How to Get to London from Amsterdam

Discover London

London is the capital of the United Kingdom and one of the most visited cities in the world — a metropolis of around 9 million people spread across 32 boroughs on either side of the Thames. It is an old city that has reinvented itself repeatedly: Roman Londinium, medieval trading port, the centre of a global empire, bombed-out post-war capital, and now a genuinely cosmopolitan city where over 300 languages are spoken and roughly a third of residents were born outside the UK. That layering of history and culture is visible at street level in a way that few cities match. How far is London from me?

The historic set pieces are concentrated in a remarkably compact area. The Tower of London, a fortress that has served as a royal palace, prison, and execution site since 1078, sits on the north bank of the Thames beside Tower Bridge. Westminster Abbey, where almost every English monarch since 1066 has been crowned and buried, is a short walk from the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. Buckingham Palace is the working residence of the monarch. The British Museum, free to enter, holds one of the world’s great collections of human history — Egyptian mummies, the Elgin Marbles, the Rosetta Stone — and could absorb a full day without effort. The National Gallery on Trafalgar Square is also free, with one of the best collections of European painting anywhere.

Beyond the landmarks, London’s character lives in its neighbourhoods. Shoreditch and Hackney in the East End have been the centre of the city’s creative and tech scenes for two decades — street art, independent restaurants, and music venues in old warehouses. Borough Market, under the railway arches south of London Bridge, is the best food market in the city and possibly in Europe. Notting Hill, best known internationally for the film, is genuinely worth visiting for Portobello Road on a Saturday morning. Camden is louder and more chaotic, with market stalls, live music, and canal walks. South Bank — the stretch of riverside between Waterloo and Tower Bridge — is the cultural spine of modern London, lined with the Tate Modern, the Globe Theatre, the Hayward Gallery, and the BFI.

London’s theatre scene is the best in the English-speaking world. The West End — concentrated around Shaftesbury Avenue and Covent Garden — runs long-running musicals alongside serious drama and transfers from the National Theatre on South Bank. Same-day TKTS tickets in Leicester Square offer significant discounts on many shows. The Barbican and the Roundhouse host contemporary music, film, and performance. The city’s live music history is vast — from the 100 Club on Oxford Street, where the Sex Pistols and The Clash played in 1976, to the O2 Arena, now one of the highest-grossing concert venues on earth.

Getting around London is straightforward once you have an Oyster card or set up contactless payment on your phone. The London Underground (the Tube) covers most of central and inner London with 11 lines; the Elizabeth line, opened in 2022, cuts across the entire city east to west in minutes and has transformed journey times between Heathrow, Paddington, the City, and Canary Wharf. Most of the major sights in Zones 1 and 2 are walkable from each other — the distance from St Paul’s Cathedral to Tate Modern is a 10-minute walk across the Millennium Bridge. From Amsterdam, the Eurostar arrives at St Pancras International, which connects directly to the Tube (Piccadilly, Victoria, Northern, Thameslink, and Southeastern lines).