Where to go in London?

[Rosencrantz]

Hello all!


This is RLQ. I'm heading to London in the next week and I'm waiting to get two days "off duty". Now I'm wondering where to go in London if you are a SH/DW sub skipper. Book stores, museums etc???
Any info availible?


-RC-

[ReallyDedPoet]

That would be a neat trip, must be tons of stuff on WW 1 & 2 there:yep: Sure someone will give you some tips.

RDP

[Kant Schwimm]

Hello all!


This is RLQ. I'm heading to London in the next week and I'm waiting to get two days "off duty". Now I'm wondering where to go in London if you are a SH/DW sub skipper. Book stores, museums etc???
Any info availible?


-RC-

Welcome to England:up:
You could try HMS Belfast on the Thames, its a floating museum ship.
My dad took me there way back when I was kid, and my boy will be going as soon as hes bigenough to man the guns:up:

Hope this helps matey, enjoy your stay.

http://hmsbelfast.iwm.org.uk/

[Chock]

HMS Belfast is well worth a look, she's moored in the pool of London on the Thames right near Tower Bridge.

Further up the Thames at Greenwich (use the Docklands light railway trams to get there) you'll find Nelson's flagship HMS Victory as well as the tea clipper Cutty Sark, plus a lot of other great maritime stuff. Do a search on Greenwich/maritime and you'll find the official websites so you can plan an itinerary for your visit.

Greenwich is also home to the Royal Observatory, where you will find the prime meridian (actually a brass line embedded in the ground which you can stand on and know that your watch should be set exactly Greenwich Mean Time), lots of cool stuff to see there related to maritime navigation etc.

If U-Boats are your thing: A one hour flight or a three-hour train-ride North to Liverpool, would take you to the Liverpool Western Approaches War Museum, (where the war against German U-Boats was planned and co-ordinated), much of the offices and map rooms remains and is very interesting.

Up until recently, you could also visit the Birkenhead Historic Warship museum (very near Liverpool) and tour the raised Type IX U-Boat, U-534. Sadly this museum has closed, but U-534 is still there (as are some other historic ships) awaiting a decision on their fate, and whilst you can't tour U-534, you can get very close to her and check her out externally, even though the museum is closed.

Back in London...

There are plenty of decent bookshops etc in London, here is one for example:

http://www.ianallanpublishing.com/catalog/cms.php?f=publishing12.htm

It's probably also worth considering a tourist boat ride up the Thames, as you'll get a commentary and a good look at a lot of stuff, but more importantly, you can ask the tour person for info on stuff that you might like to see.

Enjoy your trip - Chock :D

[perisher]

Chock has made just one little error. HMS Victory is at Portsmouth. I'm not sure that the Western Approaches exhibit in Liverpool is worth giving up a whole day for, but if you are in that area anyway it is worth seeing.

In London, the Imperial War Museum and HMS Belfast are must see. I think you can get a combined entrance ticket.

The National Maritime Museum at Greenwich is excellent, but has nothing much on submarines, it's leaves 20th Century stuff mostly to the Imperial War Museum.

At Hendon, in North London, you can find the RAF Museum, which has some stuff on ASW.

If you are find yourself in the Portsmouth / Southampton area, the Submarine Museum at Gosport, is the best sub site in the country.

[emtmedic005]

YES you must go to the Imperial War Museum, when i went they had a section on Spy stuff and a thing on WW1, inluding a trench section, it was great plus they have a whole bunch of Tanks.

Another place u need to go is the Royal Garrison which houses the Royal Guards, they do lots of Drills tthere. there is a pub i forget the name but its near the Tower of London and its like one of the oldest pubs.

Do not go to SOHO, its a dump, unless u want to get some action. Me and my friends 4 hours out of the plane and they all got "robbed" by hookers, hahaha i only kept my money cause i faked an Irish eccent and scared them off. O yeah keep track of the train times cause they close early and you dont want to get stuck, cause taxi fares r expensive..

IF you make it to Oxford go to the Three Goats Head Pub, BEST PUB EVER

[Kant Schwimm]

Also if you dont mind a an hrs drive up the M1, you can always visit Bletchley Park home of the Enigma code crackers - lots of history there:up:

[donath]

Chock has made just one little error. HMS Victory is at Portsmouth.

<snip>

If you are find yourself in the Portsmouth / Southampton area, the Submarine Museum at Gosport, is the best sub site in the country.
I'm going to Gosport on my next visit. I've been to Portsmouth, and the Victory is an amazing visit. There's no sub stuff there though.

Once, when I was riding with a friend of mine along the coast near Pfizer's in Ramsgate (he worked there) he pointed out a wreck in a mosquito ditch. He said, "They say that's a U-Boat wreck". Being in a restricted area, of course, you can't get to it. It's nothing much to see really, and it's just a rumour. ;)

[dean_acheson]

It's pretty OT but I enjoyed going to 221b a great deal when visiting London....

[Kant Schwimm]

It's pretty OT but I enjoyed going to 221b a great deal when visiting London....

Not OT i'm sure there was a Sherlock Holmes story that revolved around a nazi plot with a U-Boat :lol: :up:

[bert8for3]

Right in central London, have a look at the Cabinet War Rooms. The underground complex from which Churchill ran things during the war. See http://cwr.iwm.org.uk/ for info. Fascinating, and I think they've opened up new areas since I was there several years ago.

[vindex]

I used to live in London, and my prime recommendation for anyone who enjoys this game is the War Rooms, as suggested in the post above. It is right around the corner from Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. Churchill's underground HQ during the Blitz was boarded up after the war and it's like a time capsule -- the maps are still on the wall with little holes in them from the pushpins they used to monitor troop and naval movements. Everything is authentic. It is truly an incredible experience, and surprisingly not as well known as it should be.

