Where would you go if you came to London?
 

Just a thought - where would you go if you came to London? Do you think there are any worthwhile attractions that you would recommend to people going? I live in the UK but I'd like to know from a tourist's perspective... Any thoughts?

So hard to even start!

Houses of Parliament
The London Eye
The Tate Britain/Modern
The South Bank
Tower Bridge
The British Museum
The National Gallery
The National Portrait Gallery
Hyde Park and the Diana Memorial

And these are just the first ten that come to mind. Does the tourist like parks? Does the tourist like good food? Does the tourist like history? Does the tourist like politics? Does the tourist like film/theatre?

There's no end.

I would download several self-guided walking tours from iTunes and spend several hours just walking, looking, observing...and popping into some pubs. I'd certainly take in some of the sites that ajax mentioned as well but having seen them all at least once, I really enjoy just walking around and seeing lesser known sites and picking up a bit of the back story as well. London is dreadfully expensive, but almost all of the sites ajax lists are free so that makes it easy to pop in to them and spend 30 minutes before moving on. I tend to pop in to the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stone and the mummies each time I go as well as spend some time in the National Gallery.

This tourist loves good food and will head for Le Gavroche first.

On my first trip to London (nearly 30 years ago), I remember being particularly awed by the Tower, as it just seemed so much more ancient than anything else I'd seen at the time.

Westminster Abbey impressed me more than I expected it to, as did St. Paul's.

As far as museums go, I'm quite fond of the British Museum and the Tate. But I always find the Natural History museum to be a thrill, less so since they've upgraded it but you can still see the penguin eggs Apsley Cherry-Gerard brought back from Scott's expedition. The V&A is worthwhile too, but pricey.

Kew Gardens is worth an excursion. I'd rank Greenwich as my favorite close-in day trip.

I've also taken a number of the walking tours offered by London Walks and found them uniformly entertaining and informative.

I also usually go to the theatre and stop in at Foyle's to browse (and, alas, buy) books, though the latter has gotten less entertaining now that it's been reformed to some sane level of organization.

Adding to the above attractions, I also enjoyed the Imperial War Museum, Natural History Museum, Albert and Victoria Museum, and the Bank of England Museum. As you can see, I love museums. The best, of course, is the British Museum and its vast collection of antiquities - my favorite in the world.

I thought the Diana memorial was in Harrod's. :) :)

It depends so much on what the visitor is interested in. Some will want to see one or more plays. Some will want to browse at Foyle's. Some will want to spend hours in the Science Museum in Kensington. Some will want to window-shop on Regent Street. Some will want to go for a run in Hyde Park, or listen to the speakers there. Some will want to attend a session of Parliament. Some will want tea at the Lanesborough. Some will want to hang out at a pub. There are so many other possibilities, none of them mentioned so far, that could be just the thing for a particular person.

That said, in terms of "conventional" tourist attractions, I think the Cabinet War Rooms from WW II are often overlooked but surprisingly fascinating. (To me, yes, but also to at least one other person who expected to be bored stiff.)

The V&A has no entrance fee. Unless you are talking about the fee for some of the special exhibits they have at times...

I agree about London Walks. I just took two of their walks over this past weekend, one of which was their "Explorer Day," an all day walk, which happened to be a trip to Cambridge. Excellent experience, great tour guide, and more interesting than I thought it would be. Beautiful buildings, in such a lovely town. I almost didn't get out of bed to get to the train station on time, but am so glad I did! ^

Otherwise, my sights/activities of choice would be (in absolutely no particular order):

The British Museum - I believe Rick Steves calls it "Encyclopedia Britannica National Park" :D
The Victoria & Albert Museum
Buckingham Palace, when you can actually get in
Westminster Abbey - stunning and absolutely filled with deceased royalty and major notables
St. Paul's Cathedral - humbling and overwhelming
Windsor Castle (okay, technically 'out of town,' but close enough. And WELL worth the trip
Hampton Court Palace
London Eye
The Imperial War Museum
Theatre -- Billy Elliot and Wicked spring to mind right away !
The Tower of London
Greenwich Observatory and Maritime Museum
Any and all London Walks (especially their nightly pub walks!)
Riding a bus on the top deck, on a long route, just to see the people and the architecture
Shopping at Covent Garden
Shopping in Knightsbridge
Shopping on the King's Road
Shopping on Kensington High Street
You get the picture... ;)

I'm sure I'm leaving something out. London is one of my favorite places in the world. Even when it rains! :)

That's the unoffical one, in a shop run by a very unpleasant man.

Flipping this around from the traditional, there is also a great deal of cutting edge stuff in London - the art cluster around the white cube in Hoxton, the live music scene (esp stuff like dubstep). A flip through Timeout London will provide tonnes of ideas.

Slightly OT, I heard recently that the Queen has personally refused to let his application for naturalisation as a British Citizen be approved. Apparently he has offended her so much (and, well, he has...) that she will not see him become one of her subjects.

As a technical person, my wife and I try to balance Art, History, and technical museums and sites. London has all. In past couple of visits we have visited the Tate, Geffrye Museum, Wallace Collection, Mansion House (Tue at 2PM), Dennis Severs House, Kirkaldy Testing Museum, Bletchley Park(hour train ride outside of London, but worth it), Crossness Pumping Station, Kew Bridge umping Station, Organ concerts Sun at 5 at Westminster Abbey, National Gallery, many plays getting tickets and TKTS (1/2 price), and fish and chips at Master Super Fish on Waterloo Rd. A splurge is dinner at Rules, the oldest restaurant in London. Just writing this list makes me want to go back again. Then there are the lesser places in outer London, Red Hill House, Chistlehurst Caves, Dulwitch Picture Gallery, Horniman Museum, and don't forget the Museum in the Docklands.
Gene

The Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum Home. One really got a sense who Churchill was, that era and what people's lives there were like during WWII.

Romelle

That may or may not be true, but his naturalisation was first denied well before Dodi got involved with Diana, and that decision was taken at Cabinet level.

On another note, if you visit the V&A, you have to sit down in the cafe at some point. It's a spectacularly beautiful place to get a cup of good British tea. (That said, it's a pricey bit of the V&A!)

I always recommend sitting at the front of a Docklands train from Bank to Cutty Sark (for Greenwich) too: you get the full view (the trains are driverless) and it's the best of Britain's modern architecture most of the way.

Or the suggested donation . . . (but what is it -- 3 pounds?)