Jason Cochran - Frommers Easyguide to London 2016

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ISBN 978-1-62887-186-9 (paper), 978-1-62887-187-6 (e-book)

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Editor: Shelley Bance

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In researching this book, we discovered many wonderful placeshotels, restaurants, shops, and more. Were sure youll find others. Please tell us about them, so we can share the information with your fellow travelers in upcoming editions. If you were disappointed with a recommendation, wed love to know that, too. Please write to:

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AN IMPORTANT NOTE

The world is a dynamic place. Hotels change ownership, restaurants hike their prices, museums alter their opening hours, and buses and trains change their routings. And all of this can occur in the several months after our authors have visited, inspected, and written about these hotels, restaurants, museums and transportation services. Though we have made valiant efforts to keep all our information fresh and up-to-date, some few changes can inevitably occur in the periods before a revised edition of this guidebook is published. So please bear with us if a tiny number of the details in this book have changed. Please also note that we have no responsibility or liability for any inaccuracy or errors or omissions, or for inconvenience, loss, damage, or expenses suffered by anyone as a result of assertions in this guide.

A foreword to thisEasy Guide to London

by Arthur Frommer

Friends:

Stumbling off the plane after an overnight flight to London, I used to be startled by the appearance of the people staffing the customs and immigration counters at Heathrow Airport. They were in civilian clothes. They were in normal business suits, unlike the uniformed staff performing the same function in other airports around the world. Good morning, they would quietly say, in the stately tones of a Shakespearean actor. May I know the purpose of your visit?the latter uttered as if they were apologizing for this intrusion into my privacy. And whether it was my first visit or my fiftieth, I was made sharply aware that I had arrived at the center of a remarkable civilization.

Those customs officials are todaydrat!in uniforms. But the special courtesies and civilities of London remain as pleasant and powerful as ever. For a tourist who will show the same polite attitude to the British you meet, a stay in Britains capital will be a refreshing change of pace from the harsher life we sometimes know at home.

It will also be an immersion into an intense world of learning and ideas. Though London is not the only city to possess scores of theaters, concert and lecture halls, bookstores, great museums, universities and schools of every sort, it nevertheless possesses more of these than any tourist could ever hope to visit. If you have even a smidgeon of interest in recent and ancient history, in parliamentary debates, in gatherings called to discuss public policies, you will find all these on every day and in every section of the city.

Theater is the major highlight of your staymore playhouses and theater auditoriums than in any other city, more provocative plays presented at any one time than in any other city, more of an effort to introduce newand sometimes outlandishideas through the mechanism of dramatic plays, more skilled productions of classical works, more outstanding actors than in any other place. Some people I know are so enamored of the London theaters that they attend three plays a daya normal matinee, a 5pm matinee, and then an evening performance. Except for a very few super-hits, tickets are always available, and the avid theatergoer is constantly aglow at the ideas and talents they encounter here.

Be sure, as well, to attend a production of Shakespeare at the re-created Globe Theater near the Thames; and make the trip there even if you dont have a reservation. Tell the ticket attendant that you are willing to be a groundling, standing in front of the stage (and sometimes leaning on it) as Londoners of the 1600s did.

Theres more than theater to attract you. Unlike most other capital cities, the great national museums of London are almost always free of admission charges. From the British Museum to the British Library, from the National Gallery to the Victoria and Albert, you pay not a single centnot even a suggested contributionto while away the days amid many of the most fascinating collections on earth.

To write this Easy Guide to London, we at Frommer Media concluded that we needed to assign it to a very special talentand in Jason Cochran, we found an author worthy of the task. Jason is a heavily published author in many fields, and currently the Editor-in-Chief of our own Frommers.com. He is a person of strong tastes who regards travelas we also doas a precious learning activity and the essential of a civilized life. He does not write down to his audience; if he regards a popular London attraction as a waste of time, he says so; and though his travel writings may sometimes provoke the reader, they delight a great many more. His books are invariably bestsellers among the many Frommer travel guides.

So heres his take on London, compressed by the Easy Guide formula into 288 pages, and therefore light enough to accompany you (in pocket or purse) as you enjoy the great city of London. When a man is tired of London, said Samuel Johnson, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

Enjoy your stay.

Cordially,

Arthur Frommer

CONTENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jason Cochran was twice awarded Guide Book of the Year by the Society of American Travel Writers Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition and by the North American Travel Journalists Association for his writing on London and for Frommers EasyGuide to Disney World, Universal, and Orlando. He also wrote the London, Orlando, and San Francisco guides for the Pauline Frommer series. He has written for publications including Travel + Leisure, the New York Post, USA Today, and Scanorama (Sweden) and been on staff at Entertainment Weekly, Budget Travel, and AOL Travel (Executive Editor). He devised questions for the first American prime-time season of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (ABC) and produced and hosted AfterShark, the post-show for Shark Tank (ABC). He has appeared as a commentator on, among others, CBS This Morning, The Early Show (CBS), BBC World, Good Morning America, CNN and the CBC, and he is a video host on AOL. He attended Northwestern Universitys Medill School of Journalism and New York Universitys Graduate Music Theatre Writing Program. He is Editor-in-Chief of Frommers.com.