Quickie Trip To London

[Hostelling Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hostelling]

Hi

A friend is house sitting outside LHR and invited us over. So we are going to take a long weekend to visit. October 26 to 30.

She wants to know what we want to do for the four days and three nights we will be there. I think the best thing to do is take a few orginized tours of the London area.

Anyone have suggestions of companies offering day tours, that dont want to include hotel. I remember gray line had a few, are there any other as good or better?

Daniel

[somerville Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close somerville]

There are hop on hop off busses that stop at various tourist sites. You can get tickets and catch a bus across from the Green Park Tube station, and probably other places. You can buy tickets for attractions on the bus. The bus ticket also includes a short trip up the Thames. There are also many free attractions in London, including many art galleries and museums.

[maiwah Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close maiwah]

It is really easy to get around in London. Their subway and bus system is really great. Thus, I won't recommend joining any tour. Also, there are extremely inexpensive walking tour around town (http://www.walks.com/)

You should also check out London pass, and compare with the admission fees of the places you want to go, to see if it is worthwhile for you to get the pass, especially as somerville pointed out, there are a lot of free attractions in London. http://www.londonpass.com/index_attractions.asp

You may want to get Rick Steves' London 2006.

You will have a lot of fun in London!

[helenbarnett1963 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close helenbarnett1963]

try www.visitlondon.co.uk for a good overview of things to do and places to see and links to other websites.

if you've got 4 days you could take trips to Oxford, Stratfod, Brighton or many other places by either train or bus. Look on the London Transport website, and also the railway network ones - sorry, can't remember the site addresses off hand.
If you are happy to drive, rent a car, buy a road atlas and take yourselves to all these places. Once you arrive somewhere, the tourist sites etc are all well signposted by distinctive brown signs. (wouldn't recommend you try taking a car into London itself though!)

I wouldn't recommend you tie yourselves to one big tour covering your whole stay as you will probably spend most of the time on the bus and stopping for 'afternoon tea', and they do tend to include accomodation.
In London itself, use the hop-on-hop-off bus tour to give you an overview, then decide what interests you and then take yourself around by tube.
If you like museums, for example, you can easily spend a day or more 'doing' just the ones in Kensington.