London Things to Do

With its maze of crisscrossing streets, swarming crowds and traffic-clogged squares, England’s cosmopolitan capital can be a bit overwhelming to the first-time visitor. Once you’ve plowed through the guidebook and organized your itinerary, here are a few tips to help you make the most of your first visit to the big smoke.

Who else grew up playing with Meccano?

Clearly artist Anish Kapoor grew up playing with Meccano, all those strips of metal you could bolt together to make the weirdest inventions, most of which would never fly, roll or even stand up. Here’s hoping that Kapoor’s latest vision, London‘s ArcelorMittal Orbit, stands up for many hundreds of years.

The sun is coming out in London and people are heading for Kew Gardens. Bulbs bursting into flowers are a very reassuring sight after a long, cold, windy winter – and Kew Gardens is the best place in London to see spring blossoming.

I can literally hear Leonard Nimoy’s voice intoning those two syllables, as the greasiest Moog sound ever conceived hovered beyond the grainy 16mm footage, like a nagging, alien ghost. In Search Of…, if you’re unfamiliar, was this Nimoy-hosted, speculative documentary series that ran in the ’70s and early ’80s. It had episodes about bigfoot, and space aliens, and haunted houses, but with a much better soundtrack than anything on basic cable now.

What’s there to do in London? That depends on what you like to do, and I say that without a shred of irony. Whether you’re there for the history, or the culture, for football or for pints of bitters, you’ll find a lot of things to do in London. Here are some ideas to get you started.