London Hotel and Itinerary comments, please

We have stayed many times at the Rembrandt. A very nice buffet breakfast is included in the room rate and there is a fitness center next door with a pool that can be used for a small fee. South Kensington Tube Station is about a block away. We also like Baileys Millineum at Gloucester Road but it has recently been redone and the prices now reflect this renovation.

I suspect you may need to edit your wish list but it's good to start out with more on it!

As you indicate HP will take a whole day.

For myself, my brother, SIL and her sis Kew Gardens took a whole day. It's nearly an hour out there by Tube and the grounds are enormous. There are lots of gardens and parks you can walk thru on the way elsewhere that might be a better use of time unless you have particular interest in Kew. My brother is a retired forester and he loved it because he saw examples of trees that he'd only read about in texts. SIL and Sis are big gardeners and loved it. I enjoyed the green! I'd love to see the Chihuly exhibit some of the others have seen recently. That would be amazing. There is a Chihuly piece in the foyer of the V&A.

So that' s 2 days taken out of your 4 full days.

If the half is your arrival day and you do stay at the Rembrandt, V&A is almost across the street from it so that would be easy to do although I try to stay outside on my arrival day and there are some areas in V&A that are darkish.

• Tower of London is 5 hours for me, maybe 3 hours if you don't see everything.
  
• Churchill War Rooms (get tickets ahead) is about 2-2.5 hours for me. I love this museum. Walking thru the underground bunker where Churchill worked during the war is very powerful to me.
  
• Westminster Abbey is a good 3 hours.
  
• British Museum can take up as much time as you have, lol.
  
• Wallace Collection is small, maybe 2 hours.
• IWM, another 1/2 a day.
  
• Not sure what you mean by the "Historical Museum"?
• Portrait Gallery - haven't been there in a long time so not sure how long this would take

No way can you cover all these in just 2 days. I'd rank them as to what is important and then see what's around those. For instance, War Rooms are near Westminster Abbey so they go together.

The rest are kind of scattered N/S/E/W, lol!

I went to Kew Gardens with my horticulturalist husband and two friends who had been to London many times. He was so happy. I was less so. We also were there all day.

I think unless Kew has been on your wish list for years (like my husband), there are other things I would see first. It is an arboretum primarily and not a flower garden. I enjoyed walking around but frankly would have chosen something different to do that day.

Thanks for the comments. I will take the Gardens off my list. Maybe another trip......

Sorry, for historical museum, I meant "Natural History Museum". Since it's near our proposed hotel, I thought I might be able to fit it in.

There aren't many bookshops remaining in Charing Cross Road due to a combination of increasing rents and competition from online sales. There's still the very large Foyles, and I think two second hand shops remaining between Cambridge Circus and Trafalgar Square.

There won't be any actual wineries in London, just wine shops. Agree that BBR is worth visiting. Another nice one is The Sampler on Upper Street in Islington. Both BBR and The Sampler have got oenotech nitrogen-filling machines that allow you to have wines by the glass that are usually too expensive to serve in wine bars. Wine growers in the UK are mainly in the South-East and South-West - try Biddenden or Nyetimber but both will probably need you to hire a car or spend money on cabs.

Beer - my personal suggestion is the two lodges outside Euston station (all that remains of the original Euston station) which are now specialist beer pubs under the Euston Tap name. Or try places mentioned here.

I’d take a pass on the Natrual History Museum. It’s a lovely building, but there are so many things in London that you can’t see other places. If you follow Pam’s suggestion to visit V&A Museum on your first day, consider walking up Brompton Road to Harrod’s. It’s fascinating and gets you a walk in the fresh air as well.

Also check out the thread “Current tips on London” by acraven for some good tips related to things you’re interested in.

As others have said, you need to do a lot of cutting. First, have you been to London before? Or, have you been to Europe before? Are you flying directly to London or will you be touring another city beforehand? If London is your first stop, and this is your first European trip, you don't know how jetlag will affect you. You say you arrive Tuesday afternoon - it will probably take you at least 3 hours to get out of the airport and to your hotel. Then it will be time for dinner. Then you'll most likely be really tired and fighting sleep. So don't plan anything timed or ticketed that first day. If you manage to make it out, do a walk or something minor, not a major must-see sight.

Read Rick's London book if you haven't already--it's great. Note that London is not known for its wines. Consider a brewery or gin factory instead. Or just drink the local sips in a pub. To me, if this is your first time in London, visiting a booze-making venue is going to take the place of some very other top-notch sites that might be more worthwhile.

As others have said, the British Museum and V&A can each take a full day. Don't underestimate the amount of walking you can do just inside the museums. Similarly the IWM is enormous. Plan no more than 2 big sites per day. Like:

Day 1: Westminster Abbey and Churchill War Rooms.
Day 2: Harry Potter
Day 3: British Museum and Tower of London (but this will be exhausting)
Day 4: V&A and something else....

