Does anybody fancy helping me with a London plan please?

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

3 full days
2 adults and 2 16 year olds

One day they want to go to the zoo; we will take them there and pay for them and leave them for the day with a picnic and then collect them. Meanwhile we'll probably go to Wahacca and to Sir John Soanes, plus maybe the National and Portrait galleries.

Any ideas for the other days please? I imagine it'll be a mixture of doing things together and them going off for a couple of hours. In the evenings, we'll stay together.

Thanks. :)

Postman's Park?

Oh Wicked is brilliant, definite recommendation if seeing a show.

The Memorial To Heroic Self Sacrifice in Postman's Park

This would have made my day as a sixteen year old (indeed, still does)

Is in a great part of town close to St Paul's too.

Lots of plaques like this

I think this is my favourite

If favourite is the right word?

Wow! That looks perfect! :)

V close to St Paul's, Paternoster Sq, the London Stock Exchange, the Museum of London, and more or less guaranteed to be empty.

There's a church nearby called St Andrew without wardrobe or something similar which has always intrigued me.

Thanks Verity. Saint Andrew by the Wardrobe - tis v famous but I can't remember if it's Wren or Hawksmoor.

Not sure when from but the Olympic park is open for tourism so if you didn't go last summer, might be worth a wander round.

Def print some maps and walk about the west end. Or use smart phones!

It may be quirky but you could get them competing with ispy books on London.
Ride on Boris new routemaster and an old vintage one

Flag down black cab (the kids obv)

Look up facts about palace and Big Ben etc. I know you're not doing educational, but I made my kids guess how many windows buck palace had and how tall Big Ben was etc

The V and A has a big exhibition on David Bowie. But you HAVE to book your tickets in advance. I would truly recommend that. And the V and A is near to King's Road.

Which days are you there for Remus?

Take them to the light show at the Hayward gallery. It's amazing, pricey but definitely worth it.

It's on the south bank so lots of other stuff to see too and easy to walk across to charging cross if you want to walk around covent garden/soho.

Liking Charging Cross!

Don't know what days yet - it's likely to be the end of July/beginning of August.

No educational - dd2 eye rolls at me enough as it is. It's dd2 and her friend, so dp and I will have to be on our best behaviour, so as not to make dd2 cringe too much!

Kings Road - never been. Do I want to? Is there a Westwood shop there?

They will be interested in shopping then. Top shop at Oxford circus a must. Carnaby st, covent garden ( fit all this in one day with maybe sushi lunch) and high st ken with museum and routemaster buses another

Bottom of Carnaby st is large magazine house you could point out, they'd like that too prob
Actually on broadwick st but has posters in window they could oooh over

And walk them carefully through soho pointing out cool and seedy side.

Go to the TKTS ticket booth in the middle of Leicester Square. Any shows with spare tickets sell them via the booth right in the middle of the Square. You could get a good bargain, and see what is available without traipsing round to the individual theatres. Please be wary of any other outlets around town who claim to be 'official'. The majority are not.

magazine house?

They are not much into shopping tbh, except for CDs and band t-shirts.

West Side Story is on at Sadler's Wells around then. Could be a good alternative to the usual shows.

Take a walking tour around one of London's lesser known neighbourhoods - Spitalfields would be great: it's crammed with immigrant history (Huguenots, Jews, Bangladeshis), has incredibly beautiful early Georgian (Huguenot) houses and is really interesting as it has bonus bonanza City workers and uber-successful artists (Tracy Emin, Gilbert & George) living alongside very, very poor households. You get a real sense of London in its extremes. There are lots of Jack the Ripper tours in the area too because that's where he operated but I've never quite understood why anyone would want to do those .

You can then go onto Brick Lane (which runs through Spitalfields) for a curry or to its 24-hour beigel shops for a proper Jewish feast.

Also this website which offers 2-4-1 entry to loads of attractions (including London Zoo) with a rail ticket valid for that day - the trick is to buy a London travel card at a railway station rather than a tube station on the day that you want to use any of these offers.

Thank you re the travel card advice - excellent tip! So if we buy a tube day pass but at Euston, it'll count?

Never been to Spitalfields or Brick Lane, so that sounds interesting. Is it tube-able?

As long as it's the overground bit of Euston, yes. But, if you come to London by train then the ticket for your journey down will be valid as well. So if you arrive reasonably early, you can have a day of 2-4-1 fun - at the station, just pick up a booklet about it and there are a load of little vouchers at the back that you fill in and hand over at the front desk of wherever you're going.

For Brick Lane, Aldgate EAST (not Aldgate) or Shoreditch are the best stations. Have fun.

Light show at the Hayward is good (and not too cerebral) if you want some art on the south bank - likewise Liechtenstein at Tate modern.

London zoo is small - they would be done in 3 or 4 hours good, is v near primrose hill which is good for people watching and not far from top end of Camden - so could combine all those together.

Agree the cable car is great - and you can pretty much walk on it if you have an oyster card.

View from top of St Paul's is great - and good work out for your legs if you so desire.

Don't want to lower the tone but my teens enjoyed Ripley's Believe it or Not and also the Imperial War Museum ( tone raised once more)

The Imperial War Museum is excellent - and far from being just cases of weapons as I feared when dragged along by DH for the first time - but I'm pretty sure it's closed for refurbishment till July.

A couple of other suggestions, depending what sort of stuff you're interested in:

We got a Blue Badge Guide to take us round the Tower of London - he was brilliant; we learned loads more than you would on your own - all the extra details behind the well-known historical facts. Not cheap but really worth it.

The Cinema Museum, near Elephant and Castle, is good for film buffs. A labour of love by a couple of guys who obsessively collected memorabilia from old picture-houses that were closing down, stored it for years and eventually raised enough money to open this quirky museum (in a building which was a former poor-house). You have to go online and arrange a time to come along, when Martin will take you round and chat you through all the stuff. Possibly most interesting for those of us who remember a seat in the stalls being 2/6, although teenage DS also enjoyed our visit.

I like the sound of the memorial in Postman's Park earlier in the thread - I'm definitely going to check that one out.