Five days in London this July was enough to fall for the city, and nowhere near enough to actually see it.
I arrived from Paris by train and gave myself five days, enough time to see the famous sights without spending the whole trip running from one attraction to another. I’d wanted to visit London for years and kept putting it off. This time, I finally stopped finding reasons to leave it for later.
By the end of the trip, I felt like I’d seen a lot of London while barely scratching the surface.
First impressions of London
My expectations of London weather were wrong almost immediately.
I had pictured at least one gray, rainy afternoon. Instead, I arrived in the middle of a British heatwave, with sunshine and temperatures around 32°C for practically the whole trip. London under blue skies looked almost strange, like it was wearing the wrong outfit.
On my first morning, I went straight into tourist mode and booked a hop-on hop-off sightseeing bus.
Normally, that’s not how I like to experience a city. I prefer walking, getting slightly lost and figuring things out as I go. But London is enormous, and on day one I had almost no sense of how the different areas connected. The bus did exactly what I needed it to do.
The moment London felt real came as we passed Trafalgar Square from the open top deck. I’d seen it so many times in photos and films that recognizing it in front of me gave me that instant “okay, I’m actually in London” feeling.
Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament a little later made it even stronger.
London also felt more diverse than I’d expected, both culturally and visually. There were people from all over the world, food from everywhere and far more variety in the architecture than I had imagined.
And yes, some people genuinely do speak like they walked out of Peppa Pig.
Apparently that part of Britain is real.
Seeing classic London
For a first trip, I don’t see much point in trying to avoid the obvious sights. London’s landmarks are famous for a reason, and I wanted to see them.
Westminster, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament
Westminster matched the London I had in my head better than anywhere else.
Walking across Westminster Bridge with Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament beside the Thames is about as classic a London scene as you can get. It’s crowded, full of tourists and photographed from almost every possible angle, and I still loved it.
Big Ben is great in person. The scale, details and setting beside the river make it every bit as impressive as it looks in photos.
I spent quite a lot of time around Westminster because there was so much to photograph. The bridge, the river, the London Eye across the water, red buses passing behind the buildings and the Gothic architecture of Parliament all seem to line up almost too perfectly.
If you’re visiting London for the first time, this isn’t the area to skip because it’s touristy.
Just go.
Seeing London from the Thames
A Thames river cruise was another thing that worked particularly well on a first visit.
After spending so much time walking, seeing London from the river changed how I viewed the city. Places that had felt disconnected at street level suddenly made more sense when I could see them lined up along the water.
The cruise also shows how mixed London’s architecture is. Historic buildings and bridges sit beside tall glass towers, with famous landmarks appearing one after another along the Thames.
Tower Bridge is especially good from the water. I’d seen it countless times in photos, but approaching it from the Thames felt completely different.
The sightseeing bus gave me a rough picture of London from the streets. The river cruise did the same from the water. I’d recommend both on a first visit.
Tower Bridge at sunset
Tower Bridge was one of the places I came back to on purpose rather than simply checking it off a list.
One evening, I crossed Tower Bridge and walked along the riverfront as the sun went down, with the Tower of London on one side and the modern skyline behind it.
There wasn’t really an activity involved. I was just walking, taking photos and watching the evening settle over the city. It became one of my favorite parts of the trip.
London has plenty of paid viewpoints, but some of its best views cost nothing. This stretch of the Thames around sunset was definitely one of them.
London is also ridiculously photogenic. Historic buildings, bridges, skyscrapers, red buses, narrow streets and river reflections sit surprisingly close together. I carried my camera almost everywhere and rarely struggled to find something worth shooting.
London from above
I saw London from above twice, first from the London Eye and later from The Shard.
The London Eye is about as touristy as it gets, but I’d still do it on a first visit. The ride is slow enough that you have time to look around, and the view across Westminster and the Thames is hard to beat.
The Shard was a different experience. I went up around sunset, which was definitely the right time. From that height, you understand just how enormous London is. At street level, the city often feels like a collection of separate neighborhoods. From The Shard, it becomes one huge city stretching in all directions.
Watching the light change over London was one of the best things I did during those five days.
If I had to choose between the two, I’d probably pick The Shard for the wider view. The London Eye has the advantage of sitting right in the middle of the classic Westminster scenery.
Piccadilly, Soho and the shopping streets
I also did the obvious walk through Piccadilly Circus, Soho, Oxford Street and Bond Street.
Piccadilly Circus was interesting mostly because I recognized it instantly. I wouldn’t call it one of my favorite places in London, but I was still glad I saw it.
Oxford Street and Bond Street were similar. Worth seeing once, but I was much happier after wandering away from the main shopping streets.
Soho was more interesting, especially later in the day. One moment you’re surrounded by tourist crowds, and a few minutes later you’re somewhere with a completely different atmosphere.
London is extremely touristy in places, just like Paris. Fortunately, you usually don’t have to walk very far to escape the worst of it.
Beyond the famous landmarks
Some of the places I remember best weren’t the ones I’d thought much about before the trip.
Once I’d seen most of the major landmarks, London became more enjoyable to wander without constantly thinking about what attraction was next.
Camden and Regent’s Canal
Camden was on my list. The walk that came afterwards wasn’t. I’d gone to Camden because Camden is famous.
