Any of y'all got London tips?

prozak

Hey guys, I know what a knowledgable bunch you lot are and you know how to do great things on budgets. Basically on the 4,5,6 of April I'm going to London with some of my other friends from college. We're staying in Picadilly and I'm looking for the best things to do or any help with how to navigate London? We will be a bunch of students with no clue so I need quite a bit of help. I plan on trying to get tickets to MTV TRL being filmed as I think that's only 5 mins away from where we stay, but has anybody got any other advice on studenty things to do in London? (cheap and good)

vanoonoo

register at http://www.visitlondon.com/ which gives some great ideas for what is going on around town and also points out some discounts

Becles

All the museums are free now. You only pay for special exhibitions and the IMAX in the Science museum.

Buy a 1-2 zone travel card after 9.30am for about £4.50 each for unlimited bus and tube travel in central London.

Don't pay for the sightseeing buses. They are expensive for what is literally a bus ride with some pre-recorded commentary. Better to do the bits you want to see on a normal bus and take your own guidebook for info.

Baz_Bee_2

Zone 1 and 2 Travelcard costs £4.70 off peak (Mon - Fri use after 9.30 in morning till 04.30 the following morning or any time Sat and Sun from 00.01 till 04.30 the folind day) or £6.00 for a peak Travelcard (for travel from 00.01 to 04.30 the following day).

You can get a 3 day Travelcard for Zones 1 and 2 that costs £15 and is valid from 00.01 on first day until 04.30 on the morning after the expiry date.

You can get all info on Public Transport in London at the TfL website on

https://www.tfl.gov.uk

Spikey_2

Have a look at getting the London Pass.

May look a little expensive at first but if you want to do alot in london then def worth a look at.

Spikey

peterbaker

3 days huh? Based in Piccadilly. 3 days is not long when you are having fun so you'll need to try not to spend too much time travelling between attractions.

That said, you might want to put yourself in a different part of London each day or work along a good travel axis like the RV1 bus route. RV1 runs from Tower Gateway DLR (Dockland Light Railway) station to Covent Garden.

RV1 starts / finishes near the Tower Of London. From Tower Gateway station you could actually venture East to Canary Wharf and then South to Greenwich by catching the DLR towards Canary Wharf first (London's new mini Manhattan) and then on down to Greenwich under the river in about 25 minutes total from Tower I think. The Travelcard for ticket Zones 1 and 2 is good for the DLR. The Maritime Museum at Greenwich is worth a visit (the 200th anniversary of Trafalgar exhibition might be on by the time of your visit). You can get an ok lunch at the Museum or back in the town centre, or if you are energetic, up the hill in the circular mezzanined park cafe near the observatory. You could even picnic in the park if you are lucky with the weather. The famous Greenwich observatory is a 20 minute walk in the park up the hill. The view of London from the top is well worth it if the sun is shining. Up here is where the London marathon starts each year. If you do use the DLR to get to Greenwich and you have 10 minutes to spare and you fancy a quirky method of crossing the river rather than just sitting on the DLR train for the last 2 minutes via the new concrete tunnel, get off at Island Gardens station on the north bank of the river and walk under the river via the 100 year old Greenwich foot tunnel which is about 200metres from the station. It comes out next to the "Cutty Sark" in Greenwich. There's a neat indoor market 3 minutes around the corner (Greenwich Market) which is usually worth a browse most days.

If you are still down this end and feeling hungry and like Chinese food as I do, there is a a floating Chinese restaurant near Crossharbour DLR station which is between Greenwich and Canary Wharf. It is called Lotus and it has a reputation for great Dim Sum. It is moored in Millwall dock alongside London Arena. It is a novel place to sit and eat with views over the dock. After lunch you could take in the large shopping mall at Canary Wharf or even get a sandwich there instead and mix it with the investment banking crowd:-)

Or, after "doing" Greenwich, if you wanted to get directly back to Piccadilly without thinking too hard there is a bendy bus route 436 or is it 456? that you can pick up from two stops further south on the DLR at Deptford Bridge. It passes close to the Imperial War Museum on it's way back to Piccadilly/Oxford Circus. Probably takes 40 minutes from Deptford Bridge to Piccadilly, but once you are on that bus, at least you dont have to change.

Or you could get a river bus next to the Cutty Sark to take you back to the "West End" which is really west central rather than west west of course! The river is of course an axis you could use, but it is a bit pricey I think so maybe only one river trip in the budget? You get a discount if you show your Travelcard I think.

Another fast travel axis is the Jubilee underground railway line. It runs from beyond Wembley Park in the north, south down to Bond Street/Oxford Street for shopping, Westminster (Houses Of Parliament/London Eye on the opposite river bank) then east via London Bridge (LOndon DUngeon?) to Canary Wharf where a switch to the DLR is possible, or then again even the river for a return trip to Tower, Charing Cross, or Westminster is well possible...

Back to that RV1 bus route - it was introduced just a few short years ago as a new standard London Bus route but particularly of use for tourists - it starts just north of the river at Tower, it crosses Tower Bridge (from which you can also get to Greenwich, Canary Wharf, Charing Cross, London Eye by river?), London Dungeon (beneath London Bridge station), Tate Modern art gallery with "wobbly" Norman Foster Millennium footbridge across to St Pauls cathedral(Norman isn't wobbly but the bridge was until they fixed it!), BFI London IMAX, and London Eye and Waterloo station before crossing the river again to Aldwych/Strand and the east side of Covent Garden. About 25 minutes each way I think depending on traffic. I suggest that is one great axis to work with for a day, rain or shine.

