Quiet, calm and nearly empty

Reading rooms, small collections and places most people walk past. Low noise, low crowds, no one hurrying you along.

• Aldwych Hidden London Tour: Exclusive access to disused Aldwych tube station with wartime history and film location stories.
• VIP Kensington Palace & High Tea: Exclusive palace tour with royal high tea experience in elegant surroundings.
• Churchill War Rooms: Underground WWII bunker and museum. Westminster direct access.
• British Museum: World-famous collection spanning 2 million years of human history. Direct Russell Square tube access
• Victoria & Albert Museum: World's leading museum of art, design and performance. South Kensington tube adjacent.
• Natural History Museum: Dinosaur skeletons, wildlife specimens, and the famous blue whale. South Kensington.
• National Gallery: European paintings from 13th-19th centuries in Trafalgar Square. Direct Charing Cross access.
• Science Museum: Interactive exhibits showcasing scientific innovations. South Kensington station adjacent.
• Imperial War Museum: Military history from WWI to present day conflicts. Lambeth North 3 min walk.
• London Library: Historic independent library. Piccadilly Circus 5 mins.
• Tower of London: Historic royal palace and fortress. Tower Hill direct.
• Westminster Abbey: Gothic abbey church. Westminster 3 mins.
• The Postal Museum: Ride the underground Mail Rail through hidden tunnels. Direct access.
• London Mithraeum: Ancient Roman temple of Mithras discovered under Bloomberg.
• Sir John Soane's Museum: Eccentric home of the Neo-classical architect. Very narrow.
• The Courtauld Gallery: A compact but world-class gallery with Impressionist highlights in a beautiful indoor setting at Som
• The Cinema Museum: A lovingly curated museum of cinema history with guided tours and rare memorabilia. A proper indoor
• Buckingham Palace State Rooms: Summer opening of the Royal State Rooms with opulent interiors and royal history.
• St Paul's Cathedral: Iconic baroque cathedral. St Paul's direct.
• Houses of Parliament Tour: Guided tour through Westminster Palace including Commons and Lords chambers.
• British Library: View original manuscripts from history's greatest writers. King's Cross 2 mins.
• V&A East Storehouse: Walk straight into the V&A's working store: half a million objects on open shelves, no glass, no que
• Two Temple Place: An Astor mansion off the Embankment, opened to the public only for its winter exhibition. Stained gl
• Foundling Museum: Britain's first children's charity, told through Hogarth paintings and the heartbreaking tokens moth
• Eltham Palace: A medieval great hall bolted onto a jaw-dropping Art Deco house. Worth the trip south for the circul
• Horniman Museum: Free museum of the world in Forest Hill, with an overstuffed walrus, an aquarium, and a natural hist
• London Glassblowing: Watch glass being blown from a few feet away in Peter Layton's Bermondsey studio. Free to walk in an
• Wiener Holocaust Library: The oldest Holocaust archive in the world, with free exhibitions on the ground floor. Quiet, serious
• Wilton's Music Hall: The oldest surviving grand music hall in the world, saved from collapse and deliberately left lookin
• Sipsmith Distillery: The Chiswick distillery that restarted London gin-making after two centuries. Small tours, proper gi
• Old Royal Naval College: The Painted Hall took Sir James Thornhill nineteen years and is often called Britain's Sistine Chape
• Cutty Sark: The last tea clipper afloat, raised on stilts so you can stand underneath the hull and look up at it
• Banksy Limitless London: Two floors of Banksy on Old Brompton Road, unauthorised by the artist and fairly open about it. Good
• Tower Bridge: The high-level walkways are forty metres up with a glass floor, so you can watch the traffic and the
• Tottenham Hotspur Stadium Tour: The one with the retractable pitch that rolls away to reveal an NFL field underneath. The tour gets
• Kensington Palace: Royal residence with Queen Victoria exhibits and beautiful palace gardens.
• HMS Belfast Tour: WW2 warship museum on the Thames with nine decks to explore.
• Tate Britain Exhibition: Special exhibitions focusing on Turner and Constable works.
• Frameless Immersive Art: Multi-sensory digital art experience with projection-mapped rooms and interactive displays.
• Barbican Centre: Multi-arts venue with cinema, galleries, and performances. Barbican direct.