London City Guide

London Sights

It's got a whole bunch of history. The old-fashioned kind.

London is one of the favourite urban haunts of visitors to Europe because of landmark sights like Big Ben, St Paul's Cathedral and the historically rich Westminster Abbey. The city also boasts some of the world's greatest museums and art galleries, and more parkland than most other capitals.

London Nightlife

Pointe shoes, pub or painfully of-the-now club - you choose.

Choosing how to entertain yourself in London can be daunting. Whether you like your culture high or low, your dance in pointe shoes or heels, your music in strings or sub bass, being sporty or watching others play, drinking cocktails in an elegant club or a bitter at a pub, London has it all.

Shopping London

Put some hoity back in your toity down Savile Row.

London is a Mecca for shoppers. Designer labels, refined classic cuts, cutting-edge street wear and Harrods hampers all clamour for attention. Make sure your plastic is in a healthy state before you set off on an expedition; shopping, like most of London's pleasures, doesn't come cheap.

No 10 Downing St

Government, Significant house

When it comes to property it's all 'location, location, location' and it's certain that British prime ministers have it pretty good postcode-wise. Number 10 has been the official office of British leaders since 1732, when George II presented No 10 to Robert Walpole, and since refurbishment in 1902 it's also been the PM's official London residence. As Margaret Thatcher, a grocer's daughter, famously put it, the PM 'lives above the shop' here.

Lloyd's of London

Skyscraper, Architectural highlight

While the world's leading insurance brokers are inside underwriting everything from trains, planes and ships to cosmonauts' lives and film stars' legs, people outside still stop to gawp at the stainless steel external ducting and staircases of the Lloyd's of London building. French free climber, or 'spiderman', Alain Robert even felt moved to scale the exterior with his bare hands in 2003.

London Zoo

Kids, Zoo

Established in 1828, these zoological gardens are among the oldest in the world. This is where the word 'zoo' originated. After a patchy period in the 1990s, London Zoo has become one of the most progressive in the world. The zoo is in the middle of a long-term modernisation plan and the emphasis is now firmly placed on conservation, education and breeding, with fewer species and more spacious conditions.