Watch the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, and tour the State Rooms when they are open in the summer

Tour the Tower of London and see the Crown Jewels in the Jewel House, and find the White Tower begun around 1078 by William the Conqueror

Look for the Tower's ravens and meet a Yeoman Warder

Visit Kensington Palace, where Queen Victoria was born on 24 May 1819, and walk in Kensington Gardens around it

William the Conqueror began the White Tower around 1078, and the Tower of London holds the Crown Jewels in the Jewel House, with Yeoman Warders and the ravens. At Buckingham Palace the guard changes and the State Rooms open in summer, and at Kensington Palace, where Queen Victoria was born on 24 May 1819, Kensington Gardens lie all round the house.

Royal London: The Tower, Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace

Visit the Churchill War Rooms, the underground Cabinet War Rooms used from 1939 to 1945, and the Map Room

Board HMS Belfast, the cruiser that supported the D-Day landings of 1944 and is moored by Tower Bridge

Explore the Imperial War Museum on Lambeth Road

Stand in St Paul's Cathedral, which survived the Blitz

Under Whitehall, the Cabinet War Rooms were used from 1939 to 1945, Map Room included. HMS Belfast, the cruiser that supported the D-Day landings in 1944, is moored by Tower Bridge, the Imperial War Museum is on Lambeth Road in Southwark, and St Paul's Cathedral came through the Blitz.

London at War: The Churchill War Rooms and HMS Belfast

See Van Gogh's Sunflowers and Turner's The Fighting Temeraire at the National Gallery, founded in 1824

Walk the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, the former Bankside Power Station converted by Herzog & de Meuron and opened in 2000

See Michelangelo's marble Taddei Tondo at the Royal Academy of Arts in Burlington House

See Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère at the Courtauld Gallery in Somerset House

The National Gallery, founded in 1824, holds Van Gogh's Sunflowers and Turner's The Fighting Temeraire. Across the river, Tate Modern opened in 2000 in the old Bankside Power Station, converted by Herzog & de Meuron around the Turbine Hall. The Royal Academy in Burlington House has Michelangelo's Taddei Tondo, and the Courtauld Gallery in Somerset House has Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère.

London's Galleries: The National Gallery, Tate Modern and the Courtauld

Watch the Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London, the nightly locking-up said to date back to the 14th century, booking a ticket from Historic Royal Palaces well in advance

Ride the London Eye after dark, the 135m wheel that opened in 2000

Join a Jack the Ripper walking tour through Whitechapel and Spitalfields, past the sites of the 'canonical five' murders of 1888

Every night the Tower of London is locked in the Ceremony of the Keys, said to have been held in some form since the 14th century; tickets must be booked well in advance from Historic Royal Palaces. The London Eye, 135m high, opened in 2000, and walking tours follow the Jack the Ripper murders of 1888 through Whitechapel and Spitalfields.

London After Dark: The Ceremony of the Keys and the Eye

Stand under the Albert Memorial, opened by Queen Victoria in July 1872, and find the statue of the prince, seated in 1876

Find the Peter Pan statue by the Long Water, at the spot where Peter lands in Barrie's The Little White Bird

Go to Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park on a Sunday afternoon and listen to whoever is speaking

Go into the Palm House at Kew, built in 1844–1848, the first large-scale structural use of wrought iron

The Albert Memorial at the edge of Kensington Gardens was commissioned by Queen Victoria after Prince Albert died in 1861: George Gilbert Scott's canopy, 176 feet high and paid for by public subscription, opened in July 1872, and the statue of Albert was ceremonially 'seated' in it in 1876. Further in, by the Long Water, is the bronze Peter Pan of 1912, commissioned by J. M. Barrie himself and put at the spot where Peter lands in The Little White Bird after flying out of his nursery — Barrie lived just across the road on Bayswater Road. At the Marble Arch end of Hyde Park is Speakers' Corner, where anyone can turn up unannounced and talk about almost anything, at the risk of being heckled by the regulars; Marx, Lenin and Orwell all went. Upriver is Kew, founded in 1759 and now a World Heritage Site with the largest and most diverse botanical collections in the world, where the architect Decimus Burton and the ironmaker Richard Turner built the Palm House between 1844 and 1848 — the first large-scale structural use of wrought iron.

Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park and Kew: Albert, Peter Pan and the Palm House

See the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon sculptures at the British Museum, founded in 1753

Look up at the blue whale skeleton in Hintze Hall at the Natural History Museum, in the Waterhouse building opened in 1881

Find the two halves of Trajan's Column in the Cast Courts at the Victoria and Albert Museum

See the Apollo 10 command module and Puffing Billy, the oldest surviving steam locomotive, at the Science Museum

The British Museum, founded in 1753, holds the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon sculptures. In South Kensington, a blue whale skeleton hangs in Hintze Hall in the Natural History Museum's Waterhouse building of 1881, the V&A's Cast Courts hold the two halves of Trajan's Column, and the Science Museum has the Apollo 10 command module and Puffing Billy, the oldest surviving steam locomotive.

London's Great Museums: The British Museum and South Kensington

See Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2 and the Apollo 10 capsule at the Science Museum

Visit Michael Faraday's laboratory and the Faraday Museum at the Royal Institution on Albemarle Street, home of the Christmas Lectures

Visit the Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, where he discovered penicillin in 1928

Visit the Old Operating Theatre Museum in Southwark, the operating theatre of 1822

At the Royal Institution on Albemarle Street, home of the Christmas Lectures, Michael Faraday's laboratory is kept as a museum. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928 in his laboratory at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, now a museum too. In Southwark the Old Operating Theatre of 1822 survives, and the Science Museum has Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2 and the Apollo 10 capsule.

Scientific London: Faraday, Fleming and the Old Operating Theatre

Visit St Edmundsbury Cathedral, the Gothic cathedral with its Millennium Tower completed in 2005

Walk the ruins of Bury St Edmunds Abbey in the Abbey Gardens, where the barons are believed to have sworn their oath in 1214

Tour the Greene King Brewery, founded in Bury in 1799

Have a drink in the Nutshell on the Traverse, one of several pubs that claim to be Britain's smallest

In the Abbey Gardens at Bury St Edmunds stand the ruins of the abbey where, by tradition, the barons swore in 1214 to force King John to accept the Charter of Liberties, which influenced Magna Carta. St Edmundsbury Cathedral's Millennium Tower was only completed in 2005. Greene King has brewed in the town since 1799, and the Nutshell on the Traverse is one of several pubs that claim to be Britain's smallest.