The City of London on foot, Ludgate Hill to the Tower

The wall walk from Tower Hill to the Barbican

Give your first two hours to London Wall (Tower Hill to the Barbican). The ruins sit open at street level, waymarked end to end, with no gate and no ticket, and a steady stroll covers them in those two hours. Nothing else lays out the City's whole timeline this cheaply.

At Tower Hill a 30-metre stretch stands beside a bronze statue of Emperor Trajan, its Roman courses of ragstone and red tile sitting below the later medieval stonework. Noble Street holds the second good section. The walk finishes in the Barbican moat-garden, where the bastion ruins sit under brutalist concrete towers. Some of those bastions are fenced for restoration for now, and you will read them from behind hoarding.

Roman London under Bloomberg and Guildhall

London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE is the best 40 minutes of Roman London in the city. Timed sessions take a limited number of people down to the temple foundations, so book ahead. On the way down you pass a wall of 600 small Roman finds, including wooden writing tablets. It opens Tuesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sundays and bank holidays from noon to 5 p.m.

Guildhall Art Gallery & London's Roman Amphitheatre holds two sights in one building, both free, with optional advance tickets. The City paintings are upstairs, among them a vast canvas of a siege hung in a double-height gallery. In the basement the amphitheatre's black stone arena wall is the real thing, and green laser-drawn outlines of spectators extend it. It opens daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., last admission 4.45 p.m. Two civic closures fall in 2026, on 16 November and 7 December.

Ludgate Hill and the Monument

St Paul's Cathedral (Ludgate Hill) is the landmark the district is built around. Wren's grey lead dome and twin baroque west towers carry the view up the hill, and the black-and-white marble floor directly beneath the dome is where to stand before you start climbing. Entry is £27 for an adult, and that covers the crypt and all three dome galleries. A guided or self-guided multimedia tour comes with the ticket, and the climb ends 528 steps up on the exposed external stone balcony of the Golden Gallery.

Doors open at 8.30 a.m. from Monday to Saturday, and the last sightseeing entry is 4 p.m. Come at opening. Sundays carry no sightseeing, apart from the seasonal Dome Sundays gallery openings.

The Monument to the Great Fire of London marks where the 1666 fire started, and it gives the cheapest high view in London. A fluted Portland stone Doric column carries a gilded flaming urn, and the stair inside is a tight spiral of 311 steps with no lift at any point. You buy tickets on the door, and there is no advance booking. An adult pays £7, a child £3.50. Concessions are £5.30. It opens daily from 9.30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and again from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. The caged platform at the top looks straight down Fish Street Hill to the Thames.

Tower Hill and the ruins at St Dunstan

The Tower of London (Tower Hill) is technically a step over the eastern boundary, and it is still the defining sight. A white Norman keep stands inside concentric stone curtain walls and a dry moat, with ravens on the lawn and Tower Bridge rising behind the battlements. Yeoman Warders in dark blue-and-red Tudor undress uniform run free tours throughout the day; take one. Book a timed slot and go at opening, because the Crown Jewels queue is the worst part of the day. An adult ticket is £37, or £40 with the voluntary donation added.

St Dunstan-in-the-East Church Garden sits two minutes from the Tower, unticketed and free. The Blitz gutted the church, and climbing vines and fig trees have swallowed the Gothic walls and empty tracery windows, with a small fountain in the nave floor and Wren's pale steeple above. It is a tiny space. Go early, before the mid-morning hour when the ruins become a queue of photo shoots. The gates are open daily from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. or dusk.

Free views at 22 Bishopsgate and Philpot Lane

Horizon 22 (22 Bishopsgate) is Europe's highest free viewing platform and the better of the two free views for sheer height. Level 58 is bare floor-to-ceiling glass with no plants and no clutter, and the 300-degree view sets the Gherkin and the Cheesegrater far below you like models. Tickets release every Monday for the following 14 days and sell out in minutes. Set a Monday reminder. An audio guide and drinks are paid extras.

