London: The Museums, the Markets and the Old Pubs

Editor's note

Three nights at Aldenham Country Park outside Radlett, 20.2 km from the sites. It is a country park well clear of the city, so each day begins with a train rather than a drive. One day is the British Museum, founded in 1753, for the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon sculptures, then South Kensington for the blue whale skeleton in Hintze Hall and the two halves of Trajan's Column in the V&A's Cast Courts. Another is for the galleries: Van Gogh's Sunflowers at the National Gallery, the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern. The third is for the oldest pubs, among them Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street, rebuilt soon after the Great Fire, and the Prospect of Whitby in Wapping, which claims the site of London's oldest riverside tavern.

Editor's note

Two nights at the Abbey Wood Caravan and Motorhome Club Campsite on Federation Road, 15.1 km from the sites, with a three-kilometre trail loop from the site itself. The drive from Aldenham is 51 km and about 69 minutes, and it crosses the Thames on the Woolwich Free Ferry. One day takes the landmarks: the dome of St Paul's, built by Christopher Wren between 1675 and 1710 and climbed to the Whispering Gallery and the outer galleries, the Palace of Westminster and the Elizabeth Tower, Foster's Gherkin of 2004 beside Rogers's Lloyd's Building of 1986, and the view from Renzo Piano's Shard, 310m tall. The other is the markets: Borough, on its present site since 1756, Camden Lock, Portobello on a Saturday, Columbia Road's flower market on a Sunday.