A History Lover’s Guide to London

We arrived on a Sunday at Heathrow Airport and took about an hour long cab ride to our hotel in the Westminster area (chosen for proximity to all of the top attractions we were interested in – we did not have a good experience at our hotel, so I won’t mention where we stayed).

The first order of business was getting food, so we went to a nearby pub for a Sunday Roast. It was a delicious combination of meat (I did beef, Joe did chicken), vegetables, and Yorkshire pudding. We also saw our first telephone booth nearby, so that was worthy of documenting.

All of these locations we chose to see from the outside, rather than prioritizing time spent going inside. We also didn’t feel the need to time our visit to Buckingham Palace to include the changing of the guards, so that gave us more flexibility. Reflecting back on the trip, we do wish we’d made time to take a tour the Palace of Westminster.

It was fun to simply see the buildings from the outside and admire the architecture. It got us in the mood and prepped us for the rest of what we would see on our trip!

One of the big draws to London for us was seeing the National Gallery. They have a wonderful painting collection (even though we were in England, I was, as usual, most impressed with the Dutch artwork) and it is manageable to see everything in a few hours. You can get free tickets ahead of time and we were glad to be there for opening as it got crowded later on. Trafalgar Square is right out front, so two birds with one stone for this stop.

Next we wandered through Hyde Park to see the Italian Gardens, the Peter Pan statue, Kensington Palace and Gardens, and we ended at Royal Albert hall. We got caught in a rainstorm at the end of our walk, so we hopped in a cab and headed back to our hotel for a rest.

I decided to check out the Tate Britain. It was not originally on my list and I didn’t love it, but the architecture was cool to see and it was, like many museums in London, free.

We started the day with a long walk from our hotel on the South side of the Thames. We took in the views of the Palace of Westminster, stopped to see the Shakespeare’s Globe, and made our way to Tower Bridge.

We booked tickets to see the Tower of London and loved the history we got to learn about. I also was incredibly impressed by the Crown Jewels. I’d recommend trying to get to the Tower of London when it opens (you need a timed ticket, but they let us in before our scheduled time) and going straight to the back to the Crown Jewels, as that had the longest wait.

This was our absolute favorite stop in London. The sheer magnitude of the Cathedral is hard to wrap your mind around. We walked over from the Tower of London (this was our longest walking day) and already had a timed ticket for the end of the day.

We sat down in awe of the main area when we arrived, then climbed to the dome. It was a long way up, but the views were breathtaking. I decided to go up to the very top of the dome and I would not recommend it if you don’t like enclosed spaces or heights. You have to climb up incredibly narrow spiral staircases to the top.

We stayed for Choral Evensong, which is a 45 minute service of song. It was unreal. There was a full boys and adults choir and I felt even more appreciative of the building we were in because of the atmosphere created. You can go to Evensong for free and don’t need tickets, so this is a good way to experience part of the Cathedral if you want to save money or come past the normal hours.

The British Museum has a few standout items (like the Rosetta Stone), but ultimately we weren’t big fans. I think it had to do with how crowded it was. I recommend going to the entrance on Montague Place because there is much less of a crowd.

For lunch we went to the Rock and Sole Plaice for fish and chips and it was outstanding!

For the first time we took the tube over to the Portobello Market and Notting Hill area. We wandered around into shops and saw the neighborhood, then made our way to the Churchill Arms pub. We didn’t have anything there, but just admired the beautiful flowers that cover the building.

This was a highly anticipated stop for us to see the actual rooms where Churchill and his team worked from during WWII. There was so much history to learn about and this is a favorite time period for Joe, so he was loving it.

You get a free audio guide to go through the rooms, and there is a museum section in the building as well. You need a timed ticket and we were one of the last groups of the day, so it was fairly crowded.