Do You Know London?

[ronandannette]

@Lyricallie , you helped me once on this board several years ago - I hope you or others would be willing to help again. (Please forgive any offence for the whole Harry & Meghan moving to Canada thing - I had no part in it. )

We're arriving in London for a very brief pre-cruise visit in May. Our hotel is in Marble Arch and we are trying to plan a full day (Sunday, May 3). The places we very badly want to see are: The Tower of London, Kensington Palace, the Royal Mews and Herrods. We also plan to attend services at Holy Trinity Brompton and already have late dinner reservations at Heddon Street Kitchen. Any input on the logistics of this would be greatly appreciated.

 

[tcufrog]

That's a lot to cram into one day, especially if you've never been to London and don't know the lay of the land. If you have your heart set on seeing the crown jewels I recommend buying ticket in advance and heading straight to them as soon as possible, ideally when the Tower opens. There's usually a long line to see them. The last time I was in London I didn't even see them because the rest of my family didn't want to wait in the line.

 

[steve_rob]

Well the good news is that three of those places are all within close proximity to each other - Harrods, Holy Trinity and Kensington Palace. However just visiting all three of those and taking time to enjoy them fully, could easily take up a full day on its own.

If you also decide to do the Tower (and I agree with @tcufrog here that the best way to do this is right at opening time with pre-booked tickets) which is on the opposite side of central London, then I think you're going to have to either drop something, or say only do a fleeting visit to Harrods or just go round the outside of Kensington Palace and not inside etc.

 

[ronandannette]

Well the good news is that three of those places are all within close proximity to each other - Harrods, Holy Trinity and Kensington Palace. However just visiting all three of those and taking time to enjoy them fully, could easily take up a full day on its own.

If you also decide to do the Tower (and I agree with @tcufrog here that the best way to do this is right at opening time with pre-booked tickets) which is on the opposite side of central London, then I think you're going to have to either drop something, or say only do a fleeting visit to Harrods or just go round the outside of Kensington Palace and not inside etc.

Thank you - I should clarify. Herrod’s will certainly be quick; mostly just to “check the box”. I’m not a shopper and we’ve no desire to really poke around the place. I’m presuming there are some sort of pre-set or guided tours to be had at the Palace and the Tower?

Would you be able to expand a little on the distances and travel times? For example, a map shows our hotel located at what appears to be just across Hyde Park from the church. How far actually is it and how long would it take to get there? What would be the next logical place to go from there and how best to travel? Is the Tower a mile away or 10 miles and what sort of time does that trip involve? We’ve really got no point of reference for London.

Your help is greatly appreciated!

 

[steve_rob]

Not sure which your hotel is as there's quite a few in the Marble Arch area, but I'm going to take the DoubleTree as a guess (having stayed there before myself) as it's fairly central. From there, I'd say it's about a 30-35 minute walk to the church or to Kensington Palace and about 25 mins to Harrods, each of them involving cutting across Hyde Park (which makes for a very pleasant walk). However I'm basing that on my walking style, which is reasonably fast and very direct - if you want to meander and smell the roses, then obviously add another 10 or so minutes!

However you're probably better off taking the tube or the bus to the first of these destinations (would cut the time down to about 15 minutes), then walking between them - Kensington Palace to the church is probably the longest leg at 20-ish minutes, while the church and Harrods are less than 10 mins apart. My general rule about travelling in London is that the Tube is great to get between places, but if you look it up on a map and find that the place you want to go is only one or two stops away, it'd probably be quicker walking (given the time it takes to get from the surface down to the platform, then wait for a train, then back up at the other end, etc.)

For the Tower, it's just over 4 miles from Marble Arch, but you can get there on the tube in around 30 minutes - nearest station is Tower Hill. As for tours there, unfortunately I can't be as much help. Despite living my entire life in a town less than 40 miles from London, visiting relatives living there every summer as a child, and having been working there for the last ten years, I've only visited the Tower once (unless I went as a little child and can't recall that)! When I did finally get round to going a few years back, myself and my wife spent a good 3 hours there just wandering around looking at things that interested us and I still don't think we did everything. There were organised tours with Beefeaters on offer (and they seemed quite popular as there was always a crowd following them around whenever our paths crossed) but we didn't actually go on one of them.

 

[Lyricallie]

@Lyricallie , you helped me once on this board several years ago - I hope you or others would be willing to help again. (Please forgive any offence for the whole Harry & Meghan moving to Canada thing - I had no part in it. )

We're arriving in London for a very brief pre-cruise visit in May. Our hotel is in Marble Arch and we are trying to plan a full day (Sunday, May 3). The places we very badly want to see are: The Tower of London, Kensington Palace, the Royal Mews and Herrods. We also plan to attend services at Holy Trinity Brompton and already have late dinner reservations at Heddon Street Kitchen. Any input on the logistics of this would be greatly appreciated.

Hi sorry I didn't see this quote!

(Fun fact you arrive the day after my wedding )

The tower of London is a good couple of hours I'd say 2-3 maybe longer if it's busy. Make sure you buy your tickets ahead of time otherwise the queues can get quite long.

Kensington Palace is fine they have some dress up stuff in the rooms (or they did a couple of years ago when I was last there). You'll be right in Hyde park so I would recommend taking a walk around there it's so pretty and there are some really nice water features up near the Holland Park entrance.

Also there is a Peter Pan statue which you can use a QR reader on your phone and it talks to you. Then you can walk down towards the Royal Albert Hall and see the Albert memorial, it's so detailed and interesting.

To be honest just these two alone are a full day especially as you'd need to eat lunch in there somewhere.

 

[Lyricallie]

Sorry my phone died!

Also there's a bus from right outside the royal Albert hall which will take you to marble arch I think it's the 9. So you can head back there and get changed for dinner etc.

Also if you're at marble arch you'll be near South Kensington (same bus back to royal Albert hall) and walk down prince consort road to where the science museum and the natural history museum are. So if you have fans of that you're right there.

Not sure how many days in total you're there but I would maybe pick two things a morning and an afternoon then go for dinner then go for a night time walk down south bank where all the bridges will be lit up and pretty and you'll be able to see Westminster looking nice!

 

[Lyricallie]

Also download the app citymapper it's much better than Google maps for London.

 

[cedricandsophie]

I’d get the rick Steve’s guide to London. or go to his website. He always has...if you only have one day...tour.

 

[ronandannette]

I’d get the rick Steve’s guide to London. or go to his website. He always has...if you only have one day...tour.

I like Rick Steves and I haven't yet looked up any of his recent material on London. We do have several other guides and unfortunately the "one perfect day" type of itineraries always include things we don't care about and miss things we do. Really, the only things we absolutely don't want to miss are the things I mentioned in my first post.