10 Tips to Being the Perfect London Tourist
1. Start your day off right with a full English breakfast.
2. Westminster tube station. Eye of London. Parliament, including Big Ben. Westminster Abbey. Buckingham Palace. Fleet Street and the entrance to the city. Millennium Bridge. Globe Theatre. London Bridge. Tower Bridge. Tower Hill tube station. BAM. London in a day.
3. Wear comfortable shoes. And bring a second pair of comfortable shoes. For when your first pair get wet from the inevitable rain. A third pair wouldn’t be a waste of suitcase space. Umbrellas are sold outside of most Tube stations for £5 for when you’ve forgotten yours.
4. When it rains, go to the British Museum. It’s looking to rain all week you say? No bother, you won’t get through everything at the Museum. And it’s free admission.
5. £65 is a hefty price to pay to see the Lion King in a theatre in London. Save it for NYC. Instead, pay £5 to stand and watch Hamlet or As You Like It in the Globe Theatre. That’s how it was done back in the day.
6. Bring or buy a poncho to the Globe Theatre.
7. See that price tag? It includes tax!
8. Remember the Tube day pass? Meet its discounted cousin, the week pass.
9. Googling “cheap London restaurants” is the best way to go. Make sure you like Thai food, Indian food, and Turkish food. Curry is always a good option. Fish and chips tastes much like you would expect it to. My vote for best British food goes to meat pies.
10. Find an old pub. Eat there. Then drink there. Established in 1890? Not good enough. Built in 1750? Ehh. Rebuilt in 1667? Yes, that’ll do. My personal suggestion is Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on the Strand. It was rebuilt in 1667 after the Great Fire, and there was a pub on that site in 1538. The most impressive part is the cellar, which dates back to a monastery from the 1200s. But what makes this particular pub appealing to us W&M-ese folk is the list, prominently displayed outside of the door, naming the monarchs who have reigned during the lifetime of the pub.
