London and Surrounds in a Long Weekend
London, England
Windsor Castle
Stonehenge
Oxford
Summary
It might surprise you how much can be packed into a long weekend in London: history, culture, cuisine, shopping and more. Prepare for a whirlwind of activity... and, to want to return again and again!
Trip Tic
For: Families, Couples Travel Days: 5 Mileage: n/a Car Hours: n/a (one all-day bus tour, though) Temps: 40-55° F (winter)
Route Maps
Itinerary Outline
(Narrative Itinerary below)
Day 1
- Arrive London Heathrow Airport on Friday morning
- From the airport, take the Express Train to Paddington Station
- Purchase London Underground 7-day unlimited "Oyster Passes" (these also cover Double Decker Bus rides) and take the Circle Line to St. James Park which is 2 blocks from the hotel
- After checking in, walk to the Starbucks around the corner for caffeination!
- Continue walking to Westminster Abbey and take the 1 hour tour
- Walk to Big Ben for a photo op and then continue to Parliament (there is a 1 hour tour here too, which we'd have done if we had 5 full days in London)
- Walk to the Churchill War Rooms & Museum for a fascinating 1.5 hour self-guided audio tour of the secret underground WW2 bunker
- Walk to Trafalgar Square and then stop in at the National Gallery to see Van Gogh's Sunflowers and the Vermeer (admission is free)
- Walk to Piccadilly and have afternoon tea in the Waterstones Bookstore Cafe
- Walk along Piccadilly to window shop before returning to the hotel via the Underground
- Lodging: St. Ermin's Hotel
Day 2
- Take a traditional London black cab to the Saturday Portabello Road Market and spend 2-3 hours exploring all the antiques shops and boutiques
- Take a Double Decker Bus from Portabello Road to Oxford Street for lunch and shopping at Topshop/Topman
- Walk to the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stonea nd Hokusai's Great Wave and then choose another gallery or two to cruise through (admission is free)
- Take the Underground to King's Cross Station to visit "Platform 9 3/4" of Harry Potter fame
- Take the Underground to Covent Garden for shopping and street entertainment
- Dine at one of London's many wonderful Indian restaurants
- Lodging: St. Ermin's Hotel
Day 3
- Take in some famous sites outside of London today by way of an Evan Evans bus tour... the Windsor Castle-Stonehenge-Oxford option was excellent, but Windsor-Stonehenge-Bath or Salisbury Castle-Stonehenge-Bath or Warwick Castle-Stratford upon Avon-the Cotswolds would all have been equally interesting
- As the buses typically retrieve tourists from their hotels in the morning, and return them to Victoria Station in the evening, take the Underground to Notting Hill Gate for dinner in the evening
- Lodging: St. Ermin's Hotel
Day 4
- Take the Underground to Tower Bridge and the Tower of London to take the Beefeater Tour and to admire the crown jewels and armoury
- Afterwards, get back on the Underground and head to Harrods for tea in The Tea Room and some souvenir shopping
- There's more shopping to be done on Regent and Carnaby Streets so take the Underground once again... Hamley's is a 5-story toy store on Regent that's especially fun for kids
- Dine at Cha Cha Moon noodle cantina on Ganton Street which runs between Regent and Carnaby
- Take a cab for the 10-minute ride back to the hotel
- Lodging: St. Ermin's Hotel
Day 5
- Depart for home from London's Heathrow Airport
Narrative Itinerary
Day 1
Although none of us got much in the way of quality sleep on the red-eye flight that saw us arriving in London early on Friday morning, the novelty of being in Europe for the first time kept our then 11 and 14 year-olds energized, which in turn invigorated us returning oldsters. After visiting an ATM to procure British Pounds (don’t use the Bureau de Change kiosks/stalls), from Heathrow we navigated via an express train to Paddington Station, there acquiring our 7-day unlimited Underground Oyster Passes before taking the Underground’s Circle line to St. James Park, a mere two block walk from the lovely St. Ermin’s Hotel. The hotel was originally an 1880’s “mansion block” that, as a hotel, later saw considerable MI6 action! (Note: For the public-transportation-wary, know that London's Underground is among the easiest to subway system to negotiate. While I had the benefit of a husband who’d previously lived in London and knew it inside and out, even I, as map-challenged an individual as you’ll ever meet, had it mastered in 24 hours!)
