Pinback goes London!

[Sgt.Pinback]

Your Sgt.  and his little family (THE wife and daughter (14)) will be in London 11. - 18. June.

Wife and girl will do what they can do best: extreme money spending.

Hotel will be in Kensington at Hyde Park Gate.

Apart from the obvious tourist traps... any insider hints where we have to go / what to see?

[SteveW]

This is in Greenford, west London.

Well worth a look:

http://www.london-motorcycle-museum.org/

[K2-K6]

Depends on what interests you but should be something that's able to cater for variety of tastes.

South side of river walk from opposite houses of parliament going east,  best view of North side famous buildings, London Eye (worth the trip)  modernist theatre,  Oxo tower,  then along to Tate modern gallery,  Millennium "wobbly" bridge and crossing it to St Pauls cathedral.

The bike shed, combines retro modded bikes etc with clothing helmets and bike "clobber" along with restaurant / burger bar with bike orientation.

Docklands area and Canary warf for interesting cityscape and plenty of places to eat.

For shops,  Kings Road from Sloane Square to Chelsea has more of a flavour of individual shops rather than some of the specifically commercial offerings.

River trip from Chelsea going east to Greenwich will give you a good trip with great views of the city and passing through tower Bridge. These are just scheduled services so should be easy.

Open top bus trips are a rip off 

Covent Garden area,  general and varied shops,  eating etc. My daughter a 13yr old likes this area for the different clothes shops she wants to see. Compact but you could spend a day here if you can't drag her out of it 
This borders principle theatre area if you have that interest.

What interests you that we could suggest something for?

[taysidedragon]

Away from the city centre is the Ace Cafe on the old North Circular road. They have bike nights regularly and are open every day. A good hangout if you have a couple of hours to kill.

[MrDavo]

I have limited experience of London, the Eye was good for the views, but on my list of things to see was Westminster Abbey, where we marry, invest and bury our Royals. It’s a magnificent building with tons of history.

Rather than pay the £16 or whatever it is to visit as a tourist we turned up in the evening for Evensong, a service of about 45 minutes, it’s free, you sit right at the centre of things and get to see and hear the choir do their thing.

We don’t really do religion, but we’re happy to go along with it and mumble in the right places for the experience.

[Sgt.Pinback]

So many good and useful hints!

 Thanks so far, mates!

[Bryanj]

Also at Greenwich is the National Maritime museum and obsevatory where you can stand across the meridian and if you cross the road to the Academy you will recognise the waterfont and quadrangle from one of the Thor movies. If you are also interested in old ships you can buy a combined ticket, cheaper, to tour the Cutty Sark

[K2-K6]

Well spotted Bryan,  I forgot about Greenwich Meantime line etc (GMT) and worth a walk round Greenwich in general.

If you are planning to travel around on public transport it's easiest to use an Oyster card which will allow you to use underground, bus etc at best cost.  It's capped as you use it daily to prevent it running up cost once you reach a certain level and all local users will have this.
Can buy from newsagent shops as well as stations but will cost £5 per card which is refundable if you return the card after use.  But you then have to add money to it for ticketing.  Sounds complex but it's easy. 
Can also use contactless bank cards to travel but it would attract currency costs I think. There are no paper tickets anymore and cash is not used for accessing transport other than loading onto a pass.
BEWARE you must contact into and out of underground stations to make sure you don't leave your journey open ended for cost.

It's very easy to use tube (underground train) or buses as even if you go the wrong way then just get off at the next stop and go back the other way.  Each stop is roughly 5min intervals so it doesn't matter if you get it wrong.

Web site is traffic for London "tfl.gov.uk" to give you official information and not a spurious site.

The Shard building we all think is a rip off here, crass vanity project that'll cost 60 to 80 £ for three of you to reach the viewing platform!

If you have an interest in Tudor history,  Hampton Court Palace,  summer residence of King Henry 8th is easily reached via train.  From central London Waterloo station you can get a train direct to Hampton Court,  which is about 500 mtrs from the palace.  We think its extraordinarily good to see, and only about 30mins train journey from central London.

[Bryanj]

On way to Hampton is Kew Gardens if the better half likes gardening and you can sit there plane spotting as it is under Heathrows flight path!!

[K2-K6]

Very nice too Bryan but it's on a different train line.  That loop is round Richmond for Kew (I was on it last week to Richmond college with my son to his interview) but the Hampton line is dedicated as it's line end at Hampton station, the train just goes back and forth from Waterloo in a shuttle effect.

[Bryanj]

Not well up on underground stations but used to drive to the Budwieser brewery at Mortlake a lot and if the trailer was low enough you went past Kew if not you went past sign for Hampton so knew they wernt far apart!

[Andrew-S]

Th Ace Cafe as already mentioned and you may consider visiting 'The 59 Club' - we used go there in the mid-70's then race to Battersea Bridge for a cuppa and burger.  The 59 Club was over in the old church hall in Hackney back then, it's in Plastow, East London now: https://www.the59club.co.uk/

Cheers
Andrew

[K2-K6]

Tube connect to Ace Café

Hyde Park Corner to Piccadilly Circus on Piccadilly line, then change to Bakerloo line to Stonebridge Park. Then about 5/10 mins walk to the Ace.

Should be about 40mins from Hyde Park,  generally Sunday has best prospect for bikes with their meeting schedule on Web site to see what's meeting there.

More rudimentary food and mugs of tea 

[SteveD CB500K0]

Nobody has mentioned the obvious yet…

A whole week in London with two women will require some “me-time” featuring beer, burger and sohc bike chat.

Let’s meet up somewhere central.

Pick a day and I’ll find a pub!

Steve


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[K2-K6]

Sounds good,  I'd be interested to meet a few people from the forum too.