From Camden, I started following Regent’s Canal toward Regent’s Park without much of a plan. It ended up becoming one of my favorite walks in London.
The atmosphere changed almost immediately. One minute, I was walking past traffic and crowded streets. The next, it was boats, trees, bridges and quiet residential blocks. London was still all around me, but it didn’t feel like central London anymore.
Regent’s Park also left a better impression on me than Hyde Park. Hyde Park is much more famous, but I found it surprisingly underwhelming. Maybe I simply went through the wrong part of it. Either way, the canal walk stayed in my memory much longer than I expected.
Notting Hill and Portobello Road
Notting Hill was another place where I enjoyed the streets as much as the destination itself.
I wandered through the neighborhood and around Portobello Road Market, stopping constantly to take photos. The colorful houses are obviously the part everyone recognizes, but I liked the general feel of the area too.
It was busy, particularly around the market, but it didn’t have the same intensity as Westminster or Piccadilly Circus.
London doesn’t have one look.
Westminster doesn’t look like Notting Hill. Notting Hill doesn’t look like the City. Camden looks different again. That constant change is one of the reasons London is so good for walking. You rarely feel as if you’re passing the same streets and buildings over and over again.
The City of London and St Paul’s
The City of London was one of the areas I enjoyed most for its architecture.
You can be standing beside an old church or historic facade, turn around and see a glass skyscraper rising directly behind it. St Paul’s Cathedral sits particularly well within that mix.
London is much older than many large cities I’ve visited, especially cities in the United States, and walking through it made certain architectural connections more obvious to me. I’d see a building or street and think of something I’d seen elsewhere, except here it often felt like I was looking at an earlier version of the idea.
I wasn’t walking around trying to study architecture. It was just hard not to notice.
That mix of old and new made the City particularly good for photography too. Some combinations look almost strange, which is exactly what makes them interesting.
Walking through London
A large part of my five days had no real plan attached to it.
I walked. A lot.
I wandered through Victoria, Green Park, Soho, central London and plenty of streets whose names I never checked. When the distances became too large, I took the Underground, got out somewhere else and started walking again.
For me, that’s still the best way to get a feel for a city.
London works especially well for it because so little feels repetitive. The landmarks are useful anchors, but plenty of the good moments happened between them.
Commuters rushing into Tube stations. Red buses passing constantly. People sitting outside pubs. Tourists trying to figure out which direction they’re walking. Several languages being spoken within a few meters of each other.
That international character was stronger than I’d expected.
By the end of the trip, London didn’t feel like one city with one personality. It felt like several different cities sitting beside each other, which is probably why five days passed so quickly.
The reality of visiting London
The one thing about London that didn’t surprise me was the price.
Finding a hotel was probably the hardest part of planning the trip. Central London accommodation was expensive enough that I ended up staying much farther east in Woolwich.
On a map, it looked inconvenient.
In practice, the Elizabeth line made it surprisingly easy. Getting into central London didn’t take particularly long, and I’d happily make the same decision again if the difference in hotel price was large enough.
In London, being close to a fast transport connection can matter more than being physically close to the center.
Public transport in general was easy to use. I relied mostly on the Underground and walking, with a few trips on London’s red buses.
The buses were considerably less charming during a 32°C heatwave.
The ones I took certainly didn’t feel air-conditioned, and sitting inside became uncomfortable very quickly. Ironically, the open-top sightseeing bus was more comfortable because there was at least some wind while it was moving.
Food was the other painful part.
I went to a few fish and chips places because I wasn’t going to visit London for the first time without eating fish and chips. I enjoyed them.
Beyond that, though, I kept feeling that restaurant prices didn’t match the quality of what appeared on the plate.
Maybe my timing was unfair. I’d recently returned from Japan, where I found it very easy to eat extremely well without spending much money. Going from Japan to London made the difference feel particularly brutal.
Five days isn’t enough to judge a food scene the size of London’s. My experience was simply that eating out became expensive very quickly, and paying more didn’t always mean getting something better.
London is very easy to enjoy. It’s much harder to enjoy cheaply.
Are five days enough for London?
Yes and no.
Five days were enough for a proper first visit.
I saw most of the major places I wanted to see, explored several very different parts of the city, took a river cruise, saw London from two viewpoints, photographed an unreasonable number of red buses and still had enough time to wander without following a strict schedule.
But five days weren’t enough to feel finished with London.
I barely touched the museums. I didn’t spend much time exploring palaces, and there are entire districts I either missed completely or passed through too quickly.
I’d definitely come back.
Next time, I’d spend less time on the biggest landmarks and more on museums, palaces and neighborhoods I didn’t manage to see properly.
I’d also like completely different weather.
The heatwave gave me five days of sunshine and blue skies, which was great for photography, but part of me still feels slightly cheated.
I went all the way to London and didn’t get a single proper gray, rainy London day.
Regent Street traffic with a church spire poking up behind the buses
Fortnum & Mason’s clock and its swarm of gold bees on Piccadilly
The London Eye from across the Thames
The City’s skyscrapers rising up behind the old stone walls of the Tower of London
St Paul’s, just as improbable up close as it looks from across the river
Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament in the evening light, about as classic as London gets
Camden Lock, under the bridge that tells you you’ve arrived
Portobello Road on a Saturday, Union Jacks overhead
