London Things to Do Tips by ZanieOR

While in London we saw two live performances, the musical "Bombay Dreams" (on the second to last night before it went on the road) and Tennessee Williams' "Suddenly Last Summer" with Diana Rigg in one of the lead roles.
Both were excellent, and now that I'm back home and looking back I wish we'd gone to more theatre -- a Shakespeare play or any of numerous other productions. As I recall we had a hard time deciding, so we should have just gone more than twice.
We were staying in the middle of the theatre district, after all, and could probably have picked up last minute tickets easily.
I think we paid a higher than necessary price for our seats, since we got them through the hotel (50 pounds each per production), but in retrospect they were well worth it.
Go to the theatre while you are in London!!

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Westminister Abbey was the first major London site the morning after we arrived in the city, and it was a great way to start becoming oriented to the history of England.
My head was reeling with the names of all the kings and queens buried in the abbey, and I purchased a small book outlining the family tree of British royalty to help me keep track in the gift shop.
Our tour guide was the Canon's Verger, Maureen Gupp, who was excellent. Though we weren't allowed to take photos inside, I did get one of her afterwards getting something to eat in the area outside the main part of the abbey. The tour is highly recommended. Admission was 7.50 pounds and the tour I think 5 pounds.

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Phone: 0 20 7654 4900
Address: Deans Yard, SW1
Directions: St James's Park tube
Website: http://www.westminster-abbey.org

Our only outside-London side trip was to Hampton Court Palace and it was more than worth it! Both the guided tours with characters in period costume (Lady Alice Spencer was especially good) and the audio tours were very great. The audio tour of the kitchen telling how meals were prepared for hundreds of royals and entourage without modern conveniences was especially good.
The gardens were beautiful, and we enjoyed getting lost in the maze and also seeing the oldest living grape vine (or was it the biggest?)
I started losing track of the different periods of history (the "new" part of the palace was built in the 1700s) again, but it didn't matter.
The crowds weren't bad at all, maybe because we made the outing on the queen's birthday and the hoardes were back in London.
I would highly recommend Hampton Court Palace (very photogenic as well as historic!)

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Phone: 0 20 8781 9500
Address: East Molesey, KT8 9AU
Directions: Network Rail from Waterloo to Hampton Court
Website: http://dev.hrp.precedenthost.co.uk/webcode/hampton

The view from the London Eye was wonderful and it was well worth the price!
We arrived just before it first opened at 9:30 a.m. on Friday of our visit, bought our tickets, and were in one of the first groups to board. Though the capacity is 20, there were only nine or so in our "pod". The t was extremely pleasant and the perspective from the the top spectacular.
I got some very good photos with my digital, even through the transparent pod. We deliberately went early to avoid the crowds, and it really paid off. By the time we disembarked there were long lines to get tickets and to get on the Eye.
We felt this attraction was well worth the price.

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By the time we arrived at the British Museum Sunday afternoon after a morning at the markets and a visit to the National Gallery and walking from there, my feet were hurting; plus I'd tripped and skinned my knee and hand during the walk.
We only had two hours left before it closed and my friend was determined we hit all the high spots in those two hours, so got us an audio tour. (We had no time to dawdle)
In spite of my feet, I was awe-struck at the collection after collection of priceless antiquities, from the Rosetta stone to the Elgin marble from Greece to the mummies and on and on and on.
Take it from me. Two hours is not enough. It would be easy to spend a whole day in this wonderful museum.

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Phone: 0 20 7323 8299
Address: Great Russell Street, WC1
Directions: Holborn tube
Website: http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

We took the tube to Tate Modern, and it seemed like we had to walk quite a distance before we arrived at the museum.
I enjoyed the variety of art -- some of it was pretty off-beat -- "modern" covers quite a range of time. As I recall the gallery was divided into sections. Art pieces that stand out in my memory (I should have written this tip sooner) included a piece by Dali featuring a lobster and a telephone, and a huge piece of an African woman with real-life elephant droppings artfully incorporated. It was actually quite an impressive painting.
Admission was by donation.

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Phone: 0 20 7887 8000
Address: Bankside, SE1
Directions: Southwark or Blackfriars tubes

After visiting Tate Modern, we rode the boat to Tate British, which we really enjoyed. It was lunchtime so we ate in the restaurant there, which was very good though a little fancy for lunch (I think there was a cafe or cafeteria we probably should have gone to).
We really enjoyed the exhibits, though perhaps there was a slight burnout on the massive military and religious-themed pieces.
The art dates back to 1500 right up through modern stuff, quite an impressive range.
We paid to go to a special exhibition of "Art in Garden" which was a marvelous theme for art pieces -- everything from WWII "allotment gardens" to artistic weedpatches to colorful contemporary pieces.
Also admission by donation and a wonderful place to visit.

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Phone: 0 20 7887 8000
Address: Millbank, SW1
Directions: Pimlico tube
Website: http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/default.htm