LONDON > SEEING
EATING / DRINKING / AFTERNOON TEA / SHOPPING / SLEEPING
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Museums and galleries
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1. Wallace Collection
A hunch is you’re into craftsmanship and that you’ll be pleasantly intrigued by the detailed artwork here. I wonder if Jean Paul Gaultier’s Spring 2010 Couture Collection was inspired by the Arms & Armour collection.
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2. National Gallery
Hark, what light from yonder breaks? It’s the sun, and my what a vision the Madonna is in natural light.
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3. British Museum
Night at the museum? Good god man, no. Morning at the museum is what you ought to think about doing in a romanticised sort of way. Maybe you’ll see the sleepy ghosts of Karl Marx and Georgie Orwell in the old Reading Room.
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4. Tate Modern
It’s hung! I mean... It’s enormous! I mean... Works that couldn’t fit in any other gallery fit in Tate Modern because it’s so large.
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5. Tate Britain
In paintings, one of my favourite things to observe is the portrayal of light. With subpar digital cameras, the lot of us are frustrated painters of light. So quell your discouragement and be amazed by J. M. W. Turner’s ability to paint moonlight that makes you feel more than you would gazing at the actual moon.
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6. Victoria & Albert
Display case after display case of intricately bedazzled ornaments, and that’s just the gift shop…
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7. Natural History Museum
London isn’t just good for accessibility into and through buildings but out of buildings. With access to the roof, the older building of the Natural History Museum is a site to spend hours in (and on).
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8. The Courtauld Gallery
There aren’t many Modigliani’s out there, and The Courtauld Gallery has the only Modigliani nude in London (Tate has three portraits). While there’s only one Modi, there’s a nice collection of his favourite painter, Cézanne.
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9. National Portrait Gallery
Take a minute to try and remember as much as you can, close your eyes, and then tell the uninterested curator the portraits you recall (I’m sure there’s a secret record for this).
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10. Saatchi Gallery
Take your VTC bag and pull a Banksey Bagsey. After second thoughts, go to lost and found and discover your art-thief-bait bag diverted an art heist (sadly the bag was lost, albeit to a noble cause)!
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Historical landmarks
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11.Westminster Abbey
My organist friends will never let me off the hook if I didn’t remind you those fantastic organs you overlook when scrutinising the decals are still in use and that you should try to visit the Abbey when there's a recital.
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12. Tower of London
Hate guided tours? Not this one. THE Beefeaters are your Tower of London guides, and they really know their history (they’re certified historians). So let them get into your head a little and spook you out by the stories of the famously hanged, drawn and quartered.
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13. Big Ben and the Parliament
Like the second star to the right that shines the same way now as it did 60 years ago; the “bong” from Ben is the same as when the Darlings lived in London.
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14. Buckingham Palace
She’s a lot smaller in real life. The palace I mean.
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15. Kensington Palace
Almost everyone’s had a set of keys to Kensington Palace. It’s like the Hotel Chelsea of London (and it’s located in the original Chelsea). We hope HRH won’t mind we said this.
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16. St. Paul's Cathedral
Epiphany? When the vicar humbly asks you to pray for the favelas in Brazil you have your “a-ha, I’m in London” moment.
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Entertainment
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17. A play in a theatre
“Oh the thee-ah-tah” (spoken as if Patrick Stewart). I don’t know about you, but the fact everything is in English hardly makes things easier, with so many plays to choose from, and all your top picks sold out.
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18. Proud Cabaret + Dinner
Think of cabaret as cutting your hair (ladies) – you don’t do it that often, so don’t resist the urge to splurge, darling! Also, though “tickets at the door” are said to be available, assume that’s a naughty marketing trick to weed out the less desirable crowd.
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Parks
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19. Hyde Park and its stables
Besides the animalia, there’s so much thriving in a park. Main city parks are tantamount to town squares. They’re so prominently a part of the public sphere that art, discourse, and the passing of free time occur naturally and frequently within them.
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20. Primrose Hill
Watching dawn break on a city is so intimate that we advise doing it only if you’re prepared to relocate as love is a natural byproduct of this act. And if it’s London you’re after, do the deed on Primrose Hill.
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21. Green Park
Where all the allergic people come to play (no flowers).
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22. Kew Gardens
The largest, the most… all I got are superlatives to describe Kew Gardens; the most full on experience of a garden we’ll ever hope to have.
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River Thames
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23. Southbank and London Bridge
There’s something seminal about London Bridge. It’s introduced in playground game form as a child and it’s on the Thames (civilisation always starts with a river). So journey to the source with the knowledge that the bridge you’re on is the third version (the previous one is in the USA, and the one before that destroyed) – perhaps an analogy of the cycle of “life and rebirth”.