My Vacation Lady loves giving tips on some out of the ordinary sites to see when our clients take a vacation!
1. Did you know that the only road in London where drivers drive on the right side of the road is in front of the Savoy hotel? Since women would typically sit on the right side of the car, behind their chauffeur, having the driver pull up on the right side of the road meant that their passenger wouldn’t have to walk around the car to enter the hotel!
2. The look-alike 10 Downing Street- you probably won’t be able to get that close to the prime minister’s residence but if you go to 10 Adams Street (just off The Strand), you can take a picture of the door (which looks just like 10 Downing) and show it off to your friends as the real thing!
3. Windmills in the city! Bet you never would expect to see a windmill in the middle of the city but there are actually 6 of them. Brixton Windmill has been around since 1816 and was restored and open to the public in 2011. There are others in Barnet, Plumstead Common, Croydon, Wimbledon and Wandsworth Common
4. Tiny Sculptures– head to the 13 Philpot Lane and take a look at the ground floor cornice level to see 2 mice eating a piece of cheese.
5. The skinniest house in London- Just 7 feet wide at it’s narrowest corner, this house is on the corner of South Terrace and Thurloe Square in the Knightsbridge neighborhood. It may be skinny but it’s supposed to be worth more than 2 million pounds!
6. Little streets and more- Brydges Place is an alley that narrows to just 15 inches making it London’s narrowest alley. Pickering Place is the city’s smallest square (and also the site of the last duel). The Dove is Hammersmith is the smallest pub and St Ethelsburga-the-Virgin in Bishopsgate is the smallest church.
7. A tank painted in graffiti- we guess that most cities don’t have tanks sitting in empty lots but if you head to the lot between Mandela Way and Pages Walk, you’ll see a tank used during the filming of Richard III. It was purchased by a city resident, put in the empty lot where is is frequently painted with grafitti.
8. A Japanese Garden– Kyoto Garden in Holland Park is a great place to relax after a day of major sightseeing.
9. A jar full of moles – yes, 18 preserved moles are in a jar in the Grant Museum of Zoology. You can also check out a 8+ meter giant squid at the Natural History Museum and a dead sparrow and the cricket ball that killed it in the Lord’s Museum. Check out Napoleon’s toothbrush at the Wellcome Collection (a great use of that London Pass 🙂 )
10. The Lions at Trafalgar Square– there is a pair of lions that are a pretty popular site but the story behind them involves a funny story about the artist who used a dead posed lion as his inspiration. Since the lion decomposed before he finished the sculpture, he designed the paws from cats since he had to improvise a bit.
When you are traveling, the major sites are always great to visit but seeing some of the off the beaten trail things can be a lot of fun.
My Vacation Lady will customize your vacation so that you have time for a bit of both!
