In this guide
At a glance
- Vibe
- Cobbled, theatrical and busy from morning until after the curtain falls
- Time needed
- Half a day
- Best day
- Any day; weekday mornings are calmest, matinee days busiest
- Travel zone
- 1
- Walkability
- 5/5
- Typical spend
- ££
Best for
Nearest stations
- Covent GardenPiccadilly
- Leicester SquarePiccadillyNorthern
- HolbornCentralPiccadilly
Covent Garden is a former fruit and vegetable market turned pedestrian district, and the closest thing central London has to an outdoor stage. It also sits inside the West End theatre district - our London theatre guide explains how the West End, off-West End and fringe differ, and the practical business of curtain times and getting home. The cobbled Piazza, the glass-roofed market halls and the surrounding grid of small streets hold the highest concentration of theatres in the world.
It is also the most walkable part of the West End, and the easiest to combine with somewhere else — Soho is eight minutes west, the British Museum twelve minutes north.
Covent Garden has its own share of the commemorative plaques marking where notable people lived or worked - see them on our interactive map.
Why visit — and who should skip it
Come here if you want theatre, street performance and browsing in a compact area you can cover on foot. The Piazza performers are auditioned by the estate rather than turning up unannounced, so the standard is high. Seven Dials and Neal’s Yard just north are among the prettiest corners in central London.
Skip it if you dislike crowds. Covent Garden is busy nearly all the time, and on Saturday afternoons the Piazza is close to impassable. If you want the same architecture without the crush, come on a weekday morning before 11am.
Top sights and activities
- Covent Garden Piazza and the Apple Market — The cobbled square and its covered market halls, with craft and antique stalls that change by day: antiques on Monday, crafts and general goods the rest of the week.
- The street performers — Three licensed pitches. The West Piazza in front of St Paul’s Church takes the big circle acts, the lower courtyard has classical musicians, and the North Hall runs smaller sets.
- Seven Dials and Neal’s Yard — Seven cobbled streets meeting at a sundial monument. The alley off Short’s Gardens opens into Neal’s Yard, a small courtyard of painted facades and organic cafes that is very easy to walk straight past.
- The Royal Opera House — Worth entering even without a ticket: the Paul Hamlyn Hall and the terrace bar are open to the public during the day, with a view over the Piazza.
- London Transport Museum — Genuinely good, and better than it sounds. Real Tube carriages, old buses and the original poster archive. One of the few paid attractions here worth the money, especially with children.
- St Paul’s Church (the Actors’ Church) — The portico where Eliza Doolittle is introduced in Pygmalion. The garden behind it is the quietest place in the area to sit.
- Neal Street and Monmouth Street — The main independent shopping streets, running north from the Piazza to Seven Dials.
- The TKTS booth, Leicester Square — A five-minute walk south. The only ticket booth in the square actually run by the theatre industry, in the clocktower building on the south side, selling mostly same-day tickets at a discount since 1980. Ignore the lookalike shops nearby trading on the same name.
Run by the Society of London Theatre, a not-for-profit — every other “theatre tickets” booth around the square is a private reseller.
Key streets and micro-districts
Charles Fowler’s market hall, built 1828–30. The arched glass roofs came half a century later, covering what had until then been open yards between the ranges — the produce market itself left for Nine Elms in 1974.
The Piazza and market halls
The centre, and the most crowded few hundred square metres in this guide. Charles Fowler’s 1828 market hall with its later glass roofs, split into the Apple Market for craft stalls and the Jubilee Market for the cheaper end.
The street performers are licensed and auditioned, which is why the standard is higher than it looks — pitches are balloted, and the ones under the glass in the North Hall are classical musicians rather than jugglers. Free to watch; they pass a hat.
St Paul’s Church to the west is the Actors’ Church, free to enter, lined with memorials to actors, and its portico is where Eliza Doolittle sells flowers at the start of Pygmalion. The churchyard behind it is a walled garden and one of the quietest places in Covent Garden.
