mentioned above, Globe is also worth seeing and a good walk down from Southbank.
Visit parliament - just get your timings right to avoid large queues - later afternoon/evening is quietest. One of the more overlooked places to visit, but full of heritage and gets you closer to the action than the news - food is nice as well.
If you like burgers - Ed's Diner in soho.
London Zoo is pretty cool. Animals and Grade 1 architecture (without animals now). A walk along the Regent canal is also very pleasant.
Boat to Greenwich and go and see how we conquered the world with a timepiece. Great views over London too with one foot in each hemisphere.
As mentioned, Hunterian is very interesting. Also if you want somewhere a little different, The Wallace Collection is a path less trodden, and of course the infamous Sir John Soanes museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields is pile 'em high, view 'em cheap. Just amazing.
If you fancy heights, you can climb to the top of St Pauls's viewing platform across the inside of the dome.
Visit the Leak street arches..amazing graffitti....get your Google out and you can still find Banksy peices around London town
What do you like to do. Kew is good, but not for everyone. Take the tube into town and then walk from somewhere like Trafalgar quare (Nat gallery), Mall , Buck Pal then maybe to Harrods, Kensington and museums.
Ed's Easy Diner in Soho is closed. (I'd say it was rubbish too, but that's a subjective opinion).
Postal Museum for the little secret tube train ride.
OP what do you like?!?!?!
War museum. You can easily spend all day there.
One of my favourite museums. We went recently and saw the Holocaust Gallery for the first time, which was incredibly moving and included far more than an illustration of life in the camps.
The new Battersea development is well worth a look.
It’s amazing how they have refreshed the area and while you’re there try the Lift 109 visitor experience within one of the original towers ,which gives the history of the site plus some pretty good vistas of London.
Dishoom!
You'll have to go east, but it's well worth it.
The new Battersea development is well worth a look.It’s amazing how they have refreshed the area and while you’re there try the Lift 109 visitor experience within one of the original towers ,which gives the history of the site plus some pretty good vistas of London.
Battersea Power Station is a good call, I had a wander round there last time I was in town.
Didn't think much of the Lift 109 experience though - a lot of queuing and too much effort trying to make it more artificially fun and cool and interactive.
Battersea Power Station - the four chinmey's (two for each power station) were completely rebuilt, my office overlooks the development and been amazing to see the transformation.
London Museum (not sure if its moved yet, was behind St Pauls)
Also Docklands Museum at Canary Wharf.
Also if being a complete tourist Tower of London if you get a guided tour its pretty impressive hearing about the history.
As many others have said South Bank is a very interesting area loads to see.
If you are near Oxford Street and fancy a coffee in a rather unique location, there is always The Attendant
https://www.the-attendant.com/pages/fitzrovia
Lunch in Chinatown, Soho, look at some guitars in Denmark St., ride on the new Elizabeth line. Find the pub that Ineos Grenadiers is named after.
You guys are amazing. I'll be travelling with my wife, and we like British/Commonwealth history (we're coming from British Columbia, Canada, where anything over 100 years old is considered a historical landmark). I never would have though of taking the Thames as transportation, so that's happening. We also like quirky (catacombs in Paris, for instance). I would have loved to see a football match, but our timing sucks. Is there any mountain biking that can be accessed by train (must include rentals, as I wont have anything)?
Is there any mountain biking that can be accessed by train (must include rentals, as I wont have anything)?
Swinley is a short train ride out to the west (trains from Waterloo or Clapham Junction out to a stop called Martin's Heron)
https://www.swinleybikehub.com/hire
Big forestry area with waymarked trails.
Have you done Phantom Peak? It looks cool but wondering if its worth it.
I have not. But I know the owner, he's the designer of what was once regarded as one of the best escape rooms in the country. I would be absolutely astonished beyond belief if it was crap.
We were down there last week, Sky Garden in the walkie talkie building is indeed good for the views if it’s a nice day. Booking is pretty easy and it’s free.
London transport museum in Covent Garden was good and the shop has some cool books if you’re into that kind of thing.
Govindas just north of Soho Square for a cheap veggie curry, coffee after at bar Italia, frith st, opp Ronnie Scott's, or at royal opera House cafe, covent garden.
You can usually get tickets on the day for the opera, decent seats are only c 30 quid.
Greenwich is worth a visit. Walk around the University grounds where loads of movies were filmed, visit the Naval History Museum then walk up the hill to the Observatory and museum. Plus there is an excellent Turkish restaurant on the main street.
Take the water bus for convenience and fun.
Probably not worth a dedicated visit but if you are getting a train from Euston or Kings Cross then the British Library collection of old manuscripts, historic letters and religious books is incredible.
