A pint and a play in London pubs

LONDON — It's Saturday afternoon in the jam-packed Old Red Lion on London's shopper-crowded St. John Street. Beer-fueled chatter...

London tips from a Londoner

LONDON — I'm a Londoner and I love London. And 2012 is London's year. But it's not an easy city — not to navigate, not to find...

London 2012 Olympic venues

How to navigate London during the Olympics

LONDON — If you're at all familiar with London — the city of congestion, crowded byways, skinny streets — you may be...

Apps for navigating the Summer Olympics

Leave the hurdles to the athletes as you live like a local during the London Games by sampling these apps. Although some are Apple only,...

London Olympics: 10 day trips outside London

Ticket holders at this summer's Olympic Games will have something in common with non-sporting London visitors: At some point, they will want...

London's luscious, low-key side

LONDON — As a Californian, I had forgotten that you don't cancel your life just because it rains. If you did, you'd never see anything...

Gustavo Dudamel to perform at Olympics festival in June

Gustavo Dudamel will make a few appearances this summer as part of the London 2012 Festival, the large-scale cultural celebration running...

London's ahead of the Games

You yawned at the royal wedding in April. You were happy to miss the riots in August. But you're determined to be a part of the 2012...

London's East End, an Olympics alternative

Reporting from London — Never mind the sprints, relays and marathons coming to London this summer. Look at the competition now among...

Making strides along Cotswold Way in England

On the high street of the lovely Cotswold village of Chipping Campden, just next to the 12th century stone marketplace, sits an...

Walking the Fife Coastal Path in Scotland

One bright, rainy September, my mother and I walked from Edinburgh to Dundee. Every day we trekked about six to 11 miles, along a skull-gray...

Royal 'I dos' and more at Westminster Abbey

The bride was beautiful. The groom was a handsome prince. Two billion people around the world watched the wedding ceremony performed in...

Post-apocalyptic Swarm coaster to debut at U.K.'s Thorpe Park in 2012

What's new in London since the last big royal wedding

So you hate royal weddings. Or you love them. Or maybe you've caught yourself attending to arcane details of Prince William and Kate...

London readies for its global close-up

If there's an "it" city for 2011, it's London.

Christmas in London? Jolly good

For years, my husband and I had wanted to take our children to London before the magic of "Peter Pan" and "Mary Poppins" wore off, before...

England: Arts and Crafts in the Cotswolds

I was recently invited to review a superb jazz festival in Cheltenham, about two hours west of London, in the Cotswolds.

In Scotland, a toast to high spirits

I came to Scotland in search of the Loch Ness Monster and found a ghost instead. Of course, I also sampled a lot of Scotch, which might lead...

London's St. Paul's is 300 years old but looks brand-new

Among the 2 million annual visitors to St. Paul's Cathedral, the architectural and spiritual heart of London, only a few ever notice the...