Covent Garden is usually at its best when the sun shines but may be a little devoid of the weekend buskers on a Monday thru Wednesday so take it as you find it and I suggest you consider it as a good place for a beer and pizza and a little shopping and try a pass through it more than once -you may find it at its best on a subsequent visit, and in case you don't, you can walk to Leicester Square in about 15 minutes from Covent Garden. If you are at that stage feeling bored with weary legs and have a few pounds sterling to negotiate with a rickshaw driver then CG is where you will find him ready to use his bandy legs to drag you and two friends at crazy speeds and angles through the internal combustion-engined traffic! If you do walk to Leicester Square, then divert south a bit and take in Trafalgar Square where you might take silly photos of you and friends climbing perhaps illicitly on the big stone lions! (everyone aged 10 to 21 seems to do it!). Once you do get to Leicester Square, remember that Chinatown and several thousand Crispy Aromatic ducks are just north of the square around Lisle Street and Gerrard Street.

If you burn the midnight oil and fancy an ok late late Chinese dinner at an ok price then I recommend the New Mayflower restaurant in Shaftesbury Avenue which sort of backs onto Chinatown from the north west side. They serve until very late (I ate there on New Years morning and didnt start queuing until about 0100!). I think you can book, but there is always a good natured queue of about ten out the door which should not put you off because it moves quickly (the restaurant is on two or three floors).

You might need a list of back up things to do on a rainy day:

This is where the museums of South Kensington might interest you - a short underground ride away down the Piccadilly line (Science Museum and Natural History Museum are neighbours, and Victoria and Albert is closeby). The first two can be reached hardly without venturing outside from South Ken station as there is a pedestrian tunnel linking them with the station!

The British Museum in Bloomsbury is well worth a visit (get there by bus I think is easiest). Get a full version of the Central London bus map (ask at Piccadilly underground railway station and don't get palmed off with the short version!). The Tate Modern art gallery is another place for a rainy day. Both these venues have cafe/restaurants in their tops which are worth aiming for.

The London Eye is for clear days and sunsets. If you have pre-studied the tourist venue names and a map, buy a "view guide" slider so you know what direction to look for your favorites! The Eye gives a great perspective of how everything hangs together in central London around the river.

Another quirky idea if you are game for the unusual is a tour in an amphibious vehicle see http://www.frogtours.com. It starts near the London Eye, roves around near Buckingham Palace and then heads down next to the MI6 building where it charges down a slipway straight into the river! It then goes downstream past the Houses Of Parliament passing under a couple of bridges I think and turns near the London Eye for the return leg to MI6 at Vauxhall where it clambers out like a shaggy dog and takes you back to the startpoint - rain or shine, its a bit of a laugh. You and about twenty fellow fare-paying passengers can dip your fingers into the Thames from your seat as you listen to the driver/captain's commentary (if you wish!) from this five tonne piece of WWII antiquity which sits remarkably low in the water for such a tall vehicle when it is on the road, but dont eat your sandwiches until you have washed your hands!

Finally, if you have headed west to the South Ken museums, you might want to "do Harrods" without spending too much on the way there or back. There is a special chocolate bar on the third floor I think off the Egyptian elevator? where you can get really dangerous hot chocolate to drink and buy blocks of the stuff for making choc fondues later. A little bit extravagant but hey what else would you do in Harrods except spend a really offensive amount on clothes or something!

If you have got to Harrods then you might wish to venture a little further north west maybe using a number 9 bus to High Street Kensington shops and Kensington Palace gardens where the Diana memorial thing is (I have never seen it but hey some people might want to). Dont make a special journey but if you are are down this end with 90 minutes to use then why not? You can get back to Piccadilly on the number 9.

Oh and one last possible moneysaving tip ... a Travelcard zones 1&2 is good value but if you don't think you are going to use it on a particular day, you might be able to get by with walking and a bus or two. You can buy a carnet of 6 Bus "Saver" tickets for about £4.50 I think from many newsagents sited near bustops. Each ticket is therefore about 75p compared to the pay when you get on price which is over a £1 now. Each ticket is however just one bus ride. You get off and the ticket expires. Get on the same bus again and you'll need to use another ticket from the carnet. Might be worth considering for some of your longer planned trips. That continuous bus ride from Deptford Bridge to Piccadilly or Oxfird Circus for example, is about 40 minutes worth for the same 75p ticket.

Time for bed now.

Sorry if this looks a bit disjointed but hope you find some ideas in it you can use.

nikkig_3

Re the above the carnet of bus tickets is great value, but the price went up in January its now £6, the price for an individual ticket is now £1.20 for with the carnet you get 1 ticket free.

margaret_3

Hi Peter.
A lot of excellent advice there. Do you know if Harrods is open on a Sunday?
Thanks
Margaret

zodiac

Harrods is closed on a Sunday

margaret_3

Thanks a lot pp_ayla.

peterbaker

PS I forgot to mention London Zoo which is still a great half day for kids if the sun shines...and if you do go up there, then I think Camden is supposed to be worth a visit but I don't know enough about it to say why ... I think the bar scene is IT, but I am not sure:-) Someone else may help ...

Also out to the north is Highgate and Hampstead. Highgate cemetery contains Karl Marx tomb/grave/whatever and Hampstead still has a heath I believe which is kind of famed by spy fiction as a location for clandestine meetings and Cold War dead-letter drops (I've never been to look). This week Hampstead was in the news for a less unpalatable reason (a crazy axe murder).