You arrive at Heathrow, or Gatwick, or St Pancras (the Eurostar, the most civilised way to travel, the champagne bar at the station, the train sliding out of the Gare du Nord, the 2 hours and 16 minutes from the centre of Paris to the centre of London, and the arrival under the cast-iron roof of the most beautiful railway station in Britain), and London hits you: the noise, the pace, the sheer volume of the city (9 million people, more than Scotland and Wales combined, packed into 1,572 km², and every one of them appears to be on the Tube at the same time as you). The temptation is to do everything, and the result, if you try, is that you will enjoy nothing. London cannot be done in a single visit. London is a city that rewards the repeat visitor, the slow walker, and the traveller who treats the city not as a checklist but as a relationship, one that deepens over time. Here is how to do London in three stages.

Three Stages of London

• Stage One: The First-Time Visitor (the Icons): This is the London of the postcards and the souvenir mugs, and it is magnificent. Day one: the Westminster Walk (Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the coronation church, the burial place of 17 monarchs, and the Poets’ Corner, where Chaucer, Dickens, and Tennyson are buried and Shakespeare, Austen, and the Brontës are commemorated. Entry: ~£29, expensive, and worth it), then across Westminster Bridge to the London Eye (the 32 capsules, the 30-minute revolution, the view of London, the river, the Houses of Parliament, and the distant hills of the North Downs and the Chilterns. ~£33, book a timed ticket). Day two: Buckingham Palace (the Changing of the Guard, 11am on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, the bearskin hats, the brass band, and the most famous piece of military theatre in the world. Free, and the crowd is enormous, arrive by 10am for a view), St James’s Park (the pelicans, the lake, and the most beautiful view of the Palace from the bridge), and the Churchill War Rooms (the underground bunker where Winston Churchill and his War Cabinet directed the Second World War, the Map Room preserved exactly as it was left in August 1945, the telephone connecting Churchill to Roosevelt, and the sense of the claustrophobia, the tension, and the extraordinary burden of leadership. ~£30, book ahead. Allow 2 hours). Day three: the Tower of London (as above, ¥33) and Tower Bridge (the glass floor in the high-level walkways, the view of the river, and the Victorian engine rooms that powered the bridge. ~£13). The three-day budget for the first stage: ~£140 in attractions. The reward: you have seen the London of the postcards. Now you can begin to see London
• Stage Two: The Return Visitor (the Neighbourhoods): You have done the icons. Now do the city. Spend a day in a neighbourhood you have never heard of and do nothing that appears in a guidebook. The essential neighbourhoods for the second-stage visitor: Hampstead (the village on the hill, the Heath, the Flask pub, the 17th-century coaching inn, the fireplace, and the regulars who have been drinking here for 40 years. The walk from Hampstead to Highgate via the Heath, 3 miles, the pergola, the view, and the Highgate Cemetery: the West Cemetery, the Egyptian Avenue, and the tomb of Karl Marx. The guided tour, ~£12, is the essential experience). Notting Hill (ignore Portobello Road on a Saturday, the antiques market, the crowds, and the experience of walking at 0.2 mph, and go on a weekday, when the road is quiet, the shops are open, and the neighbourhood, the pastel houses, the mews, and the extraordinary wealth, reveals itself at a human pace). Shoreditch and the East End (the Brick Lane bagels, the Beigel Bake, the salt beef bagel with mustard, the queue at 3am, the best post-club food in Europe, and the street art: the murals, the stencils, the giant works that cover entire buildings, the most important collection of street art in the world, constantly changing). And Greenwich (the Prime Meridian, the Cutty Sark, the last surviving tea clipper, the fastest ship of her era, the beauty of the hull, and the Royal Observatory)
• Stage Three: The Londoner (the Secret City): You have been to London three times. You know the Tube map by heart, you have your favourite pub, and you have started to become a little bit possessive about the city. Now discover the things the tourists never find. The hidden gardens (the St Dunstan in the East, a Wren church bombed in the Blitz, the ruins turned into a public garden, the palms growing through the Gothic windows, the benches, the silence, the City workers eating their sandwiches. Free. Between Monument and Tower Hill. The Chelsea Physic Garden, the oldest botanic garden in London, 1673, the medicinal plants, the glasshouses, and the most peaceful corner of Chelsea. ~£12), the secret bars (the Mayor of Scaredy Cat Town, a cocktail bar hidden behind a Smeg refrigerator door in a breakfast restaurant on Artillery Lane, the password is “I’m here to see the Mayor”), and the riverside pub at sunset (the Prospect of Whitby in Wapping, the 1520 pub, the pewter-topped bar, the gallows on the riverbank where the executed pirates were displayed, and the view of the Thames. Charles Dickens drank here. Samuel Pepys drank here. And now you drink here, a pint of London Pride, the river sliding past, and the feeling that after three visits, the city has finally let you in)