Places of interest

Chinatown

Covent Garden

Covent Garden is a district in central London and within the easterly bounds of the City of Westminster. The area is dominated by shopping and entertainment facilities and contains an entrance to the Royal Opera House, which is also often known as "Covent Garden".

The area is bounded by High Holborn, Kingsway, The Strand and Charing Cross Road. Covent Garden Piazza is located in the geographical centre of the area and was the site of a flower, fruit and vegetable market from the 1500s until 1974, when the wholesale market relocated to New Covent Garden Market in Nine Elms.

Downing Street

Downing Street is the famous street in central London which contains the buildings that have been, for over two hundred years, the official residences of two of the most senior British cabinet ministers, the First Lord of the Treasury, an office held by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and the Second Lord of the Treasury, an office held by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The most famous address in Downing Street is 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the First Lord of the Treasury-and thus, in modern times, the residence of the Prime Minister, since the two roles have been filled by the same person. As a result of this "Downing Street" or "Number 10" is often used as short-hand for the Prime Minister or their office, whilst "Number 11" is likewise a term for the Chancellor of the Exchequer or their office.

Horse Guards Parade

Horse Guards Parade is a large parade ground off Whitehall in central London, at grid reference TQ299800. It was formerly the site of the Palace of Whitehall's tilt-yard, where tournaments were held in the time of Henry VIII. It was also the scene of the annual celebrations of the birthday of Queen Elizabeth I.

The area has been used for a variety of reviews, parades and other ceremonies since the 17th century. It is the site of the annual ceremonies of Trooping the Colour, which commemorates the monarch's official birthday, and Beating Retreat. For much of the late 20th century it was put to a rather less dignified purpose - as a car park for senior civil servants - but this use was ended in the 1990s.

Leicester Square

Leicester Square (pronounced 'Lester Square') is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, United Kingdom. It is located west of Charing Cross Road, east of Piccadilly Circus, 0.23 miles (0.37 km) north west of Charing Cross and within the City of Westminster.

The London Dungeon

The London Dungeon is a tourist attraction based in Tooley Street, London, near London Bridge rail station. It recreates various gory historical events in a fun and exciting way, making them more appealing to the younger generation. Some of the more than 40 exhibits include 'The Great Fire of London', 'Jack the Ripper', 'Judgement Day', 'The Torture Chamber', 'Henry VIII', 'The Tower of London' and 'The French Revolution'. In 2003 a special exhibition opened on the Great Plague of 1665.

In 2004 the London Dungeon unveiled their new Traitor: Boat Ride to Hell and Labyrinth Maze of Mirrors, which is the largest Labyrinth made of mirrors in the world.

Many feel that the fact that the tragedies the attraction attempts to recreate happened a long time ago does not justify their being made light of or, less tasteful still, made fun of. Another common complaint is that, because of this emphasis on fun and thrills, the London Dungeon does not have the educational value expected of an attraction that purports to be historically themed.

The Hamburg Dungeon, The York Dungeon and The Edinburgh Dungeon are all affiliated with The London Dungeon. In 2005 a new location opened in Amsterdam, called The Amsterdam Dungeon.

London Eye

The British Airways London Eye, sometimes called the Millennium Wheel (Coordinates: 51°30'12?N, 00°07'11?W), is the first-built and largest observation wheel in the world (a type of or evolution on the Ferris wheel), and has been since its opening at the end of 1999. It stands 135 metres (443 feet) high on the western end of Jubilee Gardens, on the South Bank of the River Thames in Lambeth, London, England, between Westminster and Hungerford Bridges. It is adjacent to London's County Hall, and stands opposite the offices of the Ministry of Defence situated in Westminster which it overlooks to the west.

London Planetarium

The London Planetarium is in Marylebone Road on the northern side of the city centre. It is adjacent to Madame Tussauds and is owned by the same company.

Originally built during the 1930s, the planetarium seats an audience of around 330 beneath a horizontal dome approximately 18m in diameter. For its first five decades of operation, an opto-mechanical star projector offered the audience a show based on a view of the night sky as seen from earth. During the 1990s, one of the world's first digital planetarium systems, Digistar (created by Evans & Sutherland was installed, allowing monochromatic 3D journeys through space and many other kinds of show to be presented.

In 2004 the London Planetarium was upgraded to a full-colour Digistar 3 system that allows both pre-rendered and real-time shows to transport the audience in a realistic immersive environment to distant realms of time and space.

London Zoo

London Zoo was the world's first scientific zoo. It was opened in 1828, and was originally intended to be used as a collection for scientific study, it was eventually made open to the public in 1847. Today it houses a collection of more than 650 different species of animals.

Madame Tussaud's

Madame Tussauds is a wax museum in London, with branches in Amsterdam, Hong Kong (Victoria Peak), Las Vegas and New York City. It was set up by Marie Tussaud who was a wax sculptor. Madame Tussaud (1761-1850), born Marie Grosholtz in Croxley Green, worked as a housekeeper for Dr. Philippe Curtius, a physician skilled in wax modelling. Curtius taught Tussaud the art of wax modelling. In 1765, Curtius made a waxwork of Marie Jean du Barry, Louis XV's mistress. A cast of that mould is the oldest work currently on display.

The first exhibition of Curtius' waxworks was shown in 1770, and attracted a lot of people. The exhibition moved to the Palais Royal in 1776. He opened a second location on Boulevard du Temple in 1782, the "Caverne des Grands Voleurs", a precursor to the later Chamber of Horrors.

Tussaud created her first wax figure, of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in 1778. Other famous persons she modelled at that time include Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin. During the French Revolution she made wax death masks of prominent victims.She would search through corpses to find the decapitated heads of the citizens the death masks were to depict. When Curtius died in 1794, he left his collection of waxworks to Marie. In 1802, she went to London. As a result of the Franco-English war, she was unable to return to France, so with her collection she travelled throughout Great Britain and Ireland. She established her first permanent exhibition on Baker Street in 1835 (on the "Baker Street Bazaar").

One of the main attractions of her museum was the Chamber of Horrors. This part of the exhibition included some victims of the French Revolution and also newly created figures of murders and other criminals. The name was given by a contributor to Punch in 1845.

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Other famous people were added to the exhibition, including Horatio Nelson, and Sir Walter Scott. Some of the sculptures done by Tussaud herself still exist. In 1842, she made a self portrait which is now on display at the entrance of her museum.

The museum moved to its current location on Marylebone Road in 1884. In 1925, a fire destroyed many of the figures, but fortunately the moulds survived, allowing the historical waxworks to be remade.

Madame Tussaud's wax museum has now grown to become a major tourist attraction in London, incorporating the London Planetarium in its west wing. It has expanded with branches in Amsterdam, Hong Kong (Victoria Peak), Las Vegas, and New York City. Today wax figures of the Tussauds include historical and royal figures, film stars, sports stars and famous murderers. Known as "Madame Tussauds" museums (no apostrophe), they are owned by a leisure company called The Tussauds Group. More...