Best Tourist Attractions To Visit When Traveling To London

The great city of London remains a must see city destination for all backpackers traveling around Europe. England's capital has an extremely rich and ancient history and offers more great visitor attractions than perhaps any other city in Western Europe. London remains the centre of media attention across the world and is famous for typifying new cool trends and innovations with its hundreds of highly diverse modern, fashionable bars and restaurants serving a variety of food, beers and wines from a huge number of countries and cultural influences across the globe. As well as its passion for the modern and cutting edge however, London also has some of the oldest and grandest visitor attractions in the world - making the city the perfect meeting place of the old and the new.

Perhaps not surpringly, the British royal family are a major tourist draw for travelers and backpackers of all ages visiting London, and her majesty Queen Elizabeth the second's current residence at Buckingham Palace is an essential place to visit when making your first trip to London. This fantastically grandeur palace has been the main home of the royals since 1837, and is now well known as the main HQ for the residing British monarchy and her family. Although entering the palace requires special invitation, it is worth going to visit it to see the beauty of the architecture of the building itself, and to soak up some quintessentially British culture and history. While you are at Buckingham Palace, you should also stick around to see the changing of the guard. This highly regimented and ceremonious tradition is quite something to behold.

If your visit to the palace has wet your appetite for more rich English history then you must surely take a trip in to Westminster to see the Houses of Parliament where the British government and members of parliament debated the ins and outs of British politics. This incredible architectural wonder lies on the north bank of London's famous river: the Thames and is truely an epic site to behold for any traveler. It encompasses both the house of commons and house of Lords which are central to Britain's political system. The famous Victoria Tower of the building houses Westminsters famous bells including the vast great bell (more commonly referred to as Big Ben) - weighing a massive 16 tons. The clock tower itself is said to be the largest free standing clock tower of its kind in the world and this year celebrated its 150th year in the month of May.

From the old to the new: while you are in the centre of Westminster you should take a short walk along the famous bridge to visit the London Eye. This huge wheel provides spectacular views across the famous city and can be a beautiful and romantic place to visit with your partner on a summer evening. Towering at 135 metres at its peak, the Eye lays claim to being the biggest ferris wheel in all of Europe and at the time it was built just before the turn of the millennium was in fact the tallest in the whole world. The London Eye has 32 passenger pods - 1 for each of London's Boroughs - and has an individual capacity of 25 people. As you can imagine, this is an extremely popular visitor attraction for travelers and UK tourists alike - so book early to avoid the disappointment of missing out.