More of London

There's so much to see in London! During this particular trip, the plays and the National Gallery were my favorite things, but I highly recommend the Tower of London, which I toured on a previous trip to London. It's fascinating--don't miss it!

Quick Tips:

See www.londonfreelist.com.

If you're a budget traveler, you will love this site, which is full of things you can do in London—for free!

Best Way To Get Around:

The Underground and your own two feet.

ICCo
Goodge Street (take the Northern Line on the Underground to the Goodge Street station, turn right when you come out of the station, and turn right on Goodge Street).

I felt like Forrest Gump as I wandered through the crowd looking for a place I could enjoy my meal: "Seat's taken," they said. "Seat's taken."

ICCo makes excellent pizza—as evidenced by the large lunchtime crowd. I finally found a free seat at a table occupied by three young British women on their lunch break. You can also get the pizza to go—which perhaps I should have done.

The best part: these 11" pizzas start at just £3 for a plain cheese! When you start adding toppings you'll rarely pay more than £3.50.

The National Gallery
Open daily 10am-6 pm, Wednesdays 10am-9pm
Almost 2500 paintings, dated 1250-1900

The best thing about museums in London is that most of them are free! The National Gallery is one of them. It charges a few pounds for special exhibitions, but there is plenty to see in the permanent collection. My tour guide said he's worked there for 6 years and has only seen about a quarter of the works in the museum.

Take a tour. Or several, if you plan to be there all day, anyway. The first is at 11:30am; it takes about an hour. The paintings are even more interesting when you have an expert sharing all the little insights about each one.

You can also take an audio tour or use ArtStart, which allows you to develop your own tour.

My favorite paintings were The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, Venus and Mars, and everything I saw by Peter Paul Rubens. Leonardo da Vinci is always a favorite, of course, and there are a couple of his works housed here as well.

Tate Modern
Sunday-Thursday 10am-6pm, Friday-Saturday 10am-8pm

This museum houses art from 1900 to the present day. I'm not that into modern art, but I still appreciated a stroll through this free, permanent collection. Again, there are entrance fees for special exhibitions.

My favorite modern artists are Picasso, Monet, and Pollock, and you can find them here. You can also find a painting that looks like a can of red paint thrown at a canvas. Beside it hangs an explanation that reads something to the effect of, "The artist angrily threw red paint at the canvas." Yeah.