If you are planning a family vacation to England encourage your children to prepare for their travels by reading about the sights and history of the UK. Writers often spin their tales in the places they love best, and we’ve found some favorites for kids and teens.The books included here should help your children understand the setting and culture of England—and also inspire them to visit. Take a look and let the excitement begin:

• Harry Potter series
• “The London Eye Mystery” by Siobhan Dowd
• “Thames Doesn’t Rhyme with James” by Paula Danziger
• “The Borribles” by Michael de Larrabeiti
• “This is London” by M. Sasek
• “Charlotte in London” by Joan MacPhail Knight
• “The Time Thieft” by Linda Buckley-Archer
• “Oliver Twist” by Charles Dickens

London is littered with exotic artworks pillaged during its 19th century heyday as the seat of the British Empire.  But certainly no Victorian relic has had a more colorful journey than Cleopatra’s Needle, a 3500-year-old, 68-feet-high ancient Egyptian obelisk that looms, flanked by two bronze sphinxes, in front of the Embankment Gardens by the Thames.

The red marble obelisk was carved in the quarries next to the River Nile in 1380 BC, to honor Pharaoh Thutmose III, and moved by Queen Cleopatra to Alexandria around 40 BC.  Rediscovered by archaeologists in the early 1800s, it remained in Egypt until 1877, when the British Government decided that it wanted a suitable memorial to commemorate Lord Nelson’s 1801 victory over Napoleon in Egypt.  At the time, Egypt was a British possession, and the authorities easily parted with their national treasures.  But the logistics of transporting a 180-ton monument to London were hugely complex.  A doctor named Sir William Wilson organized a public fund of £10,000 to build a special cigar-shaped pontoon, called The Cleopatra, for the obelisk, which had to be towed by steamship through the Straits of Gibraltar.

The plan was fraught with mishaps.  The boats hit a storm off the coast of France and the Cleopatra was cut loose and abandoned; six crew members of the towing boat were drowned in a rescue effort.  (A plaque records their names at the obelisk’s foot today).  Miraculously, the Cleopatra did not sink.  Instead, after bobbing about for four days, the mysterious iron cigar-boat was found by a Spanish trawler and towed to port.

After endless legal wrangling and more British fund-raising, the sea-battered relic was safely towed by sea the rest of the way to London, where the obelisk was erected in 1878 to great fanfare.  Today, it remains less a memorial to Nelson’s hard-won victory than to the obsessive perseverance of the Victorian Age.

While vacationing in London, England you may spend time in the British Museum, touring Madame Tuassauds famous wax figure collection, or taking in the views from the top of the Tower Bridge walkways.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. And when you watch one of the movies listed here, they’ll have a film’s worth of London, England’s famous sights, historic buildings, and dramatic landscapes. We think these fun films will inspire you to travel to England and see the action unfold!

• About a Boy
• Finding Libery
• National Lampoon’s European Vacation
• Bridget Jones
• Love Actually
• Closer
• Matchpoint
• 28 Weeks Later
• Johnny English
• The Bourne Supremacy
• Sliding Doors and
• James Bond’s The World Is Not Enough

For a travel experience befitting royalty, there’s truly no place vacation destination like London.

The British Museum in London is a vast and overwhelming place, so on a first visit, head straight for the Enlightenment Hall — the oldest part of the Museum building, and easily the most atmospheric.  Simply climb the grand exterior staircase of the main entrance, pass beneath the vast neo-classical columns and turn right through the museum gift shop.  Suddenly you are in a soaring, mahogany-lined Georgian parlor, 300-feet-long and with 40-feet-high ceilings.  But the real wonders can be found inside the mahogany cases – true cabinets of curiosities.

Opened in 1827, this was originally the King’s Library, built to house a collection of 60,000 books gathered by George III and donated by his son, George IV, to the British public.  It remained so until 1997, when the books were moved to the new British Library site at St. Pancras and multi-million dollar renovations began.  Reopened in 2003 as the Enlightenment Hall, it is now a magical place dedicated to the vigorous scientific spirit of the 18th century, when brilliant men of learning first set out to chart and plot every aspect of nature and history.  The former bookcases are now overflowing with colorful relics, bones, seashells, models of Egyptian tombs, rusting antiquities and other exotica brought back to London by overseas explorers from Africa, Australia, Antarctica and the South Seas.

It’s easy to lose yourself in an antique fantasy, imagining Sherlock Holmes, perhaps, poring over such exotica.  From here, you step directly into the modern world: A side doorway leads to the Great Hall, a soaring, sky-lit courtyard embracing the classical British Library Building where, amongst others, Charles Dickens, George Bernard Shaw, Virginia Woolf and Karl Marx once wrote.  Covered in 1990, the Hall remains a breathtaking piece of contemporary architecture.

Continuing our post from yesterday, here are a few more London must-see sights to make your vacation to England more memorable.

Local Cuisine
Sample the ultimate in British food and drink-fish and chips with a pint of bitter in a local pub.

Covent Garden
Stroll through Covent Garden, the famous glass-covered market with its fashionable boutiques, cafés, and arts and crafts stalls.

Royal Parks
Visit the zoo, row a boat on Hyde Park’s Serpentine, or feed the ducks, geese, and swans in St. James’ Park.

Harrods
Admire the amazing displays in the food halls and discover the delights of the world’s most famous luxury department store.

When traveling to England here are some must-see sights of London:

Chelsea Football Club – Stadium Tours
You probably know Chelsea as home to one of Britain’s top football clubs. The Chelsea FC stadium tour offers a unique glimpse inside the very heart of Stamford Bridge where you can visit the world class changing rooms, be the manager in the dug-out, walk up the players’ tunnel and see some of the best views of the stadium. Make sure you bring your camera!

The Saatchi Gallery
Housed in the former military barracks of the Duke of York’s Headquarters, you find 70,000 square feet of contemporary art exhibition. The former ad man Charles Saatchi champions young artists and many of them are unknown when first exhibited, not only to the general public but also to the commercial art world.

Check back on Thursday for Part #2 of our London, England not-to-be-missed sights. Start planning your European vacation today!

Don’t forget to read our London must-see sights from our last trip to England: Part #1, Part #2, Part #3.

One of the most striking sights on a London vacation is a circular wooden building in Tudor style poking above the southern bank of the River Thames – a reconstruction of William Shakespeare’s Globe Theater.

Opened in 1997 after exhaustive research, it today is a hugely popular shrine to the greatest playwright in the English language, where you can enjoy live performances in roughly the same setting as audiences 400 years ago, either from gallery seats around the stage or standing in the courtyard as a “groundling.”  Its recreation was an improbable, 50-year saga that could be an Elizabethan comedy itself.  Far from being concocted by academics, the new theater was the brainchild of a successful American actor named Sam Wanamaker, whose Hollywood roles included The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines.  Read the rest of this entry »

When you travel “across the pond” to vacation in England your trip is full of Stonehenge’s mystical circle to York’s medieval grandeur.  During your trip you are sure to enjoy dining out at many local pubs and restaurants.  Consider this tipping tip when vacationing in England:

Some restaurants and most hotels add a service charge of 10 to 15 percent of the bill. If this has been done, you’re under no obligation to tip further. If no service charge is indicated, add 10 to 15 percent to your total bill.