The British Museum is the oldest public museum in the world and a treasure trove of objects from all over the globe. In more than 200 years, the museum has built up a collection of over six million objects. There is everything from mummies to Ming. Highlights include the Elgin Marbles, Egyptian mummies, Rosetta Stone and the Mildenhall Treasure. There are extensive collections of Greek, Roman and Egyptian antiquities, plus coins and medals, and prints and drawings. The recently opened Great Court has transformed the Museum by covering the inner courtyard with a glass and steel roof. It houses new galleries and a restaurant and a dynamic new public piazza.

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The Imperial War Museum is the National Museum of 20th-century conflict on the home front and in the front line and covers everything from the two World Wars to the Falklands and Bosnia. In the huge entrance hall, six famous aircraft are on display, including a Battle of Britain Spitfire. Rising dramatically from the floor are a German V2 rocket and a Polaris missile. The Blitz Experience invites visitors to find out what it was like to be a Londoner in 1940 in an air-raid. The Trench Experience shows what life was really like in the trenches during the First World War.

The Holocaust Exhibition includes an outstanding collection of original documents, artefacts, film and photographs to illustrate the story of the Nazis’ genocidal programme. It concentrates on the plight of the Jews but also tells the story of Gypsies, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, people with disabilities, homosexuals and prisoners of conscience in the wide ranging persecution. Exhibits include the letters of an eight-year old French-Jewish boy who hid in an orphanage before his betrayal and deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau, shoes and clothes of the camp prisoners and a model depicting events at Auschwitz-Birkenau in May/June 1944. The video testimony of survivors serves to remind visitors of the reality of this historical event.

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The Jewish Museum in Camden has a magnificent collection of artifacts relating to Jewish culture and information on the history of the Jews in Britain. Highlights include wedding rings, highly decorated marriage contracts and a 16th-century Italian synagogue ark. The museum has been awarded Designated status for the quality of its collections.

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London's Transport Museum tells the story of London and its famous transport system from 1800 to the present day. There are displays of buses, trams and trains plus the very latest in interactive displays.

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The Museum of London illustrates over 2,000 years of London's social history, from prehistoric times to the 20th Century. On display are reconstructed Victorian shops and the Great Fire Experience, which shows how fire destroyed more than three quarters of the city and many of its churches, including St Paul’s Cathedral. There are lots of famous exhibits including the fabulous gilded Lord Mayor’s Coach a Roman horse skeleton, a glittering hoard of Elizabethan jewellery and grim 18th-century prison cells, complete with prisoner graffiti.

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The National Army Museum tells the story of the British soldier in peace and war, through five centuries. You can learn why the British soldier wore his red coat (so that the blood would not show) and that for hundreds of years the weapons were so inaccurate it didn’t matter if the enemy could see where you were! The archers of Agincourt and modern peacekeepers are all featured and you can experience what it was like to be bombarded in a First World War trench and see the meagre wartime rations. Among the exhibits on display is the lamp used by Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War, the skeleton of Wellington’s horse, a large section of the Berlin Wall and regulation underwear (enormous bloomers nick-named passion killers) worn by the women’s army in the early 20th century.

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The National Maritime Museum displays Britain’s seafaring history and looks at exploration and discovery, military power, trade and empire, luxury liners, Nelson and costume. Nearby the museum is the Royal Observatory Greenwich, where Greenwich Mean Time starts and Queen's House, the first classical-style house in England designed by Inigo Jones.

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The Natural History Museum contains hundreds of exciting interactive exhibits with sections on ecology and the animal world. Highlights include the Earthquake Experience, the Earth Galleries which tell the story of our planet and the Dinosaur Gallery. You can see creepy crawlies magnified hundreds of times, hear the roar of a dinosaur, explore the world of mammals, learn more about human biology and see the huge diplodocus skeleton.

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The Royal Air Force Museum is Britain’s National Museum of Aviation and features over 70 full size aircraft, a flight simulator, ‘Touch and Try’ Jet Provost Trainer and Eurofighter 2000 Theatre.

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The Science Museum holds the world’s most comprehensive collections of science, technology, industry and medicine. Learn about space flight, or find out about steam locomotives and the world’s first aeroplanes. Charles Babbage’s calculating machine, Stephenson’s Rocket and the Apollo 10 command module that made the first manned flight around the moon are all on display. There is a special interactive gallery for children called Launch Pad, where you can build a bridge and fly a plane. The Challenge of Materials Gallery shows how a dress can be made out of metal, shoes out of chocolate and a coffin out of Bakelite!