I would NOT plan two museums in the same day, you'll get museum fatigue. Even though the Tower of London is technically a "museum" of sorts, there's a lot of it outdoors and it doesn't feel like a museum.

I last went to London in 2004. Here was my itinerary, and here's what I actually got accomplished:

Day 1:
7:30 – Arrive
9:00 – Get to Victoria Station, put bags in locker; catch Original London Sightseeing Bus
11:00 – Hop off bus @ Buckingham Palace
11:30 – Changing of the Guard
12:30 – Lunch in Covent Gardens/people-watching
2:00 – Cruise on the River Thames (leaves from London Eye; including in above bus price)
3:00 – Westminster Walk (see Rick Steves’ Guide) – actually go in Westminster Abbey and Cabinet War Rooms in addition to walk
5:30 – Head back to Victoria Station ; get bags; go to hotel
6:30 – Dinner and rest
(On this day, we mostly stuck to the schedule. We did not do the sightseeing bus as we got lost in Victoria Station. We were very tired and had to fight to stay awake, dragging around all day.)

Day 2:
This is the day it started falling apart, haha!
9:00 – Tower of London (Beefeater Tour, Crown Jewels)
12:00 – Head toward Tate Modern; lunch
1:00 – Tate Modern
4:00 – Vinopolis, The City of Wine
5:00 – Saint Paul’s Cathedral
6:00 – Head back to hotel; quick dinner/rest
8:00 – “Phantom of the Opera” in Theater District

We did the Tower sans Beefeater tour, I forget why we didn't. Maybe got there late? After Tate Modern we were too tired to do either Vinopolis (which is now closed), or St. Paul's, or Phantom. There was a LOT of walking at TOL and Tate.

Day 3:
10:00 – Imperial War Museum
12:00 – Lunch in Trafalgar Square
1:00 – Walk to Piccadilly Circus; people-watch
2:00 – Harrod’s
4:00 – Speaker’s Corner; walk through Hyde Park to get there
5:00 – Tube to Abbey Road; get Beatles’ picture crossing street
6:00 – Dinner; back to hotel; laundry; pack/rest
We didn't make it to IWM as husband thought he lost his passport and we spent the morning looking for it. Couldn't find Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park.

Sooooooo....as you can see, what you PLAN to do can be quite different than what you ACTUALLY do. Since that first trip, we have planned at most 2 things per day. And if we have extra time and feel like doing something else, we do it. And if we don't....we don't.

Oh, and I'm going back to London next year and will catch St. Paul's, the Imperial War Museum, plus some other things I missed. Assume you'll come back.

Both the V&A and the British Museum are monsters. The buildings are large and rambling. In my view there's no sense in going to either one for just an hour or two unless you've done research in guidebooks and on the museum websites ahead of time to decide which part(s) of the collection you will concentrate on. To see either one in its entirety would take several full days--and that doesn't allow time to read all the labels on the exhibits. A floor plan (sold at each museum for 1 or 2 pounds) is very helpful, because there are odd partial floors, staircases that don't reach all floors, etc. A considerable amount of time can be spent just walking from one exhibition area to another, so a prudent traveler without much time should consider not only what he most wants to see but also where it is located in the museum. It may make sense to see Priorities 1, 5 and 6 rather than Priority 1 and half of Priority 2 if there's a long walk between #1 and #2.

The British Museum is typically quite crowded these days, which will slow you down somewhat. The Egyptian section is difficult to walk through, especially on days with iffy weather. I've found the V&A to be not as bad, but the jewelry exhibit tends to get busy within an hour of museum opening. If you want to see it, heading there first thing in the morning will be helpful.

Both of these museums have at least some exhibition areas open late on Friday.

“A floor plan (sold at each museum for 1 or 2 pounds) is very helpful, because there are odd partial floors, staircases that don't reach all floors, etc. A considerable amount of time can be spent just walking from one exhibition area to another,”

So true!! Since you are HP fans, I could swear that the staircases in V&A move from place to place while you are in the building! I finally took a London Walks tour of that museum to see if it would help me navigate in there. It didn’t, lol!!

I agree with the recommendations to skip the Natural History Museum. The decorative work on the outside is very cool but with a short time frame, not likely a visit priority. (Not that it isn’t a good museum, just that there are other sights that you can’t see elsewhere.)

Most of the old bookstores are gone. Foyle's is now a large, modern five-story affair neatly organized unlike the original where hidden nooks held little gems and finding anything meant needing a map and leaving breadcrumbs to find your way out. (Foyle's is now owned by Waterstones, a large bookstore chain similar to Barnes & Noble.)