Visiting London and have done all the "visitor" bits before

[givemebooks]

Morning all!

Very excited as i have been surprised by my DH with a 2 day trip to London this weekend.

This is our first time been away on our own child free in 3 years!!

So we of course have been to London many times and have done all the usual tourist things buckingham palace, tower of london, harrods, hamleys, Greenwich observatory, boat on the Thames, big ben ect ect!

Looking for different maybe unusual suggestions of things to possible do?

We arrive Friday afternoon! On the list are beyond bread bakery as my DH is coeliac, the ice bar

Would have loved to see a show on the saturday night but tickets are all sold out or only 1 seat left plus i cannot afford over £100 a ticket!!

Would be grateful of other suggestions

Thank you :)

The mail rail in mount pleasant is rather fun, but not one for claustrophobics...

How about afternoon tea at somewhere posh?

War rooms?

John soane museum is quirky and free. Central tickets sometimes have very cheap tickets for random theatre and arts events

Museums - Sir John Soanes Museum is not one of the tourist regulars? Art Galleries? A long walk in one of the parks?

Ha! Cross post with mammajay!

We did Portobello Market then Camden when we were there. Went for a lovely brunch near Portobello. It was summer though so maybe more pleasant for outdoor pursuits.

regents park zoo? the big museums? going to a show? the aquarium? the London eye?

There are plenty of theatres only a few tube stops from the West End, smaller ones, with perfectly good shows, for which you would still be able to get tickets and not costing anything like £100. You could go to the TKS booth in Leicester Square and get cut price tickets for something in the West End anyway.

Have you really looked to see what shows have availability this weekend? There are plenty of £49 tickets left for Follies at the National Theatre on Saturday night. Phenomenally good show.

Dickens Museum. Soanes Museum. Horniman Museum. Pollocks Toy Museum. Kenwood House and Hampstead Heath.

How about listening to a concert in St Martin in the Field's church on the Saturday night rather than a show?

How about some markets? Spitalfields, Camden etc. There's also an indoor crazy golf course near Spitalfields with a bar, which is quite good fun.
Museums - V&A, British Museum and wellcome collection are probably a bit more 'adult'.
National Portrait Gallery
There must be a show with a couple of cheap seats left!

look at www.coutours.co.uk we went on one of their walks for my birthday, it was brilliant, discovered unusual places and found out lots of things about London I didn't know.

There’s some interesting sounding exhibits at the House of Illustration right now.

I've not been but a colleague was talking about the Brunel Museum the other day - there is a little museum and also they have a bar which serves cocktails at the weekend. It is Greenwich/Rotherhithe way.

Agree that the John Soane museum is interesting. You can walk around the Inns of Court gardens in that area too - Temple church (made famous in the Da Vinci Code) is about 5 minute walk away. They also filmed some of one of the Mission Impossible films in the area if you are interested in that kind of thing.

Borough Market, Brick Lane, Postman's Park, Sky Garden...

If you go onto lastminute.com, theatre tab and then onto late availability, there are still some shows showing for Saturday night, you could get two tickets for under £100, won't be in the stalls, but worth a look. I've bought through them before, no problems, and you pick the tickets up at the box office before the show.

There are loads of organised walking tours - murder & ghost ones, various musician related etc. I've done a fab chocolate one with sampling at several independent chocolate shops. The Olympic park is interesting - plus the slide down the ArcelorMittal Orbit is worth looking out for. Can do the cable car over the river too. The Sky Garden is fab for early breakfast - it's free to visit if you book your slot (or go early enough). One of my favourite places to visit is Borough Markets - always buzzing, so much to see, and eat!!

The Comedy About a Bank Robbery has loads of tickets left for Saturday night under for £50 and it's so funny

If I had this weekend in London, I would see Dorothea Tanning and Bonnard at Tate Modern, see Sondheim’s Company at the Gielgud, eat lunch at Borough market and walk along the South Bank, see Cyprus Avenue at the Jerwood, eat dinner at Bocca Di Lupo in Soho, go to Columbia Road flower market on Sunday morning and walk down Brick Lane and buy a bagel or have brunch somewhere in Spitalfields.

There's a ticket booth on Leicester Square, a little building on its own in the middle, they do discount late tickets... we got tickets for £20 each last week for a show.
Borough market is fab if you're a foody.
Churchill war rooms is interesting, or just potter if the weather is nice... we did a nice walk from Houses of Parliament, past Downing Street, across horse guards parade, up the mall to the palace and followed to road back round. About an hour at a gentle stroll.
Enjoy!

I loved Denis Severs' house but it has to be your kind of thing - it's not everyone's cup of tea.

@reallybadidea that's what we saw.. got our tickets for £20 each from the Leicester Square booth!

You can walk around the Inns of Court gardens in that area too

I didn't think they were open at weekends?

Try TodayTix app for last minute theatre tickets. DD uses it and gets some amazing deals on same day tickets

@elasticfantastic

I'm going to pretend that I didn't read that, considering how much we paid for ours! Have you see The Play That Goes Wrong by the same company? I thought DS12 was going to actually wet himself, he was laughing so hard

ShatnersWig you may be right and they're closed at weekends, I've only done it on a week day. In which case, ignore me!