London recommendation in April

[fatnslow]

I'm tagging along with my wife on a work trip in mid April. We're going a few days ahead and looking for fun area to stay with easy transit access and interesting things to do. Her work stay will be near Marblehead.
Honestly London has never appealed to me but this is a last minute thing and hope to be pleasantly surprised. I like a bit gritty and hate anything corporate.
Please fire away and nobody wants to see 57 year old tits so don't ask.

[plugboots]

Honestly London has never appealed to me

Why not?

[Timberridge]

Bring a raincoat. There's a million things to see and do there.

[Mulletizer]

Her work stay will be near Marblehead.

Do you mean Marble Arch? Or Maidenhead? 15+ years in London and I've not heard of anywhere called Marblehead.

[Iowagriz]

I was also skeptical about London, but I had a good time. We stayed near St Paul's cathedral, which made for good walla on that end of town. St Paul was a good tour, climbing the stairs for good views and interesting interior architecture. Wander past the fire Monument to St Dunstans in the East. London Tower was cool to tour, get there early, and avoid the lines for the jewels. We then walked across Tower Bridge to Borough Market for a late lunch and back to St Paul's via the Millenium Bridge. It was a long day of walking, but it took in most of the major sites on that end of town.

Lastly, I highly recommend a dinner reservation at The Sky Garden. With a dinner reservation, you skip the tourist line for the observation deck. Views are great, can be busy, dinner was good, and maybe $125 with drinks, so acceptable for the experience.

[truckeelocal]

If you are, actually, near Marble Arch, then DO NOT bother with Madame Tussards. Camden is neat as is the walk along the canal. And you'd be right by Abbey Road if you absolutely must do the 'zebra crossing' thing.
But here's a thought. Leave the wife at her conference and hop on the train to Paris for the day ... they go out of St. Pancreas station and arrive at Gare du Nord 2 hours later. Get an Oyster Card to pay for discounted tube trips. And to state the obvious ... have a curry, or three.

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

We'll be visiting the same time. Never been except for layovers, pretty excited about it. We try to be loose with planning, these are on our list:

Tower of London and tour
Maritime museum
Find some good fish and chips
V&A museum
National Gallery
Harrod's food hall
Football match
Portobello rd market
Find some good Indian food
Tate Modern
Day trip to Stonehenge
Daunt books and Cecil Ct shops
John Sloane's museum

Not going to:
British museum, fuck that place
Westminster and Buckingham palace
London Eye and other tourist traps like the wax museum

[truckeelocal]

Stonehenge
Courtauld Gallery
Globe Theater (stand), although May and weather ?
Natural History Museum ... note national museums are 'free' donation requested
Boat down the Thames to Greenwich
But really ? Stonehenge !

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

Stonehenge - I gotta get my "In Search Of" geek on. I'm going to do my best Leonard Nimoy narration the entire time to the huge irritation of my wife.

[Timberridge]

If you're into guns like Leroy, maybe get a bespoke gun made at Boss & Co.?

London is the center of bespokeness. There's bespoke shoes, bespoke suits, pretty much anything you can imagine they can bespoke for you.

[The AD]

Apparently you can't even get near the stones in Stonehenge. I've heard several people suggest Avebury instead if you want to get up close and personal to the stone circle. I feel like going all the way out to Stonehenge and only being able to look at it from afar would be disappointing.*

No one has mentioned Camden Market yet. I haven't been, but it looks like it would be pretty hip. Churchill War Rooms if you're a history buff.

Something I heard about that sounds like a unique experience is the Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London. Every night at 10 pm they officially lock up the Tower and have held this ceremony for centuries. Tickets are very limited and go on sale a month before, so you may already be out of luck, but check here if it sounds interesting: https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-lond...eys/#gs.5rbqt1

* I just looked into this and there are special limited tours allowing you to walk inside the circle with a guide, but they take place early in the morning or in the evening after Stonehenge has closed to the public.

[plugboots]

C’mon, the fatster has to give us a clue what he’s into before we yield our secrets.

[PNWbrit]

Been gone nearly 25 years to the day.

First time visitors always enjoyed the hop on hop off double decker bus tours.

[Timberridge]

Been gone nearly 25 years to the day.

First time visitors always enjoyed the hop on hop off double decker bus tours.

If you don't want to mingle with the riff-raff, they offer bespoke tours.
https://www.blacktaxitourlondon.com/bespoke-tours

[fatnslow]

Do you mean Marble Arch? Or Maidenhead? 15+ years in London and I've not heard of anywhere called Marblehead.

