Strolling Portobello Road Market: Antique collectors, bargain hunters, tourists, and deals on everything from kumquats to Wedgewood are what you find at London’s most popular market street. Vendors set up by 5:30 a.m.; the outdoor fruit and veggie market runs all week (except Sunday), but on Saturday the market balloons into an enormous flea and antiques mart. About 90 antique shops line the roads around this section of London, so even during the week you can browse their dusty treasures (serious shoppers pick up the Saturday Antique Market guide). To get to the market, take the Tube to Notting Hill Gate.
Embarking on a London pub crawl:Theater aside, the real tradi-tional London evening out starts around 5:30 p.m. at your favorite pub. Among the most historic and atmospheric ale houses are the sawdust-floored and rambling Ye Olde Cheshire Cheeseat Wine Office Court, off 145 Fleet St. (
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020-7353-6170); Dryden’s old haunt the Lamb and Flag,33 Rose St. (%
020-7497-9504), known as “Bucket of Blood” from its rowdier days; the Art NouveauBlack Friar,174 Queen Victoria St. (%
020-7236-5474); and Anchor Inn, 34 Park St. (%
0870-990-6402),where the present pub dates from 1757 — but a pub has been at this location for 800 years, with Dickens and Shakespeare as past patrons. Make sure you order some true English bitters, hand-pumped and served at room temperature. Try Wadworth, Tetley’s, Flowers, and the London-brewed Young’s and Fuller’s. Most pubs are open Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m.to 11 p.m. and on Sunday from noon to 10:30 p.m.
Making a shopping pilgrimage to Harrods:Posh and a bit snob-bish (they may turn you away if you look too scruffy), Harrods, 87–135 Brompton Rd. (
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020-7730-1234; www.harrods.com), is the only store in the world that offers you any item you can possibly want and backs up its word. Legend has it that a customer jokingly asked if the Harrods staff could procure him an elephant — then he got the bill. With 1,200,000 square feet and 300 departments, the store carries just about everything. Its fabulous food halls are still the highlight of a visit — 500 varieties of cheese, anyone?Raising your pinkies at a proper afternoon tea:Possibly the best British culinary invention was deciding to slip a refined, refreshing extra meal into the day, between 3:00 and 5:30 p.m. — a steaming pot of tea accompanied by a tiered platter of delicious finger sand-wiches, slices of cake, and scones with jam and clotted cream. A full tea serving can run anywhere from £10 ($18) to £25 ($45). One of London’s classiest (and most expensive) afternoon teas is at the ultratraditional Brown’s Hotel,29–34 Albemarle St. (
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020-7493-6020;www.brownshotel.com; Tube: Green Park). Less pricey — but just as good — are the teas at two of London’s legendary depart-ment stores: the inimitable Harrods Georgian Restaurant,on the fourth floor at 87–135 Brompton Rd. (
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020-7730-1234; www.harrods.com; Tube: Knightsbridge), and Fortnum and Mason’s St. James’s Restaurant, 181 Piccadilly (
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020-7734-8040;www.fortnumandmason.co.uk; Tube: Piccadilly Circus or Green Park).
Taking in the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace:The Queen’s London home on Buckingham Palace Road, St. James Park (
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09068-663-344in the U.K. only at a premium charge; www.army.mod.uk), is one of Europe’s most overrated attractions, but I include the spectacle here for its fame alone. Watching the guard change is like sitting through a bad halftime show by an overdrilled marching band. Come to the palace to make faces at the stoically unresponsive (and long-suffering) Beefeater guards if you must, but I advise you to skip the changing of the guard. If you decide to go anyway, it’s at 11:30 a.m. daily from mid-April to July; every second day the rest of the year. In August and September, you can take a spin through the palace if the Queen’s not in — if the flag’s a-waving, she’s home.
