Big Ben
Big Ben is the great clock tower at the north end of the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, by the Thames: 96 meters of sand-colored stone and Gothic tracery, four huge dials and the bell whose boom has marked London's hours since...
Buckingham Palace
Buckingham Palace is the British monarch's London residence and workplace, at the end of the Mall in Westminster: a Portland stone façade 108 meters wide, the famous balcony where the royal family greets the crowds, and 775 rooms behind...
London Eye
The London Eye is the giant observation wheel on the South Bank of the Thames, between Westminster Bridge and Hungerford Bridge: its glass capsules lift passengers 135 meters above the river for a slow half-hour ride over the rooftops of central...
Tower of London
The Tower of London is the old royal fortress on the north bank of the Thames, at the eastern edge of the City: a Norman keep wrapped in two rings of walls and a moat, home to the Crown Jewels, the ravens and the Yeoman Warders.
For almost...
Tower Bridge
Tower Bridge is the Victorian drawbridge over the Thames beside the Tower of London: two Gothic towers clad in stone, linked high up by walkways, with a road between them that still lifts in two halves to let ships through.
The bridge is...
Hyde Park
Hyde Park is the biggest of the royal parks in central London: 350 acres of lawns, trees and water between Bayswater Road, Park Lane and Knightsbridge. It is where Londoners walk, row, swim, ride, march and listen to music, a green chain that...
Tamsin Trail
The Tamsin Trail is the shared path that loops around Richmond Park, the largest of London's Royal Parks, in the southwest of the city: an 11.6-kilometer circuit for walkers, runners and cyclists, almost entirely free of cars.
The trail...
Regent's Canal
Regent's Canal crosses north London for 13.8 kilometers, from Little Venice near Paddington to Limehouse Basin on the Thames: its towpath is a quiet way to walk or cycle past locks, tunnels and the backs of houses and warehouses.
The...
Jubilee Gardens
Jubilee Gardens is the green lawn on London's South Bank between the London Eye and the Thames: a handy place to sit on the grass, let children loose or wait for a turn on the wheel, with the Houses of Parliament across the river.
The park...
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey is London's coronation church, a soaring Gothic abbey beside the Houses of Parliament: since 1066, 40 English and British monarchs have been crowned here, and more than 3,300 people are buried or remembered under its floors and...
Chinatown
Chinatown is London's Chinese quarter, a few blocks of Soho between Leicester Square and Shaftesbury Avenue: red lanterns strung over the streets, bilingual street signs and more than 80 restaurants, plus Chinese shops of every kind.
The...
SEA LIFE London Aquarium
SEA LIFE London Aquarium is housed in County Hall on the South Bank, a few steps from the London Eye: a walk through sharks, rays, jellyfish and penguins that makes a good couple of hours for families, rain or shine.
The highlights are the...
The Shard
The Shard is the glass pyramid rising 309.6 meters over London Bridge station, in Southwark on the south bank of the Thames: the tallest building in the United Kingdom, and the place to see all of London at once from its viewing...
St. Paul's Cathedral
St Paul's Cathedral is London's great Baroque cathedral, standing on Ludgate Hill in the City: a huge stone church under one of the world's most famous domes, 111 meters high, the work of Christopher Wren. It was London's tallest building for 253...
Palace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster is the home of the UK Parliament, on the north bank of the Thames in London: a long riverfront of Gothic pinnacles with Big Ben at one end and the Victoria Tower at the other. It has over 1,100 rooms, 100 staircases and...
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square is London's great public square, in Westminster, with the National Gallery on its north side. It is where the city meets to celebrate, protest and welcome the New Year, under the tall column of an admiral.
At its heart...
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is the district at the eastern fringe of London's West End, built around an elegant piazza with arcades, street performers, shops, cafés and the Royal Opera House. It is one of the liveliest parts of the city, and it began as a...
Camden Market
Camden Market is a sprawl of adjoining markets in Camden Town, north London, beside the lock on Regent's Canal: more than 1,000 stalls, shops, bars and street-food counters in old warehouses, stables and railway arches, with crafts, vintage...
Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum in South Kensington is London's museum of the natural world: some 80 million specimens, from dinosaur skeletons to meteorites, in a Victorian building so grand it is a sight in itself. Entry to the permanent galleries...
National Gallery
The National Gallery is London's great art museum, on the north side of Trafalgar Square. It holds more than 2,300 paintings from the mid-13th century to 1900, from Giotto to Cézanne, and the main collection is free to enter.
It is not a...
