River, Rooms & Real Ale

Drop your bags at your hotel and get your bearings. A central location on the South Bank or near Waterloo puts you within easy reach of the whole first day's route.

Spend the morning here and you'll understand why this is one of the great museums in the country. The vast atrium holds full-scale aircraft and artillery, while the permanent galleries move through the World Wars with rare personal testimony and immersive reconstructions. Allow at least two hours — the Holocaust Galleries alone demand unhurried attention.

A short walk north to Waterloo brings you to Franco Manca, where slow-proved sourdough bases come out of the wood-fired oven blistered and chewy in equal measure. It's a focused menu done with real conviction — the kind of lunch that keeps you going all afternoon.

Head east along the riverside path, past the Tate Modern and the Globe, then cross Blackfriars or Millennium Bridge onto the north bank. The Thames at a walking pace is London at its most legible — bridges, barges, and the city skyline shifting with every bend.

Once across the river, make time for this collection of authenticated Banksy works. The pieces range from small-format prints to large canvases, and the presentation invites you to look properly rather than scroll past. A good counterpoint to the morning's weightier history.

End the day as Fleet Street journalists have done for centuries — at the Cheshire Cheese on Wine Office Court. The warren of low-ceilinged rooms and the fire crackling in the grate make it one of the most atmospheric pubs in London. Order a pint of whatever cask ale is on and settle in.

Start day two with an exterior circuit of the Palace of Westminster, where the gothic stonework and the Victoria Tower are best appreciated in the morning light before the crowds build. If tours are running, booking ahead secures access to the chamber interiors — a genuinely stirring piece of living constitutional history.

A few minutes' walk from Parliament, the Cinnamon Club occupies a converted Victorian library in Westminster. The modern Indian cooking is precise and confident — spicing that builds without overwhelming, and service that matches the room's elegance. A market lunch here feels like a proper occasion.

The afternoon belongs to the V&A. The scale of the permanent collection — fashion, furniture, ceramics, jewellery, ironwork — means you can spend three hours and still feel you've only turned the first page. Pick two or three galleries that genuinely interest you rather than trying to cover everything: the Cast Courts and the Silver Galleries are reliably extraordinary.

The tube from South Kensington to Bond Street takes under ten minutes, putting you in the heart of Mayfair with time to spare before dinner.

Goodman in Mayfair has built its reputation on dry-aged beef and the conviction that a great steak needs very little else. The dining room is warm without being fussy, and the wine list has enough depth to make the choosing part of the evening. A fine way to close out two days of serious London.