3 Best Sights in London, England

Once the tiltyard for jousting tournaments, Horse Guards Parade is best known for the annual Trooping the Colour ceremony, in which the King takes the salute on his official birthday, on a Saturday in June. (Though it's called a birthday, it's actually just a ceremonial event—his real birthday is November 14.) It's a must-see if you're around, with marching bands and throngs of onlookers. Throughout the rest of the year, the changing of two mounted sentries, known as the King's Life Guard, at the Whitehall facade of Horse Guards provides what may be London's most popular photo opportunity. The ceremony takes place daily from April to July, and on alternate days from August to March (usually odd-numbered days, but check the monthly schedule at  www.householddivision.org.uk/changing-the-guard-calendar). It starts at 10:30 am at St. James's Palace, where the guard begins its march to Buckingham Palace, and the new guards take up their posts in a ceremony at 11. (It's sometimes canceled in bad weather.)

At 4 pm daily is the dismounting ceremony, aka the 4 O'Clock Parade, during which sentries are posted and horses are returned to their stables. It began in 1894, when Queen Victoria discovered the guards on duty drinking and gambling. As a punishment she decreed that the regiment should be inspected every day at 4 pm for the next 100 years—by the time 1994 swung around, they decided to continue the tradition indefinitely.

One of London's busiest tourist attractions, this is nothing less than the world's most famous exhibition of lifelike waxwork models of celebrities. Madame T. learned her craft while making death masks of French Revolution victims, and in 1835 she set up her first show of the famous ones near this spot. While top billing once went to the murderers and ghouls in the Chamber of Horrors, that era has passed and it's the limited exhibitions that feature characters from the Star Wars universe and Marvel movies that now steal the show. Beat the crowds by booking timed-entry tickets in advance. You can also buy nondated, "priority access" tickets via the website (at a premium).

Saved by a keen sense of its own borderline ridiculousness, this gory attraction is full of over-the-top tableaux depicting the bloody demise of famous figures alongside the torture, murder, and ritual slaughter of lesser-known victims, all to a soundtrack of screaming, wailing, and agonized moaning. There are lively dramatizations about the Great Plague, Henry VIII, (the fictional) Sweeney Todd, and (the real) Jack the Ripper, just to name a few, with costumed characters leaping out of the gloom to bring the information to life and add to the fear and fun. Perhaps most shocking are the crowds of children baying to get in: most kids absolutely love this place, although those with more a sensitive disposition may find it too frightening (that goes for adults as well). Expect long lines on weekends and during school holidays. Adults-only evening tours also include drinks. Tickets bought online and in advance can be up to 30% less than walk-up prices.