As best practice for transitioning to a considerable time zone difference when you’re arriving in the morning is to stay awake as long as possible on day one, after checking in, we walked a few blocks seeking caffeination. For better or worse, we happened upon a Starbucks and “Venti-ed up”. (I would argue that it was for the better: after a rough night’s trans-Atlantic travel, the comfort of knowing we’d get exactly what we expected was just what the doctor ordered for a successful launch to a busy day!).
Using our Knopf London City Guide (see the link below – I can’t recommend these books enough as they’re super informative yet compact enough to slip in a jacket pocket, and, the utility of the detailed fold out “neighborhood” maps is just outstanding), we walked on to Westminster Abbey. We did not take the one-hour tour, but regret not doing so. Just “next door” was Big Ben (photo op!) and across the street Parliament, where the one-hour tour would likewise have been worthy.
Our logic behind skipping these tours was that our next stop was the Churchill War Rooms where we anticipated taking an hour and a half to complete the audio tour of the secret WW2 bunker and to subsequently peruse the supplementary exhibits. Indeed, we did spend an hour and a half there, however, in hindsight, I think the most interesting part was the bunker, which could have been toured in about 45 minutes. If we’d taken a pass on the exhibits after touring the bunker itself, we’d have had the time earlier to have taken either the Westminster Abbey tour or the Parliament tour.
With sufficient Churchill under our belts for the day, we walked on to Trafalgar Square to view the huge bronze lions before wending our way through legions of pigeons to the National Gallery. Our general approach to visiting museums with kids is to pick two to three famous works to view and then call it a day so as not to exhaust them. Here, we looked at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers and Vermeer’s Young Women Standing/Seated at a Virginal, and a temporary exhibit about manga, a Japanese cartoon art form, which aligned nicely with our 11 year-old’s interests. The adjacent National Portrait Gallery also serves up an amazing collection that most definitely merits visiting, however, it was by now mid-afternoon and we were getting hungry, so we walked to Piccadilly Circus and had afternoon cream tea in the Waterstones Bookstore Café.
That sustenance gave us enough energy to walk along Piccadilly until we happened upon a tube station that would return us to our hotel. With everyone fading fast, we showered and popped out to the corner noodle shop for take-out before calling it a night.
Day 2
The only one of us to have a restful night’s sleep was my 11 year-old. The rest of us awoke at what would have been our normal time were we at home, and then dozed on and off until the sun began to peer through the hotel curtains. This was to be our experience pretty much throughout our trip, but as we’re all pretty enthusiastic travelers, we managed to keep our good spirits throughout the relatively short duration of the trip despite our lack of sleep.
One of my husband’s favorite recollections from his days in London was visiting the Saturday Portabello Road Market to explore antique shops and boutiques, so after a quick bite at a patisserie we secured a traditional London black cab to spend 2-3 hours poking around amidst the antiquities. Then, hopping on a Double Decker Bus from Portabello Road to Oxford Street, we lunched at a traditional English pub before dividing up into boy and girl teams to shop the decidedly more modern fare on offer at Topshop and All Saints (girls!), and Niketown and Uniglo (boys!).
After the commercialism of the earlier half of the day, some culture was in order, so we walked to the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stone and Hokusai’s amazing woodblock print, The Great Wave. We wandered through another gallery or two on our way out, heading for the Underground that would take us to King’s Cross Station to visit Platform 9 ¾ of Harry Potter fame. Frankly, the luggage cart embedded into the wall was underwhelming, but, we are tremendous HP fans, and so it was a must-do, if only for the photo op. There’s a Potter-themed shop in the station now, so if you find that this side-jaunt has you craving Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, you can get your fix in a jiffy.
Again jumping on the Underground, we made our way to Covent Gardens to see the street entertainment and stop into some of the unique little boutiques (The T-Shirt Store was a hit). We were there in December, just before Christmas, so the holiday decorations were an added bonus. We found an Indian restaurant around the corner and had dinner there. What my kids remember most about that meal was receiving a single ice cube each for their room temperature sodas when they asked for ice. This sparked much speculation as to why Europeans aren’t as big on iced beverages as Americans (an age old mystery... see here). If I had a do-over, I’d have ascertained what the BEST Indian restaurant in the city was and went there instead, as our choice was nothing special.
We returned to the hotel via the Piccadilly Line, getting off at Green Park so as to walk by Buckingham Palace on a bit of a circuitous route back to the St. Ermin's for the night.
