London has been continuously occupied for nearly 2,000 years — from a Roman river crossing to the capital of an empire that once covered a quarter of the globe. Every street hides layers: a Roman wall inside a Tube station, a plague pit under a car park, a Tudor palace that became a prison. This is how to find them.
Over a thousand years of history in one fortress — William the Conqueror began it in 1066, and it's been a royal palace, treasury, menagerie, armoury and prison ever since. Anne Boleyn was executed here. The Crown Jewels (still in use) are inside. Allow 2.5 hours.
London Wall was built by the Romans around 200 AD — fragments still stand. All Hallows church (the oldest in the City, founded 675 AD) has a Roman pavement in its undercroft and a crypt museum covering 2,000 years on this spot. Samuel Pepys watched the Great Fire from its tower.
London's oldest food market — there has been a market here since at least 1014. The current Victorian iron structure dates from 1851. An hour of browsing and lunch between the stalls puts you right next to 1,000 years of commerce history.
The oldest Gothic church in London, parts dating to 1106. Shakespeare's brother Edmund is buried here (he died 1607). The Harvard Chapel commemorates John Harvard, baptised here in 1607, who later founded Harvard University. Choir sings Evensong most weekdays.
A 62-metre Doric column designed by Wren, exactly 62 metres from where the Great Fire of 1666 started in Pudding Lane. Climb the 311 steps to the viewing gallery for a panoramic City view and a certificate of ascent. Opened 1677.
Wren's masterpiece, built after the Great Fire destroyed the medieval cathedral in 1666. The dome (second largest in the world after St Peter's in Rome) took 35 years to complete. Churchill's funeral was here in 1965. The Whispering Gallery inside the dome is a marvel of acoustics.
Every English monarch since William the Conqueror (1066) has been crowned here. Seventeen monarchs are buried within — including Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth I and Henry V. Poets' Corner holds Chaucer, Dickens, Hardy and Darwin. The building itself, begun in 1245, is stunning.
The underground bunker from which Churchill directed the Second World War, kept exactly as it was on the day the war ended in 1945. One of the most moving museums in London — you walk the same corridors where history was made under the bombing of the Blitz.
The Cinnamon Club (Indian fine dining in a former Westminster library — eat where MPs lunch) or the more casual Red Lion pub on Parliament Street, which has served MPs since the 18th century.
The current Gothic Revival palace was built after the 1834 fire destroyed the medieval palace — though Westminster Hall (1097) survived and is the oldest part of the complex. Tours of the Lords, Commons and the medieval hall run throughout the year.
The only remaining part of the Palace of Whitehall — the grandest palace in Tudor and Stuart Europe, which burned down in 1698. Rubens painted the magnificent ceiling in 1636 (still in place). Charles I walked through the window to his execution on the scaffold outside in 1649.
Home to Queen Victoria (born here 1819), William III (who moved the court here from Whitehall) and Diana, Princess of Wales. The State Rooms show 300 years of royal life. The gardens surrounding it — Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park — are among London's finest.
Eight million objects spanning 2 million years of human history — the spoils of empire, though also items purchased, gifted and excavated. The Rosetta Stone, Elgin Marbles, the Lewis Chessmen, Egyptian mummies and the Sutton Hoo helmet are all here, free, every day.
The neighbourhood around the museum was home to Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, John Maynard Keynes and Lytton Strachey in the early 20th century. The Charleston Farmhouse crowd. Walk Gordon Square, Tavistock Square (where Gandhi's statue stands) and the British Library on Euston Road.
The British Library café is better than it sounds. Or walk five minutes to Granary Square at King's Cross — a regenerated Victorian goods yard now full of good food options including Caravan and Dishoom.
Covers every conflict Britain has been involved in since 1914, but particularly powerful on the World Wars. The Holocaust Exhibition is one of the most comprehensive in the world outside Israel. The atrium has a Spitfire, a V2 rocket and a section of the Berlin Wall. Free entry.
South of the river, this stretch has the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lambeth Palace (900 years of continuous occupation), the Garden Museum in a former church, and MI6's headquarters at Vauxhall Cross (the building used in James Bond films).
A neighbourhood transformed from 1960s concrete to a diverse dining scene in a decade. Mercato Metropolitano (a giant Italian food market in a former paper factory) has 40+ vendors and is one of London's best evening food destinations.