Bar Cicoria at the Royal Ballet and Opera, on the north-east corner, is the free viewpoint nobody uses — a fifth-floor terrace looking down onto the market roof, walk-ins only, no ticket required, noon to 11pm Monday to Saturday.
Go before ten in the morning or after eight in the evening if you want to move.
The Piazza’s cobbles are shared between the market stalls by day and restaurant terraces by evening.
The Apple Market dressed for Christmas. The decorations go up in November and are one of the more elaborate displays in central London.
Seven Dials
Seven short streets radiating from a sundial pillar, each with its own character — independent fashion on Monmouth Street, coffee and shoes on Earlham Street, and two West End theatres on the junction itself.
The pillar has six dials, not seven. It was laid out in the 1690s when only six streets were planned; the seventh was added later and the sundial never caught up. The original was pulled down in 1773 and the present one dates from 1989.
Seven Dials Market fills Thomas Neal’s Warehouse, which stored bananas and cucumbers for the old fruit market — its two halls are still called Banana Warehouse and Cucumber Alley. Free to walk into, around twenty traders, open daily and later than most of Covent Garden.
It is the calmer alternative to the Piazza, three minutes north and with a fraction of the crowd. Covent Garden and Leicester Square stations are each about four minutes.
The sundial pillar the district is named after. The Cambridge Theatre is on the corner behind it.
Seven Dials Market fills Thomas Neal’s Warehouse, which stored bananas and cucumbers for the old Covent Garden fruit market. Its two halls are still called Banana Warehouse and Cucumber Alley.
Old Brewer’s Yard
A courtyard off Mercer Walk, opened in December 2025 on a plot that was brewing beer in the 1740s. Bars, two restaurants and shops around a cobbled yard, with a working Open Gate Brewery on the site.
The courtyard is free to walk into and the bar needs no ticket — only the brewery tours upstairs do. That distinction catches people out, because the signage pushes the tour.
It sprawls further back than the entrance suggests. From Mercer Walk it reads as a single small yard; the brewery and the larger rooms are behind, and it is worth going through rather than glancing in.
It is the newest thing in this guide, so it is quieter than the Piazza and the market and has not yet appeared in most published guides — which for now makes it the easiest place near the Piazza to sit down on a Saturday afternoon.
Old Brewer’s Yard. The courtyard bar needs no ticket — only the brewery tours upstairs do.
The Open Gate Brewery’s own site map. It sprawls further back than the courtyard entrance suggests.
Neal’s Yard
Neal’s Yard. The entrances are narrow alleys off Monmouth Street and Short’s Gardens, which is why so many people walk past without ever finding it.
A single small courtyard reached down narrow alleys off Short’s Gardens and Monmouth Street, which is why so many people walk past without ever finding it. Painted buildings in yellow, blue and pink, cafe tables filling the middle, and the original Neal’s Yard Remedies shop that the chain is named after.
It is tiny — perhaps twenty metres across — and it is on every list, so at lunchtime in summer you are queueing to stand in it. Early morning is the only time you will get it empty, and that is also when the light reaches the painted walls.
Neal’s Yard Dairy is round the corner on Short’s Gardens, not in the yard itself, and it is the better stop: a genuine cheesemonger that matured British farmhouse cheese back into existence in the 1980s, and they will let you taste before you buy.
Monmouth Coffee on the same corner has been roasting since 1978 and has a permanent queue.
Floral Street and Long Acre
The two main east–west shopping streets, running parallel from the Piazza towards Leicester Square and Holborn. Long Acre is the wider, chainier one; Floral Street behind it is narrow, pedestrian in stretches and has the more interesting shops.
The Bridge of Aspiration crosses Floral Street — a twisting glass and aluminium footbridge of 2003 linking the Royal Ballet School to the Opera House, so dancers cross above the street between class and stage. It is free to look at, easy to miss, and one of the better small pieces of modern architecture in central London.
Stanfords on Mercer Walk, just off Long Acre, has been selling maps and travel books since 1853 and is the best travel bookshop in Britain.
These are working shopping streets rather than sights, so they keep retail hours and go quiet by seven. Covent Garden station is on Long Acre and is exit-only at busy times — the lifts jam, and Leicester Square four minutes away is often faster.