Day 3
Day three saw us visiting historic sites outside the city through a full day Evan Evans bus excursion. It was a nice change of pace after having been self-directed throughout the prior two days. We were picked up right from our hotel, which was a bonus, and driven to a central location to board our ultimate transport: a plush 30-40-passenger bus. A highly personable and knowledgeable guide provided interesting anecdotal information and answered questions during the hour-long-ish drive between each stop.
We chose the Windsor Castle-Stonehenge-Oxford tour route and it was excellent, although in retrospect, I might have selected the Windsor Castle-Stonehenge-Bath, Salisbury Cathedral-Stonehenge-Bath, or Warwick Castle-Stratford upon Avon-Cotswolds routes instead. Our main reason for choosing Oxford was because one of its libraries was the set for Hogwart’s library in the Harry Potter films, and we thought we’d be able to walk in and see it. That wasn’t actually the case. Whether it was because of timing (maybe buildings were closed for winter break) or restrictions that exist at all times, we were only able to walk on the grounds of the Oxford Colleges. So, we saw the outside of the library building – and it was still recognizable!
All of Oxford was definitely quite beautiful, and we learned a lot that we didn’t know about the history, organization, and famous alumni of the colleges as we walked the campus with our Evan Evans tour guide, but we just had slightly different expectations for that leg. The aforementioned alternative routes offered other interesting connections that were relevant in one way or another to our kids’ interests or studies at school: cathedral-building, medieval castles, the Roman Empire, Jane Austen and the regency period, Shakespeare, scenic countryside, and so forth. In reality, you just want to do them all, so I don't think you can go wrong!
The two first legs pf the tour (Windsor and Stonehenge) were definitely worthwhile. At Windsor, we purchased an audio tour and walked the prescribed route. The Queen was in residence on that particular day, as indicated by the flag flying above the castle, but we didn’t see her – ha! Our kids listened to the adult audio tour, which probably got boring for them at a certain point… once you’ve seen a fancy room or two, it gets old fairly shortly. Never-the-less, they made it through and we enjoyed the grounds a bit and then made a pit stop for a snack at the little town/market before re-boarding the bus to Stonehenge.
So, Stonehenge is just tremendously cool. We purchased the audio tour to listen to as we circumnavigated the henge. Lots of great information about what archeologists have learned about the site, how it’s thought to have been built, and their speculations about its use. I believe a new visitor center has been built since our trip, which no doubt improves upon the experience.
After a very full day of touring, we were deposited at Victoria Station where we took the Underground to Notting Hill Gate for dinner before returning to the hotel.
Day 4
Our last day in London began with a tube ride to the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London where we met the famous ravens and took the “Beefeater Tour” which was quite fun. There were various exhibits that could be explored post-tour, so we chose to admire the crown jewels and visit the armory, the latter which was surely less gruesome than the prisoner’s exhibition in the Bloody Tower.
Next up was formal tea in the Tea Room at Harrods in Knightsbridge, just a short trip away by Underground. As department stores goes, Harrods is pretty amazing. With it being the winter holiday season, the entire top floor was devoted to toys and the ground floor food halls were bursting with treats. Needless to say, souvenirs and goodies for friends back home were purchased after our divine tea experience.
It may seem like we spend a considerable amount of time shopping on vacation, but I should clarify that we’re mostly window shopping. Plus, this particular vacation was city-centric, which, for us, tends to translate to more commercial, culinary and cultural pursuits than would be the case for a vacation centered around a national park. Typically in a city, we’re looking for what’s unique, be it cuisine, history, or retailers… stuff that’s not available to us year-round at home.
All this to say, our next stop of the day was Regent and Carnaby Streets – home to yet more shops and some awesome restaurants! The main event here for us was Hamley’s, a 5-story toy store with all manner of product demonstrations being given that we all enjoyed. We were even persuaded to purchase some crazy Hamley markers that had “magical” properties that we still have and use to this day (if they still have them, a full set of the “Colour Stackers”, “Colour Magic”, “Double Magic”, and “Wipeouts” are totally worth acquiring).
We ate dinner at Cha Cha Moon noodle cantina on Ganton Street between Regent and Carnaby. It has a fun communal atmosphere and we are big fans of Asian food, so, a win-win in our book. We enjoyed a final black cab ride back to the hotel and prepped for our departure the following morning.