One day London sightseeing

toffee'n'tom

HI. Hope someone can help. My daughter had treated us to a one night stay in London. Arriving about 3pm. seeing Lion King in the evening and then a full day sightseeing/tourist stuff. She has never been to London before and would like to see as much as possible. We are staying in the Kensington area. She wants to see Harrods, Buckingham Palace, Tower of London, Big Ben/Houses of Parliament, London Eye, Shard, maybe the natural history museum. Can anyone recommend a good order to do these things in please fro where we're staying. I haven't a clue. thanks in advance

Browntoa

Order would be Harrods , Buckingham palace , Westminster , London eye , shard then tower of London as that's furthest away

No need for a tourist bus , get Oyster card

elsien

toffeentom wrote: »

HI. Hope someone can help. My daughter had treated us to a one night stay in London. Arriving about 3pm. seeing Lion King in the evening and then a full day sightseeing/tourist stuff. She has never been to London before and would like to see as much as possible. We are staying in the Kensington area. She wants to see Harrods, Buckingham Palace, Tower of London, Big Ben/Houses of Parliament, London Eye, Shard, maybe the natural history museum. Can anyone recommend a good order to do these things in please fro where we're staying. I haven't a clue. thanks in advance

Can't see you getting all that lot in in one day and enjoying it - unless you're just whizzing past the outsides. What are her priorities if she needs to narrow it down a bit?

peachyprice

When you say 'see' Harrods/Buck house/Natural History Museum/London Eye/Tower of London, do you mean actually visit or just in passing?

If you want to visit that's a lot of places in one day, the Nat Hist is at least 4 hours, Harrods is huge, you can walk around in there for hours too.

London is probably far bigger than you imagine and the things you want to see are spread all over the City. TBH, the best bet if you only want to see in passing all those places is the hop-on/hop-off bus, I think the Golden Tours has the biggest coverage. It will be cheaper by tube but will take up a lot of time, If you use the hop-on/hop-off you'll pass lots of places that you won't necessarily need to get off the bus for.

If you want to do it by public transport I would do it in the following order, but it will be a whirlwind tour:

Natural history museum - might be walkable from your hotel
Harrods - bus from the museum to Knightsbridge
Buckingham Palace - Tube from Knightsbridge to Victoria (change at South Ken) + 10 min walk
Big Ben/Houses of Parliament Bus from Victoria
London Eye - Just over the bridge from BB/HoP 2 min walk
Shard - Bus + 5 min walk
Tower of London - walk across London Bridge, tube from Monument to Tower Hill

From Tower Hill you can get a tube all the way back to Kensington, you'll be knackered by then!!!

boliston

I would definitely narrow down the itinerary! London is quite spread out and it takes time to get from one part to another - tube is probably the fastest but avoid rush hour if possible. I remember getting a tube at rush hour and about 6 trains passed through before i could get near enough the platform edge to actually board. Busses are another option but I would avoid anything aimed at tourists. My day trip involved starting at houses of parliament, then walking along south bank (traffic free with good views) past london eye, tate modern (spent a couple of hours looking inside as free of charge) then on as far as tower bridge then got the tube back to paddington from the tube next to the tower of london

Twopints

Assume you mean the View from the Shard - this is about £30 on the day, but £20.95 in advance (online). I don't think there is any point in doing both the Eye and the Shard -shard is higher and has a bit more to it, but more expensive. You can see most of the rest of your list from up there

Big Ben is currently covered in scaffolding and (I think) the chimes are turned off: Big Ben

Natural History (and Science Museum, V&A) in Kensington so could do those on the day you arrive if staying in the area - they are free so can visit again when back near hotel at no extra cost.

May also be worth a look at the London Pass as they include some of the sites you mentioned (shard, Tower of London) plus some others - can be money saving if you do more of those included e.g. hop on hop off bus tour. Also with London Pass you get fast track entry at most places so can skip the queues. We found that you also do not feel obliged to stay for hours in e.g. the Tower of London because it cost £22 to get in - you can move on to another attraction when you have seen enough.

benjus

Agreed, that sounds way too much for one day.

The Tower of London, for instance, is quite expensive to get into so you don't really want to just pop in for half an hour - it takes several hours to see everything there. If you just mean to walk past it and take a look in from the outside then fair enough, although just getting there and back again from Westminster will add 30-60 minutes to your itinerary.

One thing I would suggest is travelling on a Thames Clipper, maybe from Westminster to the Tower of London or London Bridge (or the other direction). It's more expensive than buses/tube, but it's a nice way to travel and to see the sights near the river. Thames Clippers are transport boats running a scheduled service so cheaper than tourist boats, although you won't get a guide pointing out the sights for you.