Bow Street and Drury Lane
The Lyceum on Wellington Street, home to The Lion King since 1999. Several of the West End’s biggest houses are within five minutes of the Piazza. The theatre spine of Covent Garden, and several of the West End’s biggest houses are within five minutes of the Piazza.
Theatre Royal Drury Lane is the oldest theatre site in continuous use in London, licensed in 1663, with the current building dating from 1812. It was restored at length and reopened in 2021, and daytime tours run when the schedule allows — worth checking, because the front-of-house rooms are extraordinary and you see them without a ticket to the show.
The Lyceum on Wellington Street has held The Lion King since 1999. Bow Street has the Royal Opera House stage door and the former magistrates’ court where the Bow Street Runners were founded — now a hotel with a small police museum.
Book seats rather than turning up. TKTS in Leicester Square, five minutes west, sells genuine same-day discounts; the touts and the ticket shops along the way do not.
For a drink between the theatres, Bar Cicoria’s terrace is free to walk into and overlooks the whole Piazza.
Where to eat and drink
| Spot | Style | Price | Why go |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seven Dials Market | Food hall | £ | Two floors of vendors in a former banana warehouse; no booking needed |
| Dishoom Covent Garden | Bombay-inspired Indian | ££ | Bacon naan rolls and black daal; expect a wait without a booking |
| Bancone | Handmade pasta | ££ | Watch the pasta being rolled at the counter |
| The Lamb & Flag | Historic pub | £ | 17th-century pub on Rose Street, once frequented by Dickens |
| Rules | Traditional British | £££ | London’s oldest restaurant, open since 1798 |
| Monmouth Coffee | Coffee | £ | The original Monmouth Street shop; queues out the door at weekends |
See all 36 places to eat and drink in Covent Garden
Getting there
By Tube. This matters more here than anywhere else in central London. Do not use Covent Garden station. It has no escalators — just lifts and a 193-step spiral staircase — and it queues badly. Use Leicester Square (Piccadilly, Northern) or Holborn (Central, Piccadilly) instead; both are about five minutes’ walk.
Best exit. From Leicester Square, take Exit 1 and walk east along Cranbourn Street. From Holborn, exit onto Kingsway and walk south down Great Queen Street.
On foot. Eight minutes to Soho, twelve to the British Museum, fifteen over Waterloo Bridge to the South Bank. See the London Tube and Rail Lines Guide for which line serves what.
How long to spend, and when to go
| If you have | Do this |
|---|---|
| One hour | The Piazza, a street performance and the Apple Market |
| Half a day | Add Seven Dials, Neal’s Yard and lunch at Seven Dials Market |
| A full day | Add the London Transport Museum and an evening show |
Best time: Weekday mornings before 11am for the market halls without the crush. Performers start around 10am and run until early evening.
Avoid: Saturday afternoons, when the Piazza is at its worst. Matinee days (usually Wednesday and Saturday) also put heavy pressure on restaurants from midday.
Map of Covent Garden
Open the map60 places: 32 places to eat · 13 things to do · 7 hidden spots · 8 places to stay
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Eat & drinkThings to doHidden LondonStay
What's on in Covent Garden
Limited runs and the annual fixtures. Anything already finished is removed automatically.Links marked ad are affiliate links. If you book through one we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never affects what goes on this list.
Photo Portrait Now 2026
Not open yetFree, and a read on where photographic portraiture is heading - judged new-graduate work rather than established names.
Combine with the ticketed Monroe show while both run.
The National Portrait Gallery's Portrait Award 2026
Not open yetFree, judged rather than curated, and the quickest way to see where contemporary portrait painting actually is this year. Usually quieter than the ticketed shows downstairs.
On Floor 2, away from the Monroe queues.
A National Portrait
Not open yetVisitors contribute to the work rather than only viewing it - a collective national portrait built with Es Devlin, who designed the London 2012 closing ceremony staging.
Free; drop in around the ticketed shows.
