Planning Your Trip - Where To Go

London is a city often seen in a hurry. If time is very limited, then the one unmissable sight remains Tate Modern. Whatever your reaction to the contents or industrial style of this huge gallery of contemporary art, its position on the river puts it at the heart of the beast. In order to see as much of London as possible in a day, it’s best to avoid wasting time on public transport. Stick with the riverside walks instead. Thanks to the new footbridges, an easy three-mile (one hour) stroll takes in several of the major London sights. From Trafalgar Square, walk down Northumberland Avenue to the Embankment and cross over the Golden Jubilee footbridge to the South Bank. From the southern bridge there are great views of the London Eye, Big Ben and Houses of Parliament. Unless you want a closer look at the attractions of County Hall, turn left to walk along the river past the Royal Festival Hall to Waterloo Bridge. Here you can decide whether to walk on to Tate Modern and Shakespeare’s Globe before heading over the Millennium Footbridge to St. Paul’s, or to cross Waterloo Bridge (which gives some of the finest views of the City) and carry straight on through Covent Garden to find the British Museum and Smithfield or Shoreditch are close at hand for an evening’s entertainment. The British Museum is a short walk from the restaurants and bars of Soho and the West End.

Less energetic and just as rewarding perhaps would be to spend the mornings at Tate Modern, the afternoon at St. Paul’s, and the evening in a bar or restaurant somewhere near Smithfield. With an extra day, the half-hour skyride on offer at the London Eye is definitely worth the ticket price, although even with its sophisticated boarding system, precious time can still sometimes be lost in the queue.

Alternatively, the Great Court at the British Museum defies old-fashioned fustiness and casts the Museum’s frankly mind-boggling collection of antiquities in a new light. A visit here can also easily be combined with a taste of the peculiar small-scale charm and beauty of Sir John Soane’s Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

On a similar scale to the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington is an extraordinary neo-gothic shrine to art and design packed with innumerable marvelous things. Less aesthetic and more historical insights can be found either at the Imperial War Museum or the Tower of London. At the gateway to south London, the Imperial War Museum is the most disturbing, its compelling exhibition on the Holocaust putting the military hardware and World War memorabilia on display into perspective. The Tower on London, downriver near the splendid Tower Bridge, is a proper medieval castle, a very well-preserved relic riddled with stories of the pursuit and abuse of royal power.

With more time, essential destinations further afield are the venerable old Tate Britain on the river near Victoria, dedicated to the latest in British contemporary, modern and historical art including Turner’s dramatic oil paintings; the superhip bars, restaurants and shops of Notting Hill in the west; the loud and grungey music and market mecca of Camden or the views of the city from genteel Primrose Hill or Hampstead in the north; and the nightlife of Shoreditch to the east. Day trips south to the revamped Dulwich Picture Gallery or a river trip to Kew and Hampton Court also rank with the best that London has to offer.