London

Just got back from a week in London, and stayed at the Marble Arch Gloucester Place Hotel. A five-minute walk from the Baker Street tube stop, it is a very good value for the money. We had a double en suite room with kitchen sink, fridge, kettle, and microwave, a nice big tub, A/C unit, and flat screen TV for just over $100/night. Total bill for 7 nights was $900 - and they have deals that are less expensive than that. As for what not to miss... good question! I think that really depends on your tastes. There is SO MUCH to do in London! We loved going to the Tate Modern, then taking the short boat trip along the Thames and over to the Tate Britain. We loved wandering through Borough Market. We loved the Globe. We loved (window) shopping on Oxford Street and the King's Road. We loved the Saatchi Gallery, where there's currently a dynamite show of works by Soviet artists. We loved the fish 'n' chips at Brogan's, an Irish pub by Stamford Bridge. We loved a pub (the Strutton Arms, Westminster) where, after we left, we discovered that the Goons had written scripts! Among the standard answers are, of course, the Tower of London (great! amazing!), St. Paul's Cathedral (gorgeous/awe-inspiring), Trafalgar Square (lovely/super people-watching), Buckingham Palace (imposing!), St. James Park (elegant, pretty), Hyde Park (cool), Hampstead Heath (wow - can this really be in London?), Greenwich (the Prime Meridian!!!), the Banqueting House in Whitehall, the Inns of Court, the Strand... but you will want to calibrate what you see to your tastes. It is truly an AMAZING city, and there is something for everyone. Have fun!

Do you have a copy of RS London Guide Book yet? If so, great. If not you should get one as soon as possible to help answer the questions you have posted here. You can purchase that guide book on this web site by going to BOOKS and clicking thru to London. We found that guide book very helpful when we went to London & England.

You can also google "top ten attractions in London". Also look on graffiti section of this website about good restaurants in London.

The famous Man in Seat 61 runs a site with LOTS of information about train travel in Europe. Here's his page about options for getting from London to Italy by train; you, of course, would just reverse his directions. As for the rest of your question, it is too broad to answer in the 2000 character limit of this board. Take a look at guidebooks; I'd look at Rick Steves and at least one other, to get different opinions. Then, if you have more specific questions, post them here. If asking about hotels, please post your budget (words like "moderate" or "inexpensive" mean different things to different people) and specific requirements (elevator? en-suite bathroom? etc).

If you want to take the train(s) from Venice to London count on anywhere from 14 and a half hours to 22 hours of train time - without any stopping. If you want to stop, its more. You will be changing trains at least in Milano and Paris, probably somewhere in Switzerland or France or Turin. Figure on several long tunnels, including the 23 or so mile Channel Tunnel; and depending on the route you sel-ect you may even have corkscrews in some tunnels. I don't really know what you mean by "great" tunnels.

Any Top Ten things to do in London includes these but: 1) National Gallery 2) British Museum 3) British Library and whatever else you want to see. I also really enjoyed the Tower of London (which includes the crown jewels) but it's best if you have a sense of British history. I didn't get to do it but I would (blindly) recommend doing either a tour or just the regular bus routes around the city. The tube is great and efficient but London is big, busy city and being underground made it hard for me to piece the city together in my head. My $.02US,
=Tod

For your train ride, try the https://www.thello.com/ website.
My thought is that you could take the Eurostar to Paris, then transfer to the Thello train to Italy.

My husband and I have stayed at the Crowne Plaza, South Kensington. We stayed there three years in a row. It is a lovely hotel in a beautiful area. It is directly across the street from the Gloucester Tube station. If you get the Oyster card at the station, you can use it on the Tube to save money. You can also use it on the buses. This past July we stayed at the Doubletree in Westminister. There weren't any rooms at the Crowne Plaza, due to the Olympics coming up. We loved the Doubletree also. We could walk a very short distance to Parliament, The Tower Bridge, Westminister Abbey, Westminister Pier, the Horseguards Parade, etc. We were just a few yards off the Thames. In fact, we could look out our room window and see the Thames to our left. We walked along the Thames everyday. We took a lot of double decker buses this time. We could get the buses right by the Parliament bldg. London is just fantastic. We have been there four years in a row because we love it so.