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London: Travel Details

This is a quick and handy source for details on the sights, hotels, tour guides and restaurants featured in "London: Mod and Trad" show. For much more (and updates), see this year's edition of Rick Steves' London guidebook.

Apsley House

Having beaten Napoleon at Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington was once the most famous man in Europe. He was given London's ultimate address, #1 London. His newly refurbished mansion offers one of London's best palace experiences. An 11-foot-tall marble statue (by Canova) of Napoleon, clad only in a fig leaf, greets you. Downstairs is a small gallery of Wellington memorabilia (including a pair of Wellington boots). The lavish upstairs shows off the duke's fine collection of paintings, including works by Velázquez and Steen (£4.50, Tue–Sun 10:00–17:00, until 16:00 in winter, closed Mon, well described by included audioguide, 20 yards from Hyde Park Corner Tube station, tel. 020/7499-5676, www.english-heritage.org.uk). Hyde Park's pleasant and picnic-wonderful rose garden is nearby.

Victoria and Albert Museum

The world's top collection of decorative arts (vases, stained glass, fine furniture, clothing, jewelry, carpets, and more) is a surprisingly interesting assortment of crafts from the West as well as Asian and Islamic cultures. The British Galleries are grand, but there's much more to see, including Raphael's tapestry cartoons and a cast of the storiated Trajan's Column (free, possible fee for special exhibits, daily 10:00–17:45, Wed and last Fri of the month until 22:00 except mid-Dec–mid-Jan, free 60-min tours daily on the half-hour from 10:30–15:30, also daily at 13:00, Wed at 16:30, and a half-hour version at 18:30; Tube: South Kensington, a long tunnel leads directly from the Tube station to museum, tel. 020/7942-2000, www.vam.ac.uk).

The British Museum

Simply put, this is the greatest chronicle of civilization...anywhere. A visit here is like taking a long hike through Encyclopedia Britannica National Park. The most popular sections of the museum fill the ground floor: Egyptian, Assyrian, and ancient Greek, with the famous Elgin Marbles from the Athenian Parthenon.

While the vast British Museum wraps around its Great Court (the huge entrance hall), its centerpiece is the stately Reading Room (free, £3 donation requested, daily 10:00–17:30, Thu–Fri until 20:30 — but only a few galleries open after 17:30, tours offered nearly hourly, least crowded weekday late afternoons, Great Russell Street, Tube: Tottenham Court Road, tel. 020/7323-8000 or recorded information 020/7388-2227, www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk).

National Gallery

Displaying Britain's top collection of European paintings from 1250 to 1900 — including works by Leonardo, Botticelli, Velázquez, Rembrandt, Turner, van Gogh, and the Impressionists — this is one of Europe's great galleries. The audioguide tours (suggested £4 donation) are the best I've used in Europe (free admission, daily 10:00–18:00, Wed until 21:00, free 1-hour overview tours daily at 11:30 and 14:30 plus Wed at 18:30, photography prohibited, on Trafalgar Square, Tube: Charing Cross or Leicester Square, tel. 020/7747-2885, www.nationalgallery.org).

Tower Bridge

The impressive Tower Bridge is freshly painted and restored; for more information on this neo-Gothic maritime gateway to London, you can visit the Tower Bridge Experience for its 1894–1994 history exhibit and a peek at its Victorian engine room (£5.50, family-£10 and up, daily 10:00–1830, last entry at 17:30, good view, poor value, enter at the northwest tower, tel. 020/7403-3761).

Tower of London

The Tower has served as a castle in wartime, a king's residence in peace time, and, most notoriously, as the prison and execution site of rebels. You can see the crown jewels, take a witty Beefeater tour, and ponder the executioner's block that dispensed with troublesome heirs to the throne and a couple of Henry VIII's wives (£13.50, 1-day combo-ticket with Hampton Court Palace-£18, March–Oct Mon–Sat 9:00–18:00, Sun 10:00–18:00; Nov–Feb Tue–Sat 9:00–17:00, Sun–Mon 10:00–17:00; last entry 60 min before closing, the long but fast-moving ticket line is worst on Sun, no photography allowed of jewels or in chapels, Tube: Tower Hill, tel. 0870-751-5177, recorded info: 0870-756-6060, booking: 0870-756-7070). You can avoid the long lines by picking up your ticket at any London TI or the Tower Hill Tube station ticket office.

