This four-day first-visit itinerary is for London and keeps Westminster, the City, Bloomsbury and Greenwich on separate days. Four days will not cover every neighbourhood, museum or theatre. Keep unscheduled time for meals, rest and an extra nearby stop without changing the rest of the route.
The days are arranged by geography rather than by fame. The ceremonial centre and the eastern fortress may share a chapter in a guidebook, but they do not make a pleasant single walk. Keep them apart.
Day 1
Begin in Westminster, but approach its grand buildings through something softer. At Buckingham Palace, take time with the ironwork, the memorial and the scale of the forecourt. The State Rooms are not an everyday attraction: the main public opening is seasonal, with selected tours on other dates. If your visit does not coincide, the exterior still makes a strong opening scene. Check the official palace calendar before paying for anything or building the morning around a ceremony.
From the palace, return through the park rather than following the busiest road. This is a good hour to resist the urge to hurry simply because so many famous names are close together.
Make Westminster Abbey the main interior of the day. Its attraction is not a single object. It is the accumulation: worn memorials, side chapels, carved stone, centuries of public ceremony and private grief pressed into one building. Allow enough time to visit the main spaces and side chapels. The Abbey is a working church and can close at short notice, so read its live entry calendar the evening before. If it is closed, do not spend the day chasing a substitute across town. Stay outside, study the west front and give more time to the streets and river nearby.
Cross Parliament Square and walk along the edge of the Palace of Westminster. The building is easiest to understand in pieces: the dark stone at pavement level, rows of windows, the river frontage and finally Elizabeth Tower rising above the traffic. Step onto Westminster Bridge and turn around halfway.
End on the South Bank. There is no need to add another ticket. Walk until dinner sounds better than sightseeing, then stop.
Day 2
Start at the Tower of London if royal power, armour and imprisonment matter more to you than cathedral architecture. This is a place that can absorb a full morning; arriving early gives the courtyards and walls a little breathing room before the busiest part of the day. If the Tower interior is not your priority, see the outer walls from the riverside and begin walking. Allow it to be one or the other; a quick photograph before another long admission queue sells the place short.
Cross Tower Bridge on foot. Pause on the south side, where the older fortress and newer glass skyline occupy the same view. Turn west and keep the river nearby. Warehouses, railway arches and narrow lanes interrupt the water often enough that the walk never becomes a straight promenade.
Arrive hungry at Borough Market. The market is normally closed on Mondays, and opening patterns change around holidays. If your second day falls on a Monday, eat elsewhere nearby and keep the route. The river walk still holds together without the market.
Continue west to the Millennium Bridge. Once across, you are in the City of London, where church towers, office entrances and fragments of medieval street plan sit unusually close together. Look up as often as you look at the map. The sharpest contrasts tend to be overhead.
Finish at St Paul’s Cathedral. If you chose the Tower interior, let the cathedral be an exterior encounter: circle the churchyard, watch the dome appear and disappear between buildings, and save the galleries for another visit. If St Paul’s is the interior you care about most, reverse the day. Book the cathedral for the morning, cross the Millennium Bridge, eat at Borough Market and reach the Tower area later for the walls and bridge. That reversal keeps the walk intact and gives the cathedral the hours it deserves.
Day 3
Go first to the British Museum, while your attention is fresh. Entry to the permanent collection is free. The museum advises booking a free timed ticket for priority at busy periods, although walk-up entry is possible. Once inside, choose a small number of galleries rather than attempting a conquest. Two rooms remembered clearly are worth more than forty crossed off at speed.
The museum’s central court makes a natural pause between collections. Its glass roof throws a changing lattice of light across the pale stone, and the circular reading-room building gives the space a strong centre. This is also an honest place to listen to fatigue. Museum tiredness can arrive before lunchtime, even when the objects are extraordinary.
Walk south to Seven Dials. This part of London rewards an unplanned hour. You can hear a musician, browse a bookshop, sit over coffee or simply watch the streets fill towards evening. None of those choices needs to become a recommendation for everyone else.
If you do not, the evening still has a shape: museum, streets, food, then a slow walk back through the lights.
Day 4
Give the final day to Greenwich. If the weather is kind, arrive by river boat. Westminster recedes, bridges pass overhead and the city’s history becomes a sequence along the banks instead of a tangle underground. Trains are faster and useful in poor weather, but the boat provides something the first three days cannot: distance from the centre and a clear sense of how London grew around its river.
If ships and maritime trade interest you, make this the day’s paid interior. The most memorable view is underneath: the copper-coloured hull hangs above the glazed dock, exposing the shape that once moved through water. If clocks and navigation matter more, admire the ship outside and continue uphill. Stop at Greenwich Market for lunch, where the covered lanes offer a compact break before the wider lawns and formal buildings ahead.
Walk through the riverside courts of the Old Royal Naval College. The twin domes frame an intentional gap towards the Queen’s House, a piece of city planning that becomes obvious only when you stand in the middle of it. The route then rises through Greenwich Park. Turn around during the climb.
The official site recommends booking ahead to guarantee entry, and current access notices can affect parts of the historic buildings, so check again shortly before the visit. Otherwise, let the park and viewpoint be enough.
If there is still energy and daylight, travel east for the London Cable Car. It is optional; Greenwich works without it. Staying for another park walk or an early dinner can be the better choice, especially after four full days.
Leaving with one place already in mind for next time is a fine result.
If you want a mapped starting point to adjust around your own interests, explore this similar four-day London itinerary on Rooutie.