If you have time to venture outside of London for a day, I strongly vouch for the earlier suggestion of Bletchley Park. It is halfway to Oxford by train, about an hour outside London. The lady who gave my tour was an original operator of the Enigma decoding computer, no joke. She had incredible stories to tell about how she was selected and what life was like at the top secret installation. I'm sorry to say, these people won't be around forever to tell their stories, so it's an opportunity not to be missed.

On a different note, if you like Shakespeare a trip to the reconstructed Globe Theater and the accompanying museum is an enjoyable few hours. In fact, they regularly give plays there so it's worth checking the schedule.

The London History Museum, just north of St. Pauls, is surprisingly good (lots of excellent stuff on the Roman era) and FREE.

[emtmedic005]

When my dad was in the US Navy, his ship operated out around the North Sea and the waters north of Scapa Flow/Norway. His ship was a cable laying ship, he said it was really "listening" for Soviet subs. He was telling me how they would dock at British ports and the British sailors would be given tours of the US ships and the US sailors would be allowned to go on British Ships. My dad was saying how dirty/unclean the British ships were, He was disgusted by their subs, he said they were soo dirty and unkept compared to American Subs. He said the Brtish sailors would dock their ships and leave, the n the ship would wait until the next crew arrived.

But he did like visiting England and Scotland, he still has a whole bunch of friends who r still in the British navy

[Greyco]

The Imperial War Museum is a must. Loads of interesting stuff cramped there. Like the NAZI-eagle from the Reichstag.

But being a simmer, I mostly had eyes for the fighters hanging from the ceiling and the zero and lancaster cockpits. There's also a great collection of tanks.

The museum of Natural History can be interesting too for some, boring for others.

[Sailor Steve]

It's pretty OT but I enjoyed going to 221b a great deal when visiting London....

Not OT i'm sure there was a Sherlock Holmes story that revolved around a nazi plot with a U-Boat :lol: :up:
Not a real one. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the last Sherlock Holmes story in 1927. The Nazi plot is from one of the many Basil Rathbone movies from the 1940s.

[Chock]

Oops, my mistake, dunno what made me think Victory was there, must have been drunk or something :D

Cutty Sark most definitely is though, and well worth a look too.

[caspofungin]

also, if you're looking for bookstores as mentioned in 1st post.. definitely go to "foyle's" on tottenham court road -- they have a whole floor pretty much devoted to military matters -- some good finds there. imperial war museum is a must. if you're really hard core, consider the national archives at kew -- some original docs from ww2 here regarding the battle of the atlantic -- interesting stuff about how applied science turned the tide.

museums -- science musem is a must.

[Rosencrantz]

Thank you Friends!

Have to say, this is the very best forum ever!
This will be my 2nd time in London, last time I didn't got much time to look around. It seems there is lot of places to go. Thanks to you, I'm now planning to see at least HMS Belfast and the Imperial War Museum, and I'm very interested in to find my way to Gosport... ;)
It seems to be just about 100 kms fm London, so I hope I'll be able to find a train or something to get myself there.

[perisher]

Thank you Friends!

I'm very interested in to find my way to Gosport... ;)
It seems to be just about 100 kms fm London, so I hope I'll be able to find a train or something to get myself there.

There are lots of trains from London Waterloo. Take the train to Portsmouth Harbour. Depending on how many stops it makes, it takes between 1 hour 40 and 2 hours 10. From Portsmouth Harbour station take the Gosport Ferry across the harbour. The museum is about a 10 min walk from the ferry terminal.

[Chock]

One last link for you.

Train tickets can be a bit pricey in the UK if you buy them on the day, and tend to be a lot cheaper even if you buy em just one or two days before. So this site is useful for that. It's also useful even if you don't want to buy the tickets online, but just want to know train times, any train changes and journey lengths...

http://www.thetrainline.com/default.asp?T2ID=475_2007581005

[Meridian]

As a previous poster mentioned, Foyles is a must see bookshop, but it's on Charing Cross Road. You can easily spend quite a few hours going round that place.

Also I think the reference to 221b Baker Street was a bit tongue in cheek as it's now a.............. McDonalds.:nope:

Elementary my dear Watson....1 Big Mac and fries.

[Captain Strangelove]

Hi there.

Although the Imperial War Museum is very cool, Hendon is even better. They have an incredible collectin of airplanes and it is very easy to get there with the metro or whatever it is called. If you have the time, go there. And if you want to see ships, check out the Belfast afterwards.

Cheers

Kai

[Mr Bubbles]

For Military books try Motorbooks in St Martins Court off Charing Cross Rd. They've got two shops almost next to each other, one for transport and the other all military. They also have a web site as do all the museums mentioned above. So have a look before you go and have a great time there.

[donath]

Further up the Thames at Greenwich (use the Docklands light railway trams to get there) you'll find Nelson's flagship HMS Victory as well as the tea clipper Cutty Sark, plus a lot of other great maritime stuff.


Does anyone know this Rosencrantz character? He's not an arsonist by any chance.

[Sailor Steve]

Oooh, that's evil! But funny.:rotfl: I just read about poor Cutty Sark this morning.:cry:

[Chock]

Well, look on the bright side, much of the Cutty Sark will probably be scattered and smoldering on the ground nearby its berth, so if you do find yourself in London, it's the ideal opportunity to pick up a piece of (slightly charred) nautical history.

Only joking, this is a damned shame.

:D Chock

[DanCanovas]

the imperial war museum is a highly recommended and is free! the Belfast is about £7 if I remember rightly.