Sky Garden (Philpot Lane) tops the Walkie Talkie tower with a three-storey glass barrel vault, and terraced beds of tree ferns and bird of paradise flank the stairs. The open-air south terrace looks down on Tower Bridge and the Shard. Entry is free but never spontaneous: timed tickets drop weekly, three weeks ahead, and vanish fast. You go in by the separate Philpot Lane door, and your photo ID must match the booking. Free tickets cap at 10 per booking, so a larger party needs the dedicated group booking or a reservation in one of the bars or Fenchurch Restaurant. A booked table also gets you in once the free slots have gone.

Leadenhall Market and the Barbican highwalks

Leadenhall Market is a cream, maroon and green cast-iron arcade under a glazed barrel roof, its cross-shaped lane of shopfronts lit by hanging lanterns. The floor is cobbled and the ironwork carries gilded scrollwork. A market has traded here since the 14th century and this building dates from 1881; the lanes stood in as Diagon Alley on film. The public lanes are open around the clock. Come on a weekday, when the shops and pubs keep daytime and evening hours. Weekends leave the arcade shuttered.

The Barbican Centre is Europe's largest brutalist arts complex and a sight in its own right. Board-marked raw concrete towers and elevated walkways stand around a rectangular lake with fountains and lakeside terrace tables, and inside the foyers are orange-carpeted with curved concrete stairwells. Wandering the foyers, the lakeside terrace and the highwalks is free. Gallery and cinema tickets are paid. The Conservatory has no public opening dates on sale at the moment, and the whole centre closes for refurbishment from mid-2028.

Lunch and late dinner between Fleet Street and Cornhill

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese (off a narrow Fleet Street alley) was rebuilt right after the Great Fire of 1666, and the low-ceilinged warren inside has bare floorboards and an open coal fire with a wooden settle beside it. Steep stone stairs drop to a vaulted 13th-century cellar bar. It is a Samuel Smith's house, so the beer is all from that one brewery. Pints run £4 to £6 and pub food £15 to £25. The pub plays no music and bans phones and laptops. No table is held for anyone, so turn up and claim a room. It shuts on Sundays.

Cloth Cornhill (Ball Court alley off Cornhill) reopened on 1 October 2026 on a site that has carried a chophouse since 1757. The address traded as Simpson's Tavern until a 2022 rent dispute shut it for three years, and the Simpson's name could not be reused. The rooms are dark wood-panelled, with bow windows of small panes, original high-backed wooden booths and a brass-railed counter. Mains are £20 to £35. It takes bookings and keeps seven counter seats upstairs for walk-ins. Trade is weekdays only.

Sweetings (Queen Victoria Street) has stood on the street since 1889 and has barely changed. Two cramped rooms hold a mosaic-tiled floor, long mahogany counters and high wooden stools, and white-aproned waiters carry pewter tankards of Guinness past a chalkboard of fish. Order the potted shrimps or the fish pie, with a black velvet. Mains are £18 to £38. Lunch is weekdays only, 11.30 a.m. to 3 p.m., and then the doors shut. There are no reservations, ever. Two to four people who queue from 12.15 p.m. will eat, and a large group will not.

Duck & Waffle (40th floor, Heron Tower) runs 24 hours, seven days, and it is the only place in the district where a high-rise view comes with breakfast at 4 a.m. The dining room is glassed floor to ceiling, and clusters of blown-glass bubble lights hang over the bar. The signature plate is a confit duck leg on a waffle with a fried egg and mustard maple syrup. Mains are £20 to £40. Dress is smart casual and payment is by card only. Book a window table well ahead for sunset, and leave time for the lift queue at peak hours.

Sleeping inside the old banking hall

The Ned is the place to sleep inside the district, and the easiest Grade I-listed interior to see without a ticket. The former Midland Bank banking hall runs rows of green verdite columns around a central stage, where a jazz band plays to low-lit restaurant counters, and the original circular vault door still stands in the basement. Rooms start at £350 a night. Ten restaurants and bars share the building, and you can walk into any of them for a drink or dinner without a room key. The rooftop pool and the Ned's Club spaces are for members and selected hotel guests, so plan around that.

What to book and what shuts

Sunday thins the district out: St Paul's runs no sightseeing, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese is shut and the Leadenhall shopfronts stay closed. Book the Tower of London, Horizon 22, Sky Garden and the Mithraeum before you travel, and leave the Monument for a walk-up.

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