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London is the greatest city in the world and you will exhaust yourself trying to see everything in 6 days. So don't. I would try to see two or three major sights (my favorites are the British Museum, which houses antiquities, and the Churchill War Rooms) and otherwise just hang around, live like an Englishman, and spend a lot of time outside. Go to pubs, especially pubs with live music or trivia games; go to restaurants and cafes; go to a play in the room behind or above a pub, instead of in a big expensive theater; shop Portobello Road or the Camden market; you get the idea.
Although I love the English countryside I would probably not try to go on an out-of-town excursion in that amount of time. If you absolutely must, go to the Cotswolds, or Bath, or Stratford-upon-Avon.
I would love to do the countryside but this trip is a college graduation trip for my youngest and two of his cousins. lol they are all around the same age, 20 something young men. I can't get them excited for the English countryside.
Don't forget to check out the department stores just for fun - Harrod's, Selfridge's, Liberty's, etc. We had a great put lunch at an old pub near Liberty's when we were in London during the fall of 2015. We did a night time bus tour with friends who came up from Kent to meet us. The tour took us to famous murder scenes in London which was a fun couple of hours. If you like curry you will find lots of good curry places in London in addition to great fish and chips. We went for martinis at The American Bar in the Stafford Hotel which was lovely, but very expensive. We usually stay in Kensington and love the V&A Museum.
Definitely do the Tower of London. It is a misnomer to call it a tower -- It is really a compound with multiple towers. There is so much history there and so much to see.
Westminster Abbey is just a church. I wouldn't spend a ton of time waiting on line to see the inside, but I would definitely pass by. See it if you have time.
Different strokes for different strokes- for us, there's so much to see inside Westminster Abbey that we've been there twice and spent hours looking at the architecture and crypts each time.
If the people in your party like books, design, the history of the printed word, etc., the exhibit rooms of the British Library have some amazing pieces and they're open until something like 8:00pm. The Spousal Unit, a graphic design professor, said it was one of the best parts of our last trip.
I honestly felt like the London Eye was a waste of money and time.
Make sure you take a walk through at least one of the city parks, they keep them so clean and they are so peaceful and relaxing for being right in the middle of a huge city....
There is also a chain restaurant called Pret a Manger that is pretty amazing, pretty much a 100x better version of Panera Bread.
I honestly felt like the London Eye was a waste of money and time.
Make sure you take a walk through at least one of the city parks, they keep them so clean and they are so peaceful and relaxing for being right in the middle of a huge city....
There is also a chain restaurant called Pret a Manger that is pretty amazing, pretty much a 100x better version of Panera Bread.
I was staying with friends that lived in London when I visited and they told me not to waste time with the London Eye so I didn't. They told me to just look at it from across the city which I did and that was enough.
I also tend to like to experience the life of the locals when I travel as opposed to doing all the tourist stuff. That may be from living in big tourist destination cities in the US my whole life and building up a distain for tourists.
But yes, I had a few sandwiches at Pret a Manger while I was there and they were good for a cheap option which was hard to find. But there is a lot of great food around London despite the old stereotypes about Brittish Cuisine. I ate well every day there but I also had locals as my tour guides that knew all the good spots
Marks & Spenser grocery store is also good for takeaway food.
IMO, one underrated spot to grab a meal are the museum cafes- generally reasonably priced by London standards, many of them are on the 'fresh and local' bandwagon, and you can save some time by not wandering around to find something outside the museum.
If they had more than 6 days this would be a good idea, but I think they will not see everything they want in 6 days, it is not a lot of time. So taking a day trip to France, means one less day in London.
Tower of london X
Westminster Abbey X
Buckingham Palace (changing of the guard) X
London Eye
National gallery X
War museum/Churchill war rooms
National Gallery
Camden Market X
British museum
Covenant Gardens
West end theater show. X
Thames river cruise
Want to venture little out of town - Recommend Bath & Stonehinge, tunnel train to Paris
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