The Traitors: Live Experience
Not open yet18+You sit at the Round Table, you are secretly assigned Faithful or Traitor, and you have to lie to a room of strangers for an hour and a half.
Booked as an individual rather than a group, so you play with strangers unless you buy out a sitting - which is the point of the format.
Leicester Square Christmas Market
Not open yetThe central, no-ticket Christmas market, running the whole festive period. The chalet bar packages are the only ticketed part - the market itself costs nothing to enter.
Bar packages from about £26.50 book separately. Rammed on December weekends.
Skate at Somerset House
Not open yetThe most elegant of the central rinks - a working arts venue's courtyard rather than a fenced-off park - with late adult sessions alongside family daytimes.
Skate Lates evenings run DJ sessions; daytime is family territory. Book a slot type deliberately.
Tim Walker's Fairyland: Love and Legends
Not open yet16+One of Britain's best-known fashion photographers working well outside his editorial register - queer identity, community and legend rather than campaigns.
Tickets were not yet on sale when checked - watch npg.org.uk near the October opening.
Things to do in Covent Garden
Beyond eating and drinking. Free things are listed first.Links marked ad are affiliate links. If you book through one we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never affects what goes on this list.
Covent Garden Street Performers
FreeJugglers, opera singers, escapologists and contortionists working the Piazza and the Market Building - and unusually for street performance, every act has passed an audition to be there.
Free, though the hat comes round and the acts earn nothing otherwise. The pitch in front of St Paul's Church takes the big physical acts; the Market Building takes the classical musicians.
Guinness Open Gate Brewery London
Free18+The first Guinness brewery in London since Park Royal shut in 2005, on a Covent Garden site that brewed from the 1740s. A working microbrewery you walk through, pouring beers made on site that are sold nowhere else.
TWO WAYS IN. The 90-minute Open Gate Experience and the 115-minute Masterclass are ticketed and strictly over-18. Old Brewer's Yard, the courtyard bar, needs no ticket at all, and under-18s can enter the restaurants (The Porter's Table, Gilroy's Loft) and the shops with an adult. Book tours ahead - door tickets exist but are not reliable.
Royal Opera House Terrace
FreeThe opera house's terrace bar is open to anyone during opening hours, with the best elevated view over the Piazza and Market Building in Covent Garden - and no ticket needed.
You do NOT need a performance ticket to go up. Free to enter, and you are under no obligation to buy, though the bar is the point of the room.
Somerset House
FreeA Georgian quadrangle off the Strand with fifty-five fountains in the courtyard, an ice rink in winter, and a rolling programme of exhibitions. The courtyard costs nothing.
The fountains run in summer and children play in them; the rink is roughly November to January and books out. The Courtauld Gallery is in the same building and is separately ticketed.
St Paul's, the Actors' Church
FreeInigo Jones's 1633 church, walled with memorials to actors from Ellen Terry to Charlie Chaplin, and with a quiet garden behind that most of the Piazza crowd never finds.
Free and usually open in the day. The garden entrance is on Bedford Street - the portico facing the Piazza is famously a false front and not a way in.
Bat & Ball Covent Garden
18+ in the eveningPing pong, pool and interactive darts under one roof, which makes it the easy answer for a group that cannot agree on one game.
Family-friendly in the day and over-18 in the evening - check the switchover time before bringing children after work.
Bunga 90
18+A 1990s world built out in full - a working video rental store, arcade cabinets, karaoke rooms and cocktails in novelty glasses - rather than a bar with a few posters up.
Over-18. Booked in sections; the karaoke rooms go separately from the main floor. Drury Lane, so it is a two-minute walk from the Piazza.
London Transport Museum
Real Tube carriages and horse buses you can climb into, plus the poster and Johnston-typeface archive that explains why London's transport looks the way it does.
The ticket lasts a whole year, which almost nobody realises. Children go free with a paying adult, and the Friday Lates are adults-only.
Prince Charles Cinema
The cult cinema of London - 35mm and 70mm prints, quote-alongs, sing-alongs and all-night marathons, a hundred yards from the Leicester Square multiplexes and a fraction of the price.
