The Piccadilly Line — The Best 5 Spots Along The Dark Blue Tube Line
The Piccadilly Line is not only a great tube service, but also a great way to explore the city from the surface, simply using the stops as a template. If you get on at any of the Piccadilly Line stops, you can see some of London’s best attractions at each stop. Just choose which one is most attractive and then either walk or bike the Piccadilly route and notice not only how the city fits together, but often how close different stops are to each other.
Piccadilly Circus
Of course, we start at Piccadilly Circus, which is not only home to some excellent Piccadilly Circus hotels, but also a wealth of entertainment and activities. Here you’ll have the chance to see the famous LED-lit billboards that have been a London attraction for a hundred years and a historically significant starting point for the world of advertising in London, but also in the UK as a whole. At #1 Piccadilly Circus, you’ll find the Body Worlds Museum, which has taken the place of the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum, which was there from 2008 to 2017 — certainly a good inning! Now in its place is an equally remarkable museum that offers visitors to London the chance to see how their own bodies work.
Address: 1 Piccadilly Circus, West End, London W1J 0DA
Leicester Square
A few steps down the street from Piccadilly Circus you’ll find Leicester Square, which has been London’s theater hotspot since 1670 and has been putting on great shows every night of the week ever since. Perfect for a meal, a show, or a meal and a show, Leicester Square forms the epicenter of what is affectionately called London’s “Theaterland.” Some shows currently running include (but are not limited to): Phantom of the Opera, The Book of Mormon, Mrs. Doughtfire, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Wicked, Moulin Rouge, and more. If you’re more into music, bars, and nightlife than food or theater, you’ve come to the right place, too: Nightclubs, bars, casinos… Leicester Square has it all and sparkles brightest in the evening.
Covent Garden
As soon as you start walking between Piccadilly, Leicester Square, Covent Garden, and the like, you’ll realize how close all these sights are and that although each one seems so concise and self-contained that this description could apply to any single area. However, Covent Garden is undeniably a fabulous shopping destination. The Yards house the majority of Covent Garden’s shopping and are essentially an outdoor mall with numerous stores along the cobblestone streets of a bygone era when the once bustling market streets were filled with fresh flowers and cockleshells.
Address: The Yards 17 Slingsby Place St Martin’s Courtyard, London WC2E 9AB.
King’s Cross St Pancras
Let’s go a little further north, away from the central Piccadilly Line heartbeat, but still close. King’s Cross was once an area tourists wouldn’t have thought to visit: it was very industrial and once the best attraction was the train station (which, to be honest, is pretty big). Today, you could spend a whole day exploring the area. On Platform 9 ¾ the Harry Potter store and the famous trolley-in-the-wall setup where all the Potterheads line up to snap a new photo for their Instagram profile. One employee even holds their house scarf (which they couldn’t resist in the store before) out of the shot, making it look like they’re about to walk right through the wall.
Harry Potter* is of little interest to you? Alternatively, you can go shopping at Coal Drops Yard, which is a prime example of how far the area has come. Located in a converted, industrial Great Northern Western freight yard built in 1851, it’s now a hubspot for independent stores and quirky coffee shops. Simply put, it’s very “hipster.”
Art travelers who prefer a good exhibition to retail therapy can visit the House of Illustration, which features a number of temporary exhibitions, as well as the permanent Quentin Blake exhibit. Book lovers may have been so inspired by the works of Blake, whose illustrations lit up the world of Roald Dahl, that they may want to walk from Granary Square, where the House of Illustration sits, along Regent’s Towpath, which runs alongside Regent’s Canal to cross over to Word on the Water. Word on the Water is a floating bookstore on a barge and not only makes existing book dreams come true but also creates new ones.
South Kensington
Back south and on the other side, South Kensington lies below Hyde Park, waiting for visitors to discover the wonders of the area. However, the obvious remains: the museums, such as the Natural History Museum, the V&A Museum, and the Science Museum, likewise there is also a wonderful cafe environment with small bakeries and cafes scattered along a village-like area with extravagant houses and beautiful architecture. Dinosaur lovers will be happy at the museum, book lovers will be happy at the South Kensington Bookshop, a wonderful indie bookstore that does the area proud, and foodies will anchor at 2-star Michelin chef Claude Bosis’ restaurant in Bibendum.
Have you seen everything on the Piccadilly Route yet?