The Science Museum now has a dynamic new section called the Wellcome Wing. It contains exhibitions presenting the latest ideas and issues in science and technology. Larger exhibitions are found on the upper floors exploring contemporary scientific issues, such as the latest developments in biomedical science. The exhibitions are regularly updated and are ‘hands-on’, allowing visitors to engage directly with contemporary science and technology.

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The Theatre Museum illustrates the history of performance in the UK and includes displays on theatre, ballet, dance and music. There is an unusual programme of special events like workshops on stage make-up and costume.

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The Victoria and Albert Museum is the world’s finest museum of decorative arts. Throughout the museum, there are collections dating from 3000 BC including furniture, textiles, paintings, ceramics, sculpture, jewellery, silver, books, prints and photographs. Particularly beautiful are the glass gallery, with its stunning glass staircase, the new silver gallery with its superbly-made artefacts in precious metal, and the dress collection. The Canon Photography Gallery shows part of the museum’s wonderful collection of photographs from the 19th century to the present.

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The Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum shows how fashions have changed for on-court wear over the years and how the game has grown from the elite lawns of the upper classes to the sport it is today. New additions include the dresses of Anna Kournikova and Venus Williams.

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The Courtauld Institute Gallery contains the finest collection of Impressionist paintings in Britain as well as masterpieces by Botticelli, Goya, Rubens and Tiepolo. Among the great works represented are Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergere and Van Gogh’s Self Portrait with a bandaged ear.

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Tate Modern is the largest and one of the foremost museums of modern and contemporary art in the world. It houses the Tate’s collection of modern art with work ranging from Andy Warhol to Rachel Whiteread and Henri Matisse to Henry Moore, with displays arranged into four themes; landscape, still life, the nude and history paintings.

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Buckingham Palace is open to the public from August-September. Visitors can tour the State Rooms, including the Throne Room, Picture Gallery and State Dining Room. These principal rooms, which form the backdrop to the pageantry of court ceremonial and official entertaining, occupy the west front overlooking the garden and are all opulently decorated with some of the finest pictures, tapestries and works of art from the Royal Collection.

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Hampton Court Palace is the oldest Tudor palace in England with many attractions including the State Apartments, the famous maze, King's Apartments, Tudor kitchens and real tennis courts.

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During August and September there are guided tours at the Houses of Parliament. Visitors can see The Queen's Robing Room, The Royal Gallery, The Prince's Chamber, the Chamber of the House of Lord's, the Central Lobby, House of Commons, Members Lobby, Division Lobby, St Stephens Hall and Westminster Hall.

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At Kew Gardens there are 300 acres containing living collections of over 40,000 varieties of plants. There are also seven spectacular glasshouses, two art galleries and Japanese and rock garden.

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The London Aquarium features hundreds of varieties of fish and sealife from around the world. It's the only place in London where visitors can come face to face with sharks, gigantic conger eels and deadly stone fish. There are daily talks, dives and feeds. Visitors can meet piranhas, stroke stingrays and touch starfish and crabs.

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At 135 metres high, the London Eye is the world's highest observation wheel. It provides a 30-minute, slow-moving 'flight' over London, offering fantastic panoramic views.

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London Zoo is one of the world's most famous zoos and home to over 600 species of rare and beautiful animals, including tigers, venomous snakes, penguins and piranhas. Due to the foot and mouth outbreak the children’s zoo is closed. Please do not visit London Zoo if you have been in contact with farm animals within the last seven days.

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At Madame Tussaud's, the world-renowned collection of was figures, you can mingle with the famous in themed settings which include The Garden Party, 200 years, Hollywood Legends and Superstars, The Grand Hall, The Chamber of Horrors and Sporting Heroes. The Spirit of London is a time-taxi ride to experience a unique taste of London's history brought to life with audio-animatronics, from Shakespearean England to the present day.

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Rock Circus tells the story of rock and pop music from the 1950s to the present day, using spectacular robotic figures, lasers and videos.

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St. Paul's Cathedral is one of the world's most famous cathedrals, designed by Sir Christopher Wren. Visitors can climb into the whispering gallery for its special audio effects and magnificent views of the interior. The crypt houses memorials to famous figures, such as Lord Nelson.

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Westminster Abbey, one of Britain's finest Gothic buildings, is the scene of coronations, marriages and burials of British monarchs. Visitors can see the coronation chair, royal tombs and the grave of the unkown warrior.

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