Gilbert Collection

The Somerset House, a grand 18th-century civic palace, offers a marvelous public space, three fine art collections, and a riverside terrace (between the Strand and the Thames). The palace once housed the national registry that records Britain's births, marriages, and deaths ("where they hatch 'em, match 'em, and dispatch 'em"). Step into the courtyard to enjoy the fountain. Go ahead...walk through it. The 55 jets get playful twice an hour. (In the winter, this becomes a popular ice skating rink with a toasty café for viewing.)

Somerset House comprises these small and sumptuous sights: the Courtauld Gallery (paintings), the Gilbert Collection (fine arts), and the Hermitage Rooms (the art of czarist Russia). All three are open the same hours (daily 10:00–18:00, buy a ticket at one gallery and get a £1 discount off admission to either or both of the other two on the same day, easy bus #6, #9, #11, #13, #15, or #23 from Trafalgar Square, Tube: Temple or Covent Garden, tel. 020/7848-2526 or 020/7845-4600, www.somerset-house.org.uk). The website lists a busy schedule of tours, kids' events, and concerts. The riverside terrace is picnic-friendly (deli inside lobby).

The Gilbert Collection displays 800 pieces of the finest in European decorative arts, from diamond-studded gold snuffboxes to intricate Italian mosaics. Maybe you've seen Raphael paintings and Botticelli frescoes...but this lush collection is refreshingly different (£5, includes free audioguide with a highlights tour and a helpful loaner magnifying glass, last admission 17:30).

Tate Modern

Dedicated in the spring of 2000, the striking museum across the river from St. Paul's opened the new century with art from the old one. Its powerhouse collection of Monet, Matisse, Dalí, Picasso, Warhol and much more is displayed in a converted powerhouse. Each year, the main hall features a different monumental installation by a prominent artist (free, fee for special exhibitions, daily 10:00–18:00, Fri–Sat until 22:00 — a good time to visit, audioguide-£2, free 1-hr guided tours, call to confirm schedule, view café on top floor; cross the Millennium Bridge from St. Paul's, or Tube: Southwark plus a 10-min walk; or connect by ferry from Tate Britain for £3.40; tel. 020/7887-8008, www.tate.org.uk).

Gourmet cheese Shop

Just south of Southwark Cathedral, is the Borough Market. Be here weekdays at 2:00 in the morning, when the first trading starts at this open-air wholesale produce market, and you can knock off by sunrise for a pint at the specially licensed Market Porter tavern. Nearby Park Street is a popular film set for its old 19th-century ambience. Check out its fragrant cheese shop and colorful pub. On Friday afternoon and all day Saturday, the colorful market opens for retail sales to Londoners seeking trendy specialty and organic foods.

First started a thousand years ago on London Bridge, where country farmers brought fresh goods to the city gates, the market now sits here under a Victorian arcade. Even the railroad rumbling overhead, knifing right through dingy apartment houses (and the Globe Tavern), only adds to the color of London's oldest vegetable market and public gathering spot.

London Eye

Built by British Airways, the London Eye Ferris Wheel towers above London opposite Big Ben. This is the world's highest observational wheel, giving you a chance to fly British Airways without leaving London. Designed like a giant bicycle wheel, it's a pan-European undertaking: British steel and Dutch engineering, with Czech, German, French, and Italian mechanical parts. It's also very "green," running extremely efficiently and virtually silently. Twenty-five people ride in each of its 32 air-conditioned capsules for the 30-minute rotation (each capsule has a bench, but most people stand). From the top of this 450-foot-high wheel — the highest public viewpoint in the city — Big Ben looks small. You go around only once; save a shot on top for the glass capsule next to yours. Its original five-year lease has been extended to 25 years, and it looks like this will become a permanent fixture on the London skyline. Thames boats come and go from here using the Waterloo Pier at the foot of the wheel.

Cost, Hours, Location: £11.50, April–mid-Sept daily 9:30–21:00, mid-Sept–March 9:30–20:00, closed Jan for maintenance, Tube: Waterloo or Westminster, www.ba-londoneye.com (5 percent discount for booking online).

You can generally just buy your ticket and walk on (never more than a 30-min wait, worst on weekends and school holidays). If you want to book a ticket (with an assigned time) in advance, call or go online (automated booking tel. 0870-500-0600 or on the website). Upon arrival, you either pick up your pre-booked ticket (if you've reserved ahead) or wait in the line inside to buy tickets. Then you join the ticket-holders' line at the wheel (starting 10 min before your assigned half-hour time slot).

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Excerpted from Rick Steves' London 2005