Sorry, Marble Arch and train to Paris solo sounds pretty interesting.

[plugboots]

Sorry, Marble Arch and train to Paris solo sounds pretty interesting.

[The AD]

If London itself doesn't sound that interesting to you it's pretty easy to get out of the city by train. For example, you can get to Oxford in under an hour and Bath in less than an hour and a half. You can even get to York in just over two hours, so day trips are possible to a decent part of the UK.

[Mulletizer]

I like a bit gritty and hate anything corporate.

Central London is sanitised and corporate. If you want to see "the sites" then you are stuck with that. Soho is probably the least sanitised area - former red light district, still somewhat louche. Good for daytime drinking, great food scene. Expensive place to stay but probably fun.

If you want gritty you probably want to look East to Hackney, or Whitechapel or Shoreditch (bit more corporate, still rough around the edges) or maybe South East to Peckham (not a lot of accommodation but there is some). Lots of places to stay in East London but a bit more "real" than Central. There's a ton of interesting history, a lot of it pretty particularly along the river. If that's your thing I'd consider a guided walking tour but do your research about guides, some are old and dull, others really bring the place to life.

Stonehenge and Avebury are awesome but if it's a short trip I wouldn't bother personally. You're looking at 3+ hours of travel each way. YMMV.

Please fire away and nobody wants to see 57 year old tits so don't ask.

I don't know, most maggots are perverts IME.

If you're into guns like Leroy, maybe get a bespoke gun made at Boss & Co.?

Actually not such a bad shout. I took lemonboy to visit William Evans, one of the old English gunsmiths, a few years ago, he seemed to love it. Places like that aren't wild about tourists but, if you're up front with them that you're not buying but are really interested in their work, they are likely to be happy to show you around. The workshops are all off site but they all have guns that are staggering works of craftsmanship to look at, if that's your thing.

A few comments on other suggestions:

If your wife's tits are 57 years old then Camden Market might not be your vibe. It's very much a teen goth/Amy Winehouse fan place to go, though they did redevelop and are trying to make it a bit more of a "grown up" place (read: soul less, corporate).

Bath is cool, especially if Bridgerton or Jane Austen are your (wife's) thing. About as far from gritty as you can get though. Likewise Oxford.

River tours are great. I really like Greenwich, mega interesting history. Likewise Deptford - historically a bit rougher, still shows. Are you American? Lots of them like visiting Rotherhithe where the Mayflower set sail from. Conveniently, there's a pub on the river called the Mayflower, it's a great boozer, like a country pub in the centre of the city.

You don't need an Oyster card anymore, Applepay or Google wallet can be used on public transport, just make sure you use the same card every time.

Borough Market is a tourist attraction rather than a market these days. I go to restaurants around there, I avoid the market like the plague.

Bus tours are good for getting a feel for the place, though they can be a bit gouging on price. The regular buses can be equally cool, though without the commentary, and far cheaper. You can download route guides to read/listen to while you travel for some of them. This is a starting point.

[The AD]

You don't need an Oyster card anymore, Applepay or Google wallet can be used on public transport, just make sure you use the same card every time.

Also any tap enabled credit card, which I'm assuming is more or less all of them these days.

[Buzzworthy]

A pair of Hoka Bondi 8’s for everyone. Go try them on at REI and tell me I’m wrong.

[Buzzworthy]

If you’re a fan of storytellers have 2 hours to enjoy an evening tour, I’d highly recommend this Jack the Ripper tour. It was a phenomenal time and these guys are historians on this subject. The in depth stories (and who knows if they are exaggerated) were captivating and the walking tour of the area he killed in was incredible.

https://www.jack-the-ripper-tour.com/

I’d echo The AD with a day trip to both Oxford and York. Both have soft unique architecture and amazing scenery. Oxford was quite the cool campus to see compared to my school. I was in York the day Jerry Garcia died. Only real memories of York consisted of a large amount of beer with my brother at a pub with a bunch of other deadheads.

I’d love to take my daughter and wife there. They’d love it.

[m2711c]

+3 for Bath.

[fatnslow]

thanks for all the ideas. I'll try to create a logical approach.

[truckeelocal]

^^^^^ well IF you do the Paris thing then you may want to invest 10 quid each to see Romeo and Juliet at The Globe Theatre [sic] Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank: Romeo and Juliet | 2024 | What’s On | Shakespeare's Globe (shakespearesglobe.com)
I won't give away the ending, but tears are involved.

[m2711c]

you don’t even have to get off the highway to see Stonehenge…







tourist trap fact.