Head to Trafalgar Square in the centre and not only will you get the statues and fountains, but also the National Gallery (020 7747 2885, www.nationalgallery.org.uk) and the National Portrait Gallery (020 7306 0055, www.npg.org.uk). South-west of Nelson’s Column, walk through the elaborate Admiralty Arch to reach Green Park, St James’s Park and Buckingham Palace. The essential sights of Big Ben and Parliament are within walking distance. About a five-minutes walk up Charing Cross Road from Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square and the West End teem with theatres, bars and good shopping. This area is also the home of the endlessly fascinating British Museum (Great Russell Street, WC1, 020 7636 1555, www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk). Along the river, the area around the London Eye, (Westminster Bridge Road, SE1, 0870 500 0600, www.ba-londoneye.com), which has since 2000 made itself a much-loved part of London’s skyline, is known as the South Bank, and it holds numerous cultural centres. Back across the river, the area to the east is the financial sector, universally known as ‘the City’; its business-like mood leavened only by the classically beautiful lines of St Paul’s Cathedral (Ludgate Hill, EC4, 020 7236 4128). Further east still, Greenwich is the centre of London’s maritime legacy, with a museum, an observatory and the Cutty Sark. If animals are your thing, head to London Zoo (Regent’s Park, NW1, 020 7722 3333, www.londonzoo.co.uk). If you prefer your animals stuffed, try the Natural History Museum (Cromwell Road, SW7, 020 7942 5000, www.nhm.ac.uk). If your interests are more gruesome, the excellent London Dungeon (28-34 Tooley Street, SE1, 020 7403 7221, www.thedungeons.com), fillets the city’s history with much enthusiasm, or you could linger over the voodoo dolls at the Horniman Museum (100 London Road, SE23, 020 8699 1872, www.horniman.ac.uk). If your interests are more medieval, visit the Tower of London (Tower Hill, EC3, 0870 756 6060, www.hrp.org.uk) and Henry VIII’s old home at Hampton Court Palace (East Molesey, Surrey KT8, 0870 752 7777, www.hrp.org.uk) The Tate Britain (Millbank, SW1, 020 7887 8000, www.tate.org.uk) houses London’s second great collection of art. For the modernists and postmodernists out there, though, there’s the first-rate Tate Modern (Bankside, SE1).

Local history

After plague, fire, revolution and WWII bombings London’s still here – a true survivor. In September 1940 hundreds of German bombers dropped their loads of high explosives on east London and the docks, destroying entire streets. By the end of the war a third of the City and the East End was ruined. But by 1948 the city had recovered sufficiently to host the Olympics – an honour to be repeated again in 2012 in the heart of East London.

Local politics

Although overshadowed to a degree by the events of July 7 2005, London’s successful bid will bring the Olympic Games back to the UK for the first time since 1948 – transforming the social, architectural and sporting landscape of the capital.