Welcome to London

Telephone box

London is always worth a visit! Great Britain's capital is a multi-cultural metropolis packed with world-renown attractions such as The Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Palace of Westminster, Saint Paul's Cathedral, or Westminster Abbey – to name just a few. It offers enough of highlights to spend weeks rather than days.

Get a ticket for the tube, London's famous underground and explore its touristic highlights or its less known secrets. Or take a ride on the River Buses and watch the city speed by. Then watch the changing of the guards at Buckinham Palace, listen to one of the many street musicians in Covent Garden, or have a pint of beer in an old English pub such as the Prospect of Whitby a little way down the river from the Mermaid Conference Centre. They have been serving beer there since 1510. If you are feeling even a little energetic, our mayor has followed the Parisian example and installed bicyles at vantage points all over town. If you hire one, you will see things at street level, and appreciate the small changes in contour as you speed across Hyde Park, or freewheel while window shopping down Bond Street. As the city slopes gently down towards the river, we recommend that you plan a north-south bike ride to start with: it will usually be downhill!

London is also famous for its varicoloured cultural life. You can find more than a dozen theatres in the West End alone – some of them provided the stage for the world premiers of musicals such as "Cats", "The Phantom of the Opera", or "Mama Mia". A large number of museums can be found in London including the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, both of which are full of artefacts from around the world, and of course the Science and Natural History Museums in South Kensington. They are all free to enter, and provide a wonderful window on the city and its history.