Membership is cheap and pays for itself in about two visits. Sing-along and marathon screenings sell out months ahead; ordinary showings rarely do.
Rocket Room
18+The only axe throwing in Leicester Square, on a second floor above the crowds, with purpose-built lanes plus interactive darts and shuffleboard.
Over-18 throughout for the axe lanes. Closed-toe shoes are required - people are turned away in sandals.
Stereo
18+ in the eveningLive music, cocktails and dining combined right on the Piazza - a polished, central alternative to Dalston or Peckham's rougher-edged venues.
Dinner-and-a-show format rather than a standing gig venue - book the table, not just a ticket.
The Garden Cinema
Three small screens and two art deco bars on a back street between Holborn and Covent Garden, running repertory seasons and 35mm prints alongside new releases.
Opened 2022 and independent. Screens hold 40, 60 and 70, so seasons sell out. Post-screening talks with filmmakers are a regular part of the programme, not an occasional event.
Hidden Covent Garden
Free, self-guided and easy to walk past without knowing it's there.
Banksy's Royal Courts Protester
Street artA stencil on the Royal Courts of Justice, appeared September 2025
A protest-themed stencil that appeared on the wall of the Royal Courts of Justice itself - a piece commenting on protest law, placed on one of the most symbolically loaded buildings Banksy could have picked.
On a government building's exterior wall - visibility and preservation status can change fast on pieces like this. Check before visiting.
Bond's Favourite Restaurant (Rules)
Filming locationSpectre (2015) - James Bond's go-to restaurant
Rules is London's oldest restaurant, open since 1798, and was written into Spectre as Bond's own favourite - a rare case of a film using a real restaurant's own reputation rather than dressing up a stand-in.
A working, bookable restaurant with its own long history independent of Bond.
Cecil Court
Hidden gemAn antiquarian bookshop alley, reputedly one inspiration for Diagon Alley
A pedestrian alley between Charing Cross Road and St Martin's Lane lined almost entirely with independent antiquarian and specialist bookshops - rare first editions, maps, theatre memorabilia. Its narrow shopfronts and Victorian character are often cited as a real-world echo of Diagon Alley.
A public street, shops keep normal daytime hours and are closed Sundays for the most part - check individual shops.
Freemasons' Hall
Filming locationSherlock Holmes (2009) - Lord Blackwood's masonic meeting
The Art Deco Grand Temple used, appropriately, as a masonic lodge. The building is a 1930s memorial to freemasons killed in the First World War and the scale of the interior genuinely surprises people.
Free to visit, with a free museum and library, Monday to Saturday. Guided tours of the Grand Temple run daily and are also free. Covent Garden or Holborn, five minutes.
Gringotts Wizarding Bank (Australia House)
Filming locationHarry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001) - Gringotts interior
Australia House's ornate banking hall - a real working diplomatic building - was used for Gringotts Wizarding Bank's interior in the first Harry Potter film.
A working diplomatic mission - not generally open for casual visits; viewable from the street only.
Margot Fonteyn's Home
Blue plaqueMargot Fonteyn (1919–1991), prima ballerina
Fonteyn danced at the Royal Opera House a short walk from here for decades - a plaque for one of British ballet's defining names, in the neighbourhood she performed in.
A private/commercial building - viewable from the street only.
Noël Coward Theatre
Filming locationJudy (2019) - the Talk of the Town exterior
The frontage used as the exterior of the Talk of the Town, the nightclub where Judy Garland played her final London residency in 1969. The real venue was the Hippodrome on Cranbourn Street, now a casino.
A working West End theatre - the foyer opens for performances. Free to see the frontage from St Martin's Lane. Leicester Square, three minutes.
Notting Hill's Proposal Scene (The Savoy)
Filming locationNotting Hill (1999) - William's press-conference proposal
William proposes to Anna at a press conference staged here - the Savoy is already on this site as a place to stay; the film scene is the reason to know it beyond the room rate.
A working luxury hotel - see the Hotels section for how to book a stay.
