Explore London

The View from The Shard is the observation deck at the top of The Shard, the 310-metre tower by Renzo Piano at London Bridge. Opened in 2013, it has enclosed viewing galleries on levels 68 and 69 and a partly open-air skydeck on level 72, with views across the Thames, the City and much of London.

The Sky Garden occupies the top floors of 20 Fenchurch Street, the City of London tower nicknamed the 'Walkie-Talkie', designed by Rafael Viñoly and completed in 2014. Under a glass roof, terraced planting rises beside viewing areas and an open-air terrace that look out over the Thames and the City; visits are by timed ticket.

Leadenhall Market is a covered market in the City of London whose history goes back to the 14th century. The present cobbled arcades and ornate roof of iron and glass, painted green, maroon and cream, were designed by Sir Horace Jones in 1881. Today it houses shops, pubs and restaurants.

HMS Belfast is a Royal Navy light cruiser launched in 1938 and moored on the Thames near Tower Bridge as a museum ship of the Imperial War Museums. She served in the Second World War, including the Battle of North Cape and the Normandy landings, and later in the Korean War. Visitors walk through her decks, from the gun turrets and bridge to the mess decks and engine rooms.

The Victoria and Albert Museum is a national museum of art and design in South Kensington, founded in 1852. Its collection of more than 2.8 million objects spans 5,000 years: ceramics, glass, textiles, fashion, jewellery, furniture, sculpture, prints and photography. The Cromwell Road front with its crowned tower was designed by Aston Webb.

Regent's Park is a Royal Park of about 170 hectares in north-west central London, laid out in the early 19th century to designs by John Nash for the Prince Regent. It has a boating lake, Queen Mary's Gardens with their large rose collection, wide sports fields and an open-air theatre, and London Zoo occupies its northern edge.

The Science Museum is a national museum of science and technology on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, founded in 1857. Its galleries cover steam power, flight, space, computing and medicine, with objects such as the Apollo 10 command module, and the interactive Wonderlab gallery explains scientific principles through experiments.

The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall in South Kensington, opened by Queen Victoria in 1871 as part of the memorial to Prince Albert, with the Albert Memorial facing it across Kensington Gore. The oval, domed hall seats about 5,270 and has hosted the BBC Proms every summer since 1941. More than 390 shows a year take place in the main auditorium.

The Tower of London is a castle on the north bank of the Thames, founded after the Norman Conquest of 1066; its central keep, the White Tower, was built by William the Conqueror from 1078. Over the centuries a royal palace, prison, armoury and mint, it now displays the Crown Jewels and is home to the Yeoman Warders.

The Natural History Museum on Cromwell Road in South Kensington occupies a terracotta-clad building by Alfred Waterhouse, opened in 1881. Its collections hold some 80 million specimens in botany, entomology, mineralogy, palaeontology and zoology; a blue whale skeleton hangs in the vaulted central hall, and the galleries show dinosaur skeletons.

Tower Bridge is a bascule and suspension bridge over the Thames beside the Tower of London, designed by Horace Jones and John Wolfe Barry and opened in 1894. Its two 65-metre towers are joined by high-level walkways with glass floors, and the Victorian engine rooms that once powered the lifting roadway are open to visitors.

London Zoo lies on the northern edge of Regent's Park and was opened by the Zoological Society of London in 1828 as a collection for scientific study, admitting the public from 1847. It keeps more than 8,000 animals of over 300 species, and its grounds lie on both banks of the Regent's Canal.

Camden Market is a group of adjoining markets in Camden Town, north of Camden Lock on the Regent's Canal, partly housed in the former Pickfords stables. It grew from a small Sunday crafts market opened in 1974 into a complex of stalls and shops selling clothing, crafts, second-hand goods and street food from many countries.

Kensington Palace is a royal residence in Kensington Gardens, bought by William III and Mary II in 1689 and home to British monarchs until George II. Queen Victoria was born here in 1819. Members of the royal family still live in parts of the palace, while the State Rooms, with paintings from the Royal Collection, are open to visitors through Historic Royal Palaces.

The Design Museum in Kensington shows product, industrial, graphic, fashion and architectural design. Founded in 1989 by Sir Terence Conran at Shad Thames, it moved in 2016 into the former Commonwealth Institute, a listed 1960s building with a hyperbolic paraboloid roof, where the collection display Designer Maker User fills the top floor.

Stamford Bridge is the football stadium in Fulham, West London, where Chelsea FC has played its home matches since the club was founded in 1905. The ground opened in 1877 and was rebuilt as an all-seater stadium in the 1990s; it holds about 40,000 spectators, and stadium tours include entry to the Chelsea FC Museum.

The Emirates Stadium in Holloway, north London, has been the home ground of Arsenal Football Club since 2006 and seats about 60,700 spectators. It was built on a former industrial site at Ashburton Grove to replace the club's old Highbury ground. Stadium tours visit the home dressing room, the players' tunnel and the pitchside.

The Museum of Brands in Notting Hill shows the history of consumer culture from Victorian times to the present through more than 12,000 everyday items from the Robert Opie Collection, from packaging and posters to toys and games. Set up as a charity in 2002, it moved in 2015 to the former London Lighthouse building on Lancaster Road.

Kenwood House is a stately home on the northern edge of Hampstead Heath. Robert Adam remodelled the late 17th-century house from 1764 for William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, adding the library and the Ionic portico. Edward Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh, gave it to the nation in 1927 with his paintings by artists such as Rembrandt and Gainsborough.

Cutty Sark is a British clipper ship built at Dumbarton in 1869, one of the last tea clippers, which later carried wool from Australia. In dry dock at Greenwich since 1954, she was restored after a fire in 2007 and raised above a glass canopy, so visitors can walk her deck, explore the hold and stand beneath the hull.