Thought there were a few bells ringing. London in April, function in Oxford. My plans for that time are still flexible. I'm aiming to combine the thing with a quick DONE4, fly in on Wednesday from JNB, do the bus trip to the Cotswolds and leave on the Monday, when DL and I will head down to London, have a night on the town and part at Gatwick. She'll be heading back to NZ after a couple of years in the UK, I'll be looking to bounce around Europe and get a few SC there.
Newk will have advice on where to stay. He has a nose for fabulous little hotels. Me, I've always staid at a youth hostel - St Pauls is my favorite and I was there a few weeks back.
Things to do. Well, get Oyster cards to begin with. They'll give you access to tubes and buses. Riding on the top deck of a double decker is a great way to see Central London. They automatically give you the best fare for the moment and they cap out after a while to a daily rate. I've kept mine current for years now. Get you to and from Heathrow as well.
British Museum would be my pick if there is any interest at all in the grand cultural artifacts. Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon marbles, bulls from Babylon, Egyptian mummies, Viking gold and a bazillion other things. Otherwise Natural History - there are several complete dinosaur skeletons and tonnes of other stuff to look at.
Tate Modern is fabulous. Maybe not so much for the art, though there are some mouth-watering items in the collection. They also go in for vast canvases of cough, and after you've seen a few bedsheets smeared with housepaint at a half-million a pop you wonder about contemporary art a bit. The old turbine hall is huge and empty and handed over to installation artists to fill for a month or so. There's always something interesting in the space. The coffee shop has some of the best views of St Pauls available, looking across the Millennium Footbridge and above some of the surrounding clutter. The nearby Founders Arms has some great waterlevel views while you enjoy a pint and some cod and chips.
I love the walk to or from Trafalgar Square along the Strand and Fleet Street to St Pauls. Continue on to the Tower and walk across Tower Bridge. Two blocks down on the Tooley Street corner is the Pommeller's Rest Free House, a great little pub. Always worth while asking a local where they drink - you get to avoid the tourist traps that way.
Just walking along the Thames is a treat. Westminster Bridge to Blackfriars (either bank) is straightforward - and very touristy, with the London Eye. The booksellers under Waterloo Bridge are worth a stop. Downstream from there the riverbanks are more built up, but there are treasures to be found in the laneways. Southwark Cathedral, the Globe, the Golden Hind. Londonstone is on the north side, buried in the heart of The City, a Roman-era relic that was once the heart of London, now sadly diminished after two millennia and the Blitz, when it was blasted out of a church wall.
There are gorgeous little Christopher Wren churches scattered all through central London. One or two of them perched on glorified traffic islands in the middle of the busy Strand.
So many things to see. With three days you'll barely scratch the surface. Don't do everything. You can't. See one or two things a day and just walk about looking at stuff in between. Get off the main streets down side lanes and hidden treasures open up. Somerset House. Temple. Little parks and curious shops.
One thing I'd do if I were you is to give each member of your party half a day that's their own. They can go and see something (or some things, if they are close enough) they want and the rest of the family can follow along, gritting their teeth if need be.
Anyway, have fun. I'll see you in Oxford. I've got a room at St Hilda's.