Help with London Trip

[keeganface]

We have booked a few days in London in the Easter holidays. We have tickets to see Hamilton but need a bit of help with where to go and where to eat.

We are staying for two nights in Premier Inn Leicester Square. Does anyone have any recommendations for places to visit and eat that won't break the bank?

@keeganface

Also forgot to add we are all huge book lovers so if anyone can recommend any book shops that would be great.

Daunt Books In Marylebone High St. is worth a visit.

Also the London Review Bookshop, in Bury Place WC1A. It’s just across the road from the British Museum and has a very nice, though small, cake shop attached (handy for a sit-down!).

Loads of London parks to visit for free - walk along the south bank - great atmosphere with street entertainers. You can have a nice long walk. Book a museum - pass two hours - look up Time Out - it’s free and on line - Google cheap eats London - you used to be able to book a tour of the Houses of Parliament - you can check this out - Have fun - I came to London when I was 18 and thought I’d like to live here. I did come when I was 30 and stayed ever since.

There is an enormous Waterstones in Piccadilly. 5 floors. Not far to walk from the hotel.

We stayed in PI Leicester Square at Xmas and it was fine - did the job!

My 14yo likes Camden market as well - a wander round and lots of great food stalls for about £7-8. Must admit we have only been on a weekend so don't know if they are less of them during the week.

If she likes Harry Potter there is a small gallery / shop called Mina Lima with original drawings from the films.

Ooh somewhere else I tried to go (but was closed to set up an exhibition) is museum of youth culture in Shaftesbury Avenue - that looks interesting.

If you're book lovers, have a look at the British Library (by Kings Cross station).

They usually have exhibitions and have a copy of every book ever published in Britain - it always amazes me that they have a copy of Chaucer next to a Barbara Cartland (not quite, but you get the point!)

Check their website re booking etc

British library is a good shout. Sir John Soane's museum is on the way to the British museum and one my my favourite places (free too).

Also the Wellcome Collection often has interesting things in (also free)

Get the number 12 bus from Piccadilly Circus or Trafalgar Square, ride it south over the bridge and get off at county hall. You can walk along the river there until tower bridge with loads of interesting and different things to see on the way. Pick up something to eat in food market behind the royal festival hall and grab a bench by the river and watch the world go by.

Depends what you like, China town is definitely a good option, you have options for all budgets including buffets.

There's lots of mid priced chains and many have set menus up to 6.30/7pm that save you a lot, we ate in the Greek one and cote

Giraffe on the south bank was good for breakfast, highly recommend taking the water bus to Greenwich or the tube to Camden market too for eats

Oh and we like Comptoir Libanais but the great value feast menu was no more last time I ate there (the meal for 2 fed 4!)

Super cheap but really fun is taking the Uber boats along the Thames to Greenwich and then taking a ride on the Emirates cable car. Stay on and come back again. Your 15 year old might like wandering round the shops on the o2 as well.

You could walk to Embankment pier to catch the boat from Leicester Square (15 minutes walk).
Google maps will show you Uber boats timetable if you put in Embankment Pier to Greenwich Pier.

Covent Garden is fun, you can watch the street performers and lots of places to eat. The Royal Opera House is worth a look, and the Transport Museum is there. Free for kids, adults pay admission.

It’s much easier to do interesting cheap and free stuff in London than many other places. For books, as well as Foyles on Charing Cross Road, you also have a (sadly diminishing) number of secondhand book shops along that road. Towards Covent Garden, Stanfords is a specialist travel book and map shop that is fun to wander round.

The Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green is wonderfully nostalgic. You’re near the cheap and rightfully famous Tayyabs and Lahore Kebab House for food, and despite some sterling efforts, it’s incredibly hard to spend more than £20 a head - bring your own if you want to drink alcohol.

The Docklands Museum is very good (part of the Museum of London), with a lot about the transatlantic slave trade, and you can do the DLR which is fun. The Maritime Museum is another really good one (although the fantastic kids’ area will be too young for your family) and you can get lush plates of noodles in Greenwich afterwards for not much money (lived on them in my youth).

@Doubleraspberry museum of childhood is closed at the moment

Another book one - John Sandoe in Chelsea, just off the Kings Road. A good one for browsing in, and also an Instagram favourite...!

Also, it’s not what it was, but Cecil Court, off St Martin's Lane (near Trafalgar Sq) is traditionally the street for antiquarian/secondhand bookdealers. It’s still quite olde-worlde - definitely worth a wander if you’re planning to go to Covent Garden or the National Gallery, as it’s very near there.

[quote Newnormal99]@Doubleraspberry museum of childhood is closed at the moment [/quote]
Gah, I did know that!

If your daughter likes Sherlock and you want to go to Baker Street - a warning. Do not go to the Sherlock museum at "221b" (it's not 221b). It's very shady, completely fabricated, and exists only to rip off tourists. I still see crowds outside it all the time though.

www.reddit.com/r/london/comments/syzm9x/i_used_to_work_at_the_sherlock_holmes_museum_it/

Yep, also be prepared that Baker Street is just a large busy road. You don’t really get much from it.

@Doubleraspberry

Yep, also be prepared that Baker Street is just a large busy road. You don’t really get much from it.

You can wander off it to Marylebone high street though, which is very lovely.

Random fact - Speedy’s cafe, next door to where Sherlock lives (in the Benedict Cumberbatch version) is actually in North Gower St, right next door to Euston station. I pass by it most days.

There used to be phone boxes outside Bart’s Hospital - the setting for Sherlock’s leap off the roof - which were completely smothered with graffiti from devoted fans from all around the world. They’re no longer to be seen because Bart’s is undergoing massive redevelopment and everything’s covered in scaffolding. Not sure whether they’re still there and covered up, or whether they’ll have disappeared once the works finish.

Yes, Marylebone High Street is nice. You’re also a manageable walk to Regent’s Park, which is lovely.

Almost opposite the Premier Inn is Notre Dame de France church, with a beautiful mural by Jean Cocteau. Well worth a look.

Baker Street is a traffic clogged, tourist clogged, Rip-off London nightmare. There's a TfL training centre nearby that I go to, and I hate the area.

I think there's a portrait of ACD in the NPG? Not a long walk from the Premier Inn.

Bookshops galore in Charing Cross Road, including the Foyles and Blackwells. I got chucked out of Henry Porder's recently for not wearing a mask. Short walk from PI. Further up, towards Tottenham Court Road Station, are the music shops around Denmark Street, worth visiting if you are a Cormoran Strike fan.

Comics and popular culture in Forbidden Planet, Shaftesbury Avenue. My 15 year loves going there. Again, not a long walk from the PI. Also on that road is a really good Pret.

Veggie food in Neal's Yard and Neal Street, mostly indies. Dishoom for Indian, Pasta Brown for Pasta, and yes yes Pizza Union.

Sadly the National Portrait Gallery is closed.

@Halsall

Also the London Review Bookshop, in Bury Place WC1A. It’s just across the road from the British Museum and has a very nice, though small, cake shop attached (handy for a sit-down!).

And a customer toilet in the basement, always handy to know! Daunts has one too, as does the big Waterstones in Piccadilly.

Good bookshops with toilets would probably be my mastermind special round!

If you are in the area around the British Museum then a short walk will take you to the Foundling Museum in Corams Fields. One of my favourite museums. I wish they still had their cafe though.

And if you are in the vicinity of the Museum of London then make sure you find Postman’s Park, a tiny churchyard which has a series of memorial plaques remembering Londoners who have died while saving lives. Sounds grim, is very moving.