Piccadilly Circus
Piccadilly Circus is the junction in the heart of London's West End where Regent Street, Piccadilly and Shaftesbury Avenue meet: a huge curved screen of lights, a fountain with a winged archer and crowds at any hour, on the edge of Soho and...
Oxford Street
Oxford Street is London's great shopping street, almost two kilometers of department stores and flagship shops in the West End, from Marble Arch to Tottenham Court Road via Oxford Circus: Europe's busiest shopping street, with hundreds of...
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is the UK's national gallery of international modern and contemporary art, in a former power station on the south bank of the Thames, right across the river from St Paul's. Its permanent collection is free, and the huge brick building...
Lambeth Bridge
Lambeth Bridge is the red steel bridge over the Thames just upstream of the Houses of Parliament, linking Westminster to Lambeth Palace on the south bank, with the Palace of Westminster a short walk away through Victoria Tower Gardens.
The...
Kensington Gardens
Kensington Gardens is the western, quieter half of the great green space it shares with Hyde Park: 107 hectares of lawns, avenues and water around Kensington Palace, once the palace's private garden and now one of London's Royal Parks.
The...
Greenwich Park
Greenwich Park is the hilly Royal Park in southeast London that climbs from the river to the Royal Observatory: 74 hectares of lawns, old trees and flower gardens, crossed by the Prime Meridian and topped by one of the great views of...
Victoria Park
Victoria Park, "Vicky Park" to locals, is the great green space of London's East End, between Bethnal Green, Bow and Hackney Wick: 86 hectares of lawns, lakes and gardens, bordered by canals and busy with families, runners and summer...
Clapham Common
Clapham Common is a big triangle of grass, trees and ponds in south London, 89 hectares in the heart of Clapham: a neighborhood park for picnics, football and running, edged by Georgian and Victorian mansions.
At its center stands the...
Wimbledon Common
Wimbledon Common is a wild stretch of heath, woods and ponds in southwest London: together with Putney Heath it covers 460 hectares, the largest expanse of heathland in London, with bog, mixed woodland and paths for long walks and...
William's Flat (The Blue Door)
William's Flat, better known as The Blue Door, is the front door at 280 Westbourne Park Road in Notting Hill where Hugh Grant's bookseller lived in the 1999 romantic comedy "Notting Hill": a favorite stop on film walks through the...
Kensington Palace
Kensington Palace is the brick royal palace inside Kensington Gardens, in west London: where Queen Victoria was born and grew up and Princess Diana made her London home, with state rooms open to visitors and wings still lived in by members of the...
Greenwich
Greenwich is the riverside district of southeast London that gave its name to the Prime Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time: royal palaces, a famous clipper ship, a hilltop observatory and a Georgian town center, together a UNESCO World Heritage...
St. Etheldreda's
St Etheldreda's is a small medieval chapel tucked into Ely Place, off Charterhouse Street in Holborn: built around 1284 for the Bishops of Ely, it is one of only two buildings left in London from the reign of Edward I, and a Catholic church again...
Phoenix Garden
The Phoenix Garden is a small community garden tucked behind the Phoenix Theatre, between Soho and Covent Garden: a patch of green just off Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road, where you can sit down among the plants away from the West End...
Buddhapadipa Temple
Buddhapadipa Temple (Wat Buddhapadipa) is a Thai Buddhist temple among the leafy streets of Wimbledon, in south-west London: about four acres of gardens and trees around a Thai ordination hall, with visitors of any faith welcome.
The...
Temple Church
Temple Church is the round church the Knights Templar built as their English headquarters, between Fleet Street and the Thames in the City of London: a medieval island among the lawyers' courtyards of the Inner and Middle Temple, which still own...
Wimbledon Windmill
Wimbledon Windmill is an octagonal windmill with sloping weatherboarded sides, standing in the open grass of Wimbledon Common, in south-west London: one of the few windmills left in the city, built in 1817 and now a small museum of...
Wimbledon Village
Wimbledon Village is the old heart of Wimbledon, on top of the hill by the Common in south-west London: a High Street of boutiques, salons, restaurants and pubs, among the old houses of one of London's most sought-after residential...
Battersea Park
Battersea Park is a Victorian park of about 80 hectares on the south bank of the Thames, facing Chelsea between Albert Bridge and Chelsea Bridge: lawns, sports fields, woodland walks and a Buddhist pagoda by the river.
The best-known sight...
Regent's Park
Regent's Park is one of London's Royal Parks, 170 hectares of lawns, gardens and water in the north-west of the center, between Marylebone and Camden: rose gardens, a lake, an open-air theater and London Zoo, all ringed by elegant stucco...