London questions (mostly about our itinerary)

Looks like a good plan. I'd suggest an afternoon London Walk instead of evening on your first day, you may want to crash after dinner. And I'd spare the young'uns from the British Museum on their bleary arrival day, do it yourselves the next day.

The Globe would fit with Borough Market and Tate Modern on day 4, all on the south bank.

It will depend on your level of interest but the Tower could take up more than your morning. We spent about 5 hours there.

Day 1: you might consider attending Evensong at St. Paul's - it's restful, a chance to sit down, an opportunity to see the interior for free - or maybe a donation in the collection plate. It doesn't require a large time commitment, and you'd have plenty of time for an early dinner.

Only two small comments:

a) this is perhaps a personal preference, but I find the best thing to do for jet lag on a first day in Europe is STAY OUTSIDE (to let your body get used to the new sun rhythm). The one time I disregarded my own advice, I fell asleep in the middle of a play that I had paid GBP 70 for! Instead of the British Library, perhaps do a London Walk. Or my favourite first day in London thing is Kew Gardens.

b) if you want a market with vintage clothing, try Petticoat Lane Market, in east London. Get your vintage clothes, then walk a few blocks east to Brick Lane Market to get some incredible Bengali food for lunch.

Day 2 looks good. Westminster Abbey and the War Rooms are close to each other, so it's an easy walk from the Abbey when you are done to the War Rooms. After the war rooms (even if you are there for a few hours), you will have plenty of time to go somewhere else (presumably at some point to eat) and wander around before the show.

I think your day 4 is a Friday. We did a fun Thames pub walk with London Walks that they do Friday evenings. Lots of fun (you go to 3 pubs) and very social. Might be fun to do with your daughter and her BF. Just throwing that out as an idea.

I feel like a possible day 5 would be to go to V&A in the morning and then wander up to Kensington Palace and wander through the grounds, then over to Notting Hill. Not too far from the Palace grounds is The Churchill Arms pub which is really pretty on the outside and quite decorative on the inside. As a note, our last day in London this spring was to go to Kensington Palace (we went to the new exhibit there), wander the grounds, and then pub hop as we wandered our way leisurely back to where we were staying near the Chelsea FC stadium. It was a lovely way to end our stay. That's partly why I suggested it :)

Hi RunnerGirl,
Perhaps check out our new TR 'Back to Brick'? Its a report with fotos about our return to London, where we stayed near Brick Lane.
There's a great deal of varied info there, including Borough ('burra') and plenty more.
I'm sure that you'll get lots of responses here to your above questions.
I am done. The city.

Agree that you might be underestimating how badly that jet lag will affect you. I would not plan too much on your arrival day, especially if your plane ends up getting delayed by three hours, like my most recent flight to London was. At any rate, I would not plan on a museum visit that day. Walking around is good, eating, maybe visiting some markets or early souvenir shopping. Likewise, I think the last thing your family will want when they get off the plane all tired is to visit a big museum. Otherwise, looks like a fun itinerary.

Thanks everyone for replying and offering some good advice and insight. Have checked out the pub walk and a few other new ideas. Gosh my mother would love it if her lapsed Anglican daughter went to evensong. It does sound lovely. :-)

The British Museum is one of the largest museums in the world. We went a couple of weeks ago, and I had pre-researched what I wanted to see, which was only four things. That took two hours, and that’s including one of the four things which ended up being off display! Honestly, unless you have a specific reason you want to see at the British Museum, I would skip it for a first visit to London. It is extremely crowded. We also went to Shakespeare’s Globe this time and did the tour and it was a highlight of my trip, and I did not expect that. I’m not even really much of a Shakespeare fan, but it was super interesting from the historical aspect.

Kelly, thank you for that insight. I am hoping that, because we are going on the night it is open late (maybe head in around 6 or 6:30) that the crowds will be smaller. I wonder if anyone has done that and can share their experiences? That's good to hear about the Globe, as I am a Shakespeare fan. Did you show up and buy tickets for the tour or prebook? About how long was the tour?

Evensong is really lovely and it is not to be missed. I would second the recs above for pushing your London Walks to the afternoon and pushing the British Museum to another day. Get to bed by 8:30 pm at the latest and you will rise fresh and ready for a full day of sightseeing on day 2.

I bought tickets day of. But, this was the week before Memorial Day so “real” summer may be different. Tour was about 45 min.
Check their schedule - I think the latest tour is 4pm on Mondays. Other days of the week the tours end at noon. (Tours end a few hours before shows start.) https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/whats-on/shakespeares-globe-story-and-tour/ (the exhibition space they reference in no way takes an hour to go through, it was very skippable)

It’s quite a while since there were any delicious Bangladeshi food options on Brick Lane. In the wider area yes, but Brick Lane is primarily tourist traps these days.

John speaks truth. Our rental was on Woodseer, a one-minute walk across to Brick Lane. That corner was the epicenter of the not-terribly-great cluster of meh Bangla/Indian restaurants. Their hawkers tried a couple times to entice us, unawares that we live right next to Toronto's Little India, which itself has a number of similarly meh eateries--my wife and I know from mediocrity. Some are AYCE, and MSG-laden (thx to manager Jay from the Brick Lane 'Taj' store for that tip-off), no match for meals in the subcontinent itself.

That being said, location-wise Brick Lane is very attractive. It seems to have hit that sweet spot of 'gentrification vs various attractions', by that I mean the mix of weekend markets there, nightlife, pubs et al. Just one example: the quality of the food from the 'Spanish Caravan' booth at Brick Lane's famed Sunday market was as good as any that we've eaten on various trips to Spain.

Runner girl, here's a story to share with your friends. Back during the planning stages, the very first rental that I looked at was really nice. Then I saw its price. Then...I read that it was the same flat that Madonna had once moved into to join her then-boyfriend Guy Ritchie! LOL!

I am done. the dunce

And I agree with the above. The Brick Lane area has much to commend it and seems to be a much more interesting location than the places more often recommended further west like Kensington and Earl's Court. Just avoid the restaurants on the Whitechapel end of Brick Lane.