There are some amazing music venues in London and obviously it's a magnet for most touring bands/orchestras. So would recommend that.
Would also third the Sir John Soane's Museum for a quirky experience and insight into the 18th century collector psyche.
Bar Termini in Soho for negronis too. You’d need to book but a very cool little bar.
Edit. Also depends if you like open water swimming or not but I joined the Serpentine swimming club years ago. Great to do a dawn swim in the middle of the city in summer. If not quite so adventurous there’s a municipal open air pool at Oasis sports centre in Covent Garden too.
Hope you have a great time. If you like British / Commonwealth history then apart from obvious museum type stuff, just slipping through one of the entrances on the Strand and into one of the Inns of court is like going back in time.
End of June is cricket season - so you won't see football, but you could walk into The Oval and see Surrey vs Lancs from Sun 24th (i just checked, shame that Middx are away otherwise could have gone to Lords) and see if you can work out what's going on.
Is there any mountain biking that can be accessed by train (must include rentals, as I wont have anything)?
Leith Hill/Peaslake/Surrey Hills accessable from Dorking train stations. The only issue is that I don't know of MTB rental in Dorking, only this in Peaslake :
https://surreyhillsbikerental.co.uk/
Not sure how to get from Dorking to Peaslake - I have always had my own bike/car!
Taxi, poss bus?
Just googled, Dorking to Guildford bus doesn't go to Peaslake, nearest stop is Hoe Lane , 1.1 mile walk
I thought they might but I've just confirmed that Nirvana Cycles, which is only a couple of miles or so from Dorking Station (probably accessable by bus) does MTB hire.
https://www.nirvanacycles.com/bike-hire
Mind you having seen what Nirvana are hiring out for £45 per day:
Our bikes are the 2022 Cube Aim Race (RRP £649)
I think I would hire one of their bikes just to pedal over to Peaslake and hire one of these!
Specialized Full Suspension Carbon MTB: From £45
Something I don’t think anyone else has mentioned, but if the weather is looking good for the time you’re there, then The Shard is well worth a visit. I went up to London for a weekend for a gig at the Roundhouse, and visited two places I’d wanted to see for some time. After booking into my B&B I went up to Highgate cemetery and spent the afternoon wandering around, then walked back to the Roundhouse, then booked out the next morning, walked across Hyde Park, (my B&B was just on the north side), tubed over to Borough Market and had lunch in a pub there, then walked over to the Shard. I’d booked ahead, and the ticket was supposed to be for 30 minutes, like the London Eye, but nobody was checking times, so I was up on the two viewing floors for at least an hour. The weather was superb, and the views better than anywhere else in London, ‘cos you’re 1000 feet up!
Of course, the weather has to be good, ‘cos at that altitude, you can be in the clouds otherwise!
All of the Kensington museums are worth visiting, Natural History being my fave, but Science is also great. V&A if you're an arty type :p .
British museum if you want to see all the stuff our ancestors stole from around the world.
Old Operating Theatre and the Clink are worth a visit.
If you can get in, and it's still on, the Infinity Rooms exhibition at the Tate is well worth it.
If you can't get into the bar at the Sky Garden, the Hilton round the corner has a Roof top bar with views of the Tower and there's another rooftop garden a bit further down Fenchurch Street, but I forget the name.
Of course, the weather has to be good, ‘cos at that altitude, you can be in the clouds otherwise!
It's June in the UK, what could possibly go wrong!
Patisserie Sainte Anne
https://maps.app.goo.gl/XcHgZpots3Tzc8wB6?g_st=ic
Only get the Kouign Amann.
Climbing walls in Hammersmith and Westfield too.
Nice pubs on the river front by Hammersmith Bridge if it’s sunny.
Don't forget any rental bikes will have the brakes the "wrong way round"...😄
It’s June in the UK, what could possibly go wrong!
Or July, or August…
I went to the Air Tattoo at Fairford one year, which nearly always falls on my birthday in July, I treated myself to a present, a sheepskin flying jacket, which I wore the rest of the day, ‘cos it was so damp and cold!
The photos above I took in August. Like I said, check the week ahead forecast.
As your looking at some historical places
Have a look at Wilton’s music hall, it’s an extremely sympathetically preserved Victorian old music hall, often you can just grab a drink in the bar & have a wander round.
https://wiltons.org.uk/eat-drink
Truman’s old brewery on brick lane is worth a hour or so wandering round, save room for some traditional London fast food, a Salt Beef Beigel at the Brick Lane “Beigel Bake” (there’s two you want the white & blue fronted one, not the orange fronted ‘Beigel Shop’) kinda like London’s Katz’s deli.
Look up “London Walks” - guided tours. We lived in London for years and still enjoy those.