Reciting Romeo, oh Romeo — Shakespeare at the Globe Theatre:
If you saw Shakespeare in Love,you know what the rebuilt Globe Theatre looks like. Shakespeare was once part owner of, as well as performer in and main playwright for, a theater called The Globe at the Thames Bankside. Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre is a recently built replica of the O-shaped building, with an open center and pro-jecting stage — the sort of space for which Shakespeare’s plays were written. Performances are May to October; tickets for seats run £13 to £29 ($23–$52). For only £5 ($9), you can stand in the open space right in front of the stage (tiring, and not so fun if it rains). Call
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020-7401-9919for the box office. Even if you don’t stop for a show, make some time during the day to come for a tour (%
020-7902-1400;www.shakespeares-globe.org).Club hopping:The city that gave the world punk, new wave, techno, and electronica still has one of the world’s most trend-setting club-lands. The nature of the art means that any place I pen in this book will be considered out before the guide is, so do yourself a favor and pick up the Time Out Londonmagazine to find out what’s hottest each week. A few perennial favorites (sure to be full of tourists) include the once-fab-now-touristy-but-still-gloriously-tacky-in-neon Hippodrome(
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020-7437-4311) at Charing Cross Road and Cranbourne Street; the formerly massively hip, and still massivelyloud, garage and house beats of the Ministry of Sound, 103 Gaunt St. (
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020-7378-6528; www.ministryofsound.com); the ’70s retro, er, charm of Carwash (%
020-7434-3820); and the joyful sacrilege of dancing to house tunes in a converted church at Walkabout Shaftesbury Avenue (formerly Limelight), 136 Shaftesbury Ave.(
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020-7255-8620;www.walkabout.eu.com).Joining the thespians — an evening at the theater:London rivals New York for the biggest, most diverse theater scene. The West End has dozens of playhouses, but you find many other venues as well.
The Time Out Londonand What’s Onmagazines list (and often review) the week’s offerings, as does the online Official London Theatre Guide (www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk). Plus, you can pick up plenty of pamphlets at the tourist office. You’re best off going directly to the individual theatre’s box offices to get your tickets, which can cost anywhere from £10 to £50 ($18–$90), although you can also buy them from Keith Prowse(
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800-223-6108in the U.S., 0870-842-2248 in the U.K.; www.keithprowse.com), which has a desk in the main tourist office on Regent Street. If you want to try to get last-minute tickets at a discount, the onlyofficial spot is Leicester Square’s half-price TKTS ticket booth (www.official londontheatre.co.uk/tkts), open Monday to Saturday 10 a.m.to 7 p.m., Sunday noon to 3 p.m. The tickets there are half-price (plus a £2.50/$4.50 fee) and are sold on the day of the performance only. The seats are usually up in the rafters, and don’t count on get-ting into the biggest, hottest productions.
Waxing historic at Madame Tussaud’s:Famous Madame Tussaud’s, Marylebone Road (
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0870-400-3000;www.madame-tussauds.co.uk), is something between a still-life amusement ride and a serious gallery of historical likenesses. Madame herself took death masks from the likes of Marie Antoinette (which was easy, what with her head already detached and all); Ben Franklin (while very much alive) personally sat for her to mold a portrait. Some of the historical dio-ramas are interesting — although whether they’re £19.99 ($36) worth of interesting (£17.99/$32 if you skip the Chamber Live house of hor-rors in the basement) I leave up to you to decide. They knock £2 ($3.60) off if you enter after 5 p.m. weekdays, £3 ($5) after 3 p.m.
weekends (between 5 and 6 p.m., it falls to the “bargain” rate of
£12/$22). The museum is open Monday to Friday from 10:00 a.m.
to 5:30 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Setting your watch — a day in Greenwich:London may set its watches by Big Ben, but Ben looks to the Old Royal Observatory at Greenwich for the time of day. This Thames port and shipping village keeps Greenwich mean time, by which the world winds its clock. Come to the observatory to straddle the prime meridian (0° longitude mark) and have one foot in each hemisphere, and, at the National Maritime Museum immerse yourself in the history of the proud Navy that maintained the British Empire for centuries.
Both are admisison-free and open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
(
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0870-780-4552or 020-8312-6565; www.nmm.ac.uk). During thesame hours, you can board that most famous of clipper ships, theCutty Sark,down near the ferry docks (
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020-8858-3445;www.cuttysark.org.uk); admission is £4.25 ($8).The Greenwich Tourist Centre, 46 Greenwich Church St. (
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0870-608-2000;www.greenwich.gov.uk), can give you more information. To get here, take the Jubilee Tube line to North Greenwich, the train from Charing Cross Station, the Docklands Light Railway from the Tower Hill Tube stop, the 188 bus from Russell Square, or my favorite option: an hour’s float down the Thames in a ferry from Westminster or Charing Cross Piers.