Royal Opera House
Filming locationMatch Point (2005) - the night at the opera
Where Chris and Chloe take their box and the affair with Nola starts to take shape. The building is now branded the Royal Ballet and Opera, and its fifth-floor terrace bar is open to anyone without a ticket.
Free to walk into the foyer and up to Bar Cicoria on the fifth floor, noon to 11pm Monday to Saturday, noon to 7pm Sunday. Covent Garden station, three minutes.
Samuel Johnson's Covent Garden Base
Blue plaqueSamuel Johnson (1709–1784), writer and lexicographer
Johnson compiled his Dictionary of the English Language while based in this part of London - Russell Street sits right by the piazza.
A private/commercial building - viewable from the street only.
Samuel Pepys's Buckingham Street Homes
Blue plaqueSamuel Pepys (1633–1703), diarist
Two separate plaques on the same short street mark two different Pepys residences - he seems to turn up everywhere in central London's plaque map.
Two plaques, two buildings, a few doors apart - worth doing both on the same stop.
Somerset House
Filming locationGoldenEye (1995) - the St Petersburg tank chase
Bond drives a tank through St Petersburg in a courtyard three minutes from Waterloo Bridge. The neoclassical facades were close enough to Russian imperial architecture to pass, so the production never left London.
The courtyard is free and open daily - fountains in summer, an ice rink in winter. Exhibitions inside are ticketed.
Where to stay
Central, well connected and expensive. Good if you are here for theatre and want to walk home after a show.
- Covent Garden and Seven Dials — Boutique hotels in converted townhouses. Quiet at night once the market closes.
- Holborn — Five minutes east, noticeably better value, and on the Central line.
- The Strand and Aldwych — Larger classic hotels facing the river, with easy access to the South Bank.
Cheapest first. Prices are a typical starting rate per night, not a quote.Links marked ad are affiliate links. If you book through one we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never affects what goes on this list.
hub by Premier Inn London Covent Garden
££HotelAccessible roomsPremier Inn's compact format - the bed fills the room, the lighting and heating run off an app - at a St Martin's Lane address that would otherwise cost triple.
ROOMS ARE ABOUT 11 SQUARE METRES and reviewers are regularly surprised by that. Same bed and same Which?-rated reliability as a standard Premier Inn, in a fraction of the space.
SACO Holborn
££AparthotelAccessible roomsOn Lamb's Conduit Street, which is the best short shopping street in Bloomsbury, with the British Museum ten minutes one way and Covent Garden fifteen the other.
A quieter, more residential base than the Covent Garden postcode suggests, and one of the few addresses here where the street itself is worth the stay. NOT PRICED YET - no rate has been sampled for this row.
Strand Palace
££HotelAccessible roomsNearly eight hundred rooms on the Strand, opened 1909, with an art deco frontage - the reliable large-scale option between Covent Garden and the river.
Its scale is the point: there is usually availability when the boutiques are full. The original 1930s deco entrance is in the V&A collection.
The Z Hotel Covent Garden
££HotelBreakfast includedA compact-room format that buys a Covent Garden postcode for mid-range money, with free cheese and wine in the lounge each evening.
THE CHEAPEST ROOMS HAVE NO WINDOW. They are sold as 'Inside' rooms and people book them by accident constantly. Pay up a grade unless you genuinely do not care.
The Chronicle by Supercity Aparthotels
£££AparthotelAccessible roomsOn a side street between Chancery Lane and Fleet Street, five minutes from Farringdon for the Elizabeth line and ten from Covent Garden on foot.
Legal-London quiet in the evenings, which suits a working stay and disappoints anyone expecting the West End on the doorstep. NOT PRICED YET - no rate has been sampled for this row.
Wilde Aparthotels Covent Garden
£££AparthotelAccessible roomsA kitchen and a washing machine in the middle of the West End, which removes the single biggest cost of a London family trip - eating out three times a day.
Studios rather than separate bedrooms, so a family shares one room. Check the floor plan before booking for four. SOLD TWICE ON HOTELS.COM, as Wilde Covent Garden and as Wilde by Staycity The Strand - the same building at 11 Adam Street under two listings, so compare both before booking. NOTE: the only named press review found for this brand covers Wilde's Paddington site, not this one - the two are different buildings and should not be assumed identical.
