London 5-Day Getaway

London in the fall is beautiful. Here's how to get the most out of the city with a 5-day getaway.

It doesn't sound like a lot of time, but spending 5 days in one city is actually the best way to experience what the city has to offer. London may sound like a crazy "long weekend" idea, but with direct overnight flights and just a 6-hour time difference, it's actually easy to navigate with a little bit of planning.

We were 3 couples on this trip who wanted to experience all of the "big" sights of London, but didn't want to spend 8 hours a day in museums. We decided to break up our sightseeing into tours each morning and then in the afternoons we were free to wander the city, shop, and explore. We decided on specific tours we wanted to do and then worked with the concierge at our hotel to find our tour guide, Alex, that would be with us each morning. He was amazing and I highly recommend contacting him if you're heading to London!

Here's a quick itinerary we created for our 3 full days of sight-seeing. We based our tours on the neighborhoods in London so we weren't spending time criss-crossing the city each day.

• Day 1: Westminster Abbey and Churchill War Rooms - We started with the Westminster Abbey, which has amazing history and so many famous people interred there - we had no idea! It was a rainy day, but after the tour we walked past Big Ben and made our way over to the Churchill War Rooms. This was one of our favorite tours - everything is preserved as it was right after WWII. Our tour guide Alex purchased tickets in advance for both tours, so we did not have to wait in any lines. If you are touring on your own, make sure to purchase tickets in advance to avoid waiting in line. After lunch, we spent the afternoon shopping and walking around. At a pub in the late afternoon, we met a couple who recommended a jazz club called Ronnie Scott's. The club was sold out with a Prince/James Brown tribute band, but they let us in for the late show and it was a blast - highly recommend!
  

• Day 2: Tower of London/Crown Jewels and Thames River Cruise - Since the Tower of London is on the east side, we thought it would be a good idea to start at the tower and work our way back on the river. It was a good plan - after the river cruise we ate lunch and then headed over to the Covent Garden neighborhood for a special shopping trip to find a bookstore called Tenderbooks that happened to have a copy of a skateboarding "magazine" that my husband and his cousin wrote when they were 12 years old (the store had purchased a box of skateboarding memorabilia from CA and one of the items was the skateboarding magazine!). That evening after dinner we went to one of London's secret clubs, Meraki. It has a restaurant and bar on the main floor, but downstairs is a club where we had so much fun!
  

• Day 3: British Museum - Originally we wanted to see the National Gallery, but the concierge recommended the British Museum instead and we were not disappointed! The museum has the Rosetta Stone which was amazing to see and our tour guide was helpful by showing us the main attractions in the museum. You could spend a week in the museum and not see everything, but we felt like we saw a lot in our short time there. In the afternoon, we went to the Camden Market which was very crowded but filled with tons of restaurants and shops. We visited the Roundhouse where many famous bands have played, and of course stopped at Abbey Road for the quintessential picture!

Where We Stayed: The Langham London (1C Portland Place) in the West End neighborhood. It was perfectly located in the city and we walked everywhere. The concierge, Dayvid, was beyond helpful and so wonderful before and during our stay - we had a great experience with their entire staff. We had breakfast at the hotel each morning before our tours, and we had amazing cocktails in their gorgeous bar, Artesian. They also helped us arrange transportation to and from the airport.

Where We Ate: There are so many restaurants in London it's hard to pick a favorite, but here were some of our top picks:

• Franco's - traditional Italian, great food and cocktails

• Meraki - Awesome Mediterranean food, amazing service

• Skylon - overlooking Thames river, nice stop after river cruise

• Wigmore - English pub atmosphere, unique menu options

With 3 full days of sightseeing plus arrival/travel days, we all felt like we were able to experience the best of London, but we will definitely be back!