Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Key to This Topic
Updates
This topic is updated every year. For the latest, visit
www.ricksteves.com/update
.
Abbreviations and Times
I use the following symbols and abbreviations in this topic:
Sights are rated:
▲▲▲
Don't miss
▲▲
Try hard to see
▲
Worthwhile if you can make it
No rating Worth knowing about
Tourist information offices are abbreviated as
TI,
and bathrooms are WCs. To
categorize accommodations, I use a
Sleep Code
(described on
here
).
Like Europe, this topic uses the
24-hour clock.
It's the same through 12:00
noon, then keeps going: 13:00, 14:00, and so on. For anything over 12, subtract 12
and add p.m. (14:00 is 2:00 p.m.).
When giving
opening times,
I include both peak season and off-season hours
if they differ. So, if a museum is listed as “May-Oct daily 9:00-16:00,” it should be
open from 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. from the first day of May until the last day of
October (but expect exceptions).
If you see a symbol near a sight listing, it means that sight is described in
far greater detail elsewhere—either with its own self-guided tour, or as part of a
self-guided walk.
For
transit
or
tour departures,
I first list the frequency, then the duration. So,
a train connection listed as “2/hour, 1.5 hours” departs twice each hour, and the
journey lasts an hour and a half.
The
Self-Guided Walks
cover Westminster (from Big Ben to Trafalgar Square); the
West End (it's the thee-ah-ter district, dahling, with restaurants and shops galore, from
Leicester Square and Covent Garden to Soho, Regent Street, and Piccadilly Circus); The
City (the financial district—banks, churches, and courts busy with barristers and baristas);
Bankside (on the South Bank, through Shakespeare's world to the Tate Modern); and the
Docklands (London's new and creatively planned urban district).