Rosewood London
££££HotelAccessible roomsTwo Michelin Keys, entered through a carriageway into a Belle Époque courtyard that cuts the noise of High Holborn out completely.
Between Covent Garden and Bloomsbury, walkable to both. Scarfes Bar has live jazz nightly and is open to non-residents.
The Londoner
££££HotelAccessible roomsSixteen storeys, six of them below ground, including a private cinema and a subterranean ballroom - built into Leicester Square without dominating it.
Michelin calls it a super-boutique: boutique service at large-hotel scale. The rooftop bar looks over the square.
The Savoy
££££HotelAccessible roomsThe first luxury hotel in Britain to have electric light and en-suite bathrooms, on the only street in the country where traffic drives on the right.
River-view rooms cost substantially more and are the reason to stay. The American Bar is open to non-residents and is the cheaper way in.
Make a day of it
Combine Covent Garden with
Walking times are from the centre of Covent Garden. Each of these works as an afternoon once you have finished here.
Soho
8 min walkWest across Charing Cross Road for Chinatown, Carnaby Street and the best dinner options.
Bloomsbury
12 min walkNorth for the British Museum and the quiet garden squares.
South Bank
15 min walkSouth over Waterloo Bridge for the river walk and Tate Modern.
Westminster
20 min walkDown Whitehall past Trafalgar Square to Big Ben and the Abbey.
Suggested two-hour walking route
- Start: Leicester Square station, Exit 1. Walk east along Cranbourn Street.
- The Piazza: Arrive at Covent Garden Market. Watch a performance in the West Piazza.
- Royal Opera House: Walk to the north-east corner and go up to the terrace bar for the view.
- Neal Street: North past the independent shops to Seven Dials.
- Neal’s Yard: The alley off Short’s Gardens — look for the small blue sign.
- Finish: Seven Dials Market for lunch, or continue west into Soho.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Using Covent Garden station. Lifts and stairs only, and long queues at peak. Leicester Square or Holborn are faster.
- Not booking pre-theatre dinner. Restaurants fill completely between 17:00 and 19:30. Book ahead and state your curtain time.
- Buying theatre tickets from lookalike booths. The official TKTS booth is in Leicester Square and is the only one run by the theatre industry. Check for day seats direct from the theatre first.
- Eating on the Piazza itself. You pay a significant premium for the location. Walk two minutes to Seven Dials or Monmouth Street.
- Missing Neal’s Yard. The entrance alley is genuinely easy to walk past.
- Taking a taxi within the West End. Traffic through here is slow enough that walking is usually faster.
Common questions
Which station should I use for Covent Garden?
Use Leicester Square or Holborn, not Covent Garden. Covent Garden station has no escalators — only lifts and a 193-step spiral staircase — and queues badly at peak times. Both alternatives are a five-minute walk and far quicker in practice. Covent Garden station is also exit-only on some busy weekend afternoons.
Is Covent Garden Market free to visit?
Yes. The Apple Market, the Piazza and the surrounding arcades are free to walk through, as are the street performances. Performers in the West Piazza and the lower courtyard work for tips, so carry a little cash if you plan to stop and watch.
Where do the street performers actually perform?
Three licensed pitches: the West Piazza in front of St Paul's Church for the big circle acts, the North Hall for smaller acts, and the lower courtyard beneath the Apple Market for classical musicians. All are auditioned by the estate, so the standard is genuinely high.
Where should I eat before a West End show?
Book ahead and tell them your curtain time — restaurants between Covent Garden and Soho fill completely from 17:00 to 19:30. Seven Dials Market is the reliable no-booking option. Avoid the restaurants directly on the Piazza, which charge a premium for the view.
Can I get cheap West End theatre tickets on the day?
Yes, from the official TKTS booth in Leicester Square, which is the only booth run by the theatre industry itself. Ignore the many lookalike ticket shops nearby. Day seats and rush tickets released by individual theatres each morning are often cheaper still.
