Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Westminster Abbey:
Mon-Sat at 9:30
British Library:
Mon-Sat at 9:30
Buckingham Palace:
Aug-Sept daily at 9:30
Sights Open Late
Keep in mind that many of these sights stop admitting visitors well before their pos-
ted closing times.
London Eye:
Last ascent April-Aug daily at 21:00, Sept-March at 20:30
Madame Tussauds:
Mid-July-Aug daily until 19:00
Clink Prison Museum:
July-Sept daily until 21:00, Oct-June Sat-Sun until 21:00
British Library:
Tue until 20:00
British Museum
(some galleries): Fri until 20:30
National Portrait Gallery:
Thu-Fri until 21:00
Vinopolis:
Thu-Sat until 21:30 or 22:00
National Gallery:
Fri until 21:00
Victoria and Albert Museum
(some galleries): Fri until 22:00
Tate Modern:
Fri-Sat until 22:00
Visiting the Museum:
The first part of the tour zips quickly through a half-million
years, when Britain morphed from peninsula to island, Neanderthals speared mammoths,
and Stone Age humans huddled in crude huts on the South Bank of the Thames.
In 54
B.C.,
Julius Caesar invaded, and the Romans built “Londinium” on the north
bank. The settlement quickly became the hub of Britain and a river-trade town, complete
with arenas, forums, baths, a bridge across the Thames, and a
city wall.
That wall—arcing
from the present Tower of London to St. Paul's—defined the city's boundaries for the
next 1,500 years. The Museum of London sits on the northwest perimeter of the city
wall—look out the windows to see a crumbling remnant along the street, now called “Lon-
don Wall.”
When Rome could no longer defend the city (
A.D.
410), it fell to the Saxons (becom-
ing “Lundenburg”) and, later, the Normans (in 1066), who built the Tower of London. Me-
dieval London was devastated by the Black Death plague of 1348. As the city recovered
and grew even bigger, it became clear to wannabe kings that whoever controlled London
controlled Britain.
