London, take 2
Hip, hip hooray!
Boyfriend and I are going to London AGAIN this summer. Boyfriend has been planning this for some time, but refused to tel me where he's taking me. (And I didn't even want to know, because I trust him completely.)
I cannot even begin to say how ecstatic I am. When I was there for the first time last September, I fell in love with the city. Architecture, people, tube, culture, history, museums, our hotel, everything.
I'm a city gal. I love big cities and cannot imagine how it would feel to be living in a village. This time around we're going to stay there for 5 days. We intend to see some smaller museums, more of the city and everything we didn't last time, when we ran out of time.
Also, we're going to be there at the time of the release of HP and the Deathly Hallows, so we've already pre-ordered two copies of the book (I'm getting the children's edition, while boyfriend is being snobbish reading the adult's edition) at a huge bookshop and have opted to get the book from the shop at midnight on the day of the release. So for the first and last time I'm going to be part of a midnight release queue party. (The only problem is that we're probably going bankrupt by paying for a night cab ride back to the hotel. I'm not too keen on trusting the buses.)
But I have questions as well. Do you have suggestions what we should see while up there? We've seen most of the major tourist attractions. Can you suggest something that's off the beaten track, but definitely worth seeing?
Labels: Harry Potter, life, london
4 Comments:
Veronika said...
Go and visit the Clapham part of the city. :) Amazing part, and many people doesn't even know about it...I lived there, it has amazing mood, architecture, extremely lovely district. :) Clapham Common Park is always a nice one for a walk or two :)
Veronika said...
I forgot: if you love photography, you cannot miss The Photographers' Gallery on Great Newport Street. Guidebooks rarely mention it, though it's more than worth a visit if you are interested in photography and it has an amazing bookshop, with all the things you have ever wanted to have and buy about photography. :)
Anonymous said...
Some must-see attractions, which are pretty famous, but tourists rarely manage to see them during their first visit to London:
- Camden town (a famous market, most busy during weekends, where you can see lots of interesting people and stalls)
- Tate Modern (a very famous gallery of modern art, built in an ex power plant station. It doesn't only target the lovers of modern art, but attracks people mostly because of its fame.)
- Greenwich (ship Cutty Sark, see the building of the Naval museum from the outside, park, the Observatory. Change from tube to DLR in Canary Wharf to see the modern business centre.)
These are in my opinion really worth going to. Some other less frequently visited attractions which are in my opinion also worth going to if you have time are:
- Sir John Soane's museum (definetely off the beaten track)
- Portrait Gallery on Trafalgar square (haven't seen the permanent exhibition yet, but they often have interesting temporary exhibitions)
- if you are interested in old and famous pubs, there is the oldest pub (still the very same pub as in 16th century) in Covent Garden. I was also recommended to go and see the Mayflower pub (the place where English left by ships to America).
And, yes, go see a musical. It's expensive, but it's worth it. I recommend a classic Les Miserables. This one exceeded all my expectations. Cheap (and good enough) tickets should cost about 30 pounds.
Nadezhda said...
snooch - I'm not too sure about Clapham, but we're almost definitely going to the Gallery you suggested. Thanks for your input! :)
Tina - I was thinking about Camden and Greenwich last year, but we couldn't make it then. This year we're definitely going!
We've been to Portrait Gallery, so I'm not too sure about that. But we're probably going to see Soane's Museum. I'm not too sure about the pub or musicals, since boyfriend isn't really a fan of musicals. We'll see. And in any case, we have two months before we leave, so there's plenty of time to fine tune our plans, but thanks for your suggestions anyway. :)
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