The magic of London
Museums, art galleries, green parks and the famous fish and chips make London one of the must visit places for travel enthusiasts. With the Queen's recent passing, now might be a good time to visit this iconic city
A magical place with over 2,000-year worth of history, London is still thriving as an iconic mega city, and it is easily among any traveller's bucket list of destinations.
London has an excellent transport system even for newcomers and once you understand the subway network, you can move almost everywhere fast and cheap.
You can even start from the Heathrow Airport, so the best idea would be to buy an Oyster card (an electronic smart card that can be used to travel on subways, buses, trams, rail services, etc) at the nearest subway station or kiosk and start exploring London.
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A great news for budget travellers: most museums in London are free for visitors!
The king among all the world famous museums is of course the British Museum, the largest museum of the world with fantastic collections of Egyptian mummies, Sumerian angels, Mexican jade stones and many more.
Besides this, if you are interested in nature and especially if you have your children with you, the best place to start is the Museum of Natural History.
Here, a gigantic skeleton of a blue whale and huge dinosaur fossils will welcome you along with countless wonders of the animal world and a sculpture of Charles Darwin.
The museum building itself deserves close attention, especially the prehistoric animal sculptures on its railings.
Just next to the Museum of Natural History is the Victoria and Albert Museum.
This specific museum is very important for anybody from the subcontinent as the colonial looters brought here everything they could; even many valuable artefacts from Bengal are here for display.
It also holds an invaluable collection of Mughal era paintings, including some works of Ustad Mansur, a famous painter from Emperor Jahangir's period.
No visit to London is complete without going to the most famous address in the world: 221B, Baker Street.
This fictional address of Sherlock Holmes has been turned into a museum where you can feel the presence of the iconic detective.
The Madame Tussauds Museum is another attraction for visitors who absolutely love taking photos with the life size and somewhat realistic wax statues of notable personalities.
And of course there is the Trafalgar Square, with its crowd full of humans and pigeons. Tourists also visit the National Art Gallery to enjoy all the world famous paintings of Da Vinci, Raphael, Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet.
However, many people do not know that just behind the art gallery, there is a portrait gallery where one can see many historical portraits including those of a young Charles Dickens. The gallery also has the only known portrait of William Shakespeare which was painted during his lifetime.
Another great attraction in London is the National Theatre. If you actually want to attend a show, it would be wise to reserve tickets in advance. I also really enjoyed going to the Tate Gallery, a must visit for any art lover.
For any bookworm in the world, their pilgrim would be the British Library with its rich book collections. At the ground floor there is a museum section where you can see the Gutenberg Bible, the first printed book, the Magna Carta and a few other world treasures.
If you get tired of walking around London, you can take a break near the Thames River and sit at one of the countless restaurants for delicious fish and chips (many believe this to be the national dish of England)!
It is always a good idea to visit the big green parks in London for fresh air. But be prepared for rainy weather while visiting this city where the weather is quite unpredictable.
One thing I truly appreciate about London is that its authorities put a special mark on every house where a famous person once lived. Thus I paid tribute to T S Eliot, P B Shelly and many others at their houses. I also went to the park where a young Rabindranath Tagore used to visit.
For shopping lovers, Harrods, the world's leading luxury department store, is a must visit place in London. If you are into the royal history and charm of the aristocrats, there is the Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace, where you will not witness the Queen (may she rest in peace) but the most famous diamond of all, the Koh-i-Noor.
There is also the Tower of London to remind us of the Dark Age. I also really enjoyed the boat ride from London Bridge to Greenwich on a sunny day when I visited the royal observatory.
Lastly, I visited the Westminster Abbey and its neighbouring parliament building with the famous Westminster clock, also known as the Big Ben.
London is an everlasting place of joy and wonder. Even though not particularly big, relatively speaking, you can not explore it all in a lifetime. So, each time I go there, I plan to see a few things at a time.
For Bangalis, the East London area would be interesting for trying out deshi restaurants and seeing fellow Bangalis everywhere.
