Time to tour Saint Pauls Cathedral

Rick's London book says 2 hours if you climb the dome, 1 hour if you don't.

there is a lot of detail to see in St Pauls (and Westminster Abbey etc), if English history interests you you could spend many more hours looking at all the inscriptions etc.

I would honestly give yourself a few hours minimum whane seeing St Pauls or Westminster Abbey. We thought htat this would be a good fast visit through St Pauls. The lower level tombs didn't take much time to see, however, the dome? Your breath is taken away and you can just sit in the chairs under it and enjoy the serenity and think. The audio tour is well worth the time and price for the details . Climbing to the top is in stages and it is not easy to just sprint up the spirals. Try to take in the construction details, the iron works , the sound traveling along the walls and of course the views. After acsending to the top and returning to the basement, we chose to rest for a bit and enjoy some snacks and drinks to catch our breath and plan out the next adventure. Westmintser Abbey is the same thing. The history and details to be seen can't be appreciated in a fast stroll. The nice thing about the location is that after you leave, one can walk across the Millenium Bridge to enjoy the Thames, see the Tate Modern, Globe Theater or catch a cruise boat. We planned our day to start off leaving the Hotel by taking a doubel decker bus to the center and walking to St Pauls. Later, we would walk across the Millenium Bridge. The afternoon was based on us seeing Macbeth at the Globe Theater at @ PM. Tremendous performance! We had a leasurely lunch at a nice place down the walk overlooking the Thames. Walking back to the Globe we found that the Tate Modern had free admission and enjoyed that for about a half hour seeing [INVALID] works that interested us. There were plenty of people on the lawn and on the walk enjoying the day as we walked a few minutes to the Globe Theater. After the performance we had the 99p cone from the Ice Cream Truck. There is a dock right there to catch any of the Thames river cruises and that led us to enjoy the late afternoon travelling to the Tower Bridge, turning around and ending up at the Millenium Wheel. Enjoy the history.

My rule of thumb is to plan one major site in the morning and one in the afternoon................................... I keep notes on other sites/activities in the area, if I find myself with extra time available......................................It seems more likely that getting to, through and out of a site takes longer than you expected and you find yourself rushing to keep up with your plan.

Thanks for all of the advice.

My cousin is a guide on Thursdays - ask for Viv. She does a 2 hour tour but the trip to the top is not included. Amazing building. So plan 3 hours.

We make it a habit to see every big cathedral that is nearby. Having seen so many, I couldn't imagine spending more than an hour touring one on the main floor. If you are new to the experience, by all means spend more time. However, the climb to the top between the two layers of the dome is my favorite part. Add an hour for that experience & if you are physically able don't even consider passing it up....