This is an area of contrasts with some of London’s most visited sights within its boundaries. Its character dramatically changes within the space of a few streets, from bookshops to street markets, from residential to retail and from busy and vibrant to genteel and peaceful.
Covent Garden is the site of London’s former wholesale fruit and vegetable market, now located south of the Thames. After its move the whole area took on a new character and visitors flock to its shops, market stalls, bars, cafés and restaurants. It is a top spot for free street entertainment – on any one day you might hear a talented violinist, watch a clown, see magic tricks or stop to gaze at one of the living’ statues.
West of Covent Garden are Chinatown and Soho, a hive of activity, full of restaurants, bars and clubs. Just a few minutes’ travel to the north and you are in the sedate and genteel Bloomsbury. The houses are elegant, the atmosphere literate. Here the finest of collections is housed at the British Museum. To the west are more fine buildings and attractions including MadameTussauds waxworks and famous paintings in the Wallace Collection.
BRITISH MUSEUM
Best places to see
CARTOON MUSEUM
Spend a chuckle-inducing hour at this collection of original cartoons and caricatures, cartoon strips and comics. On display are over 250 original cartoons, caricatures and comics by top cartoonists and leading artists from the past. There is a reference library open by appointment with some 4,000 books on cartoons, as well as a collection of 2,500 comics, and the museum hosts regular cartoon-related events. A room on the top floor provides youngsters with paper, crayons and tips on cartooning.
Map Reference 15L 
35 Little Russell Street 
020 7580 8155 
Tue–Sat 10:30–5:30, Sun 12–5:30 
Moderate 
Holborn, Tottenham Court Road
COVENT GARDEN
Best places to see.
LONDON TRANSPORT MUSEUM
From the sedan chairs of 1800 to the World Cities Gallery, showing how urban populations commute in the 21st century, the story here is about social history, technology and transport. See how the world’s first underground railway was built in London, watch film footage of women, who kept the buses and tube running during World War II, and peer at the original design for the tube map, drawn by Harry Beck in 1933. The stars of the museum are the historic vehicles, from a horse-drawn bus to a steam-driven train that ran underground, and from a 1904 taxi to a number 11 red doubledecker bus. Children will love to climb aboard a trolley or a tram, and to ‘drive’ a Jubilee Line Tube train on the simulator.
Map Reference 16J Covent Garden 020 7379 6344 Sat–Thu 10–6 (last admission 5:15), Fri 11–6 Moderate Covent Garden, Charing Cross
