Tower Bridge (walk across)

The lowdown

Tower Bridge is the one tourists mistake for London Bridge, the great Victorian bascule bridge with its two Gothic towers and sky-blue suspension chains. The glass-floored Exhibition high up in the walkways charges admission, but simply walking across the bridge at street level is completely free, and that is where the best views are anyway.

From the pavement you look straight down the river to the City towers on one side and HMS Belfast and the Tower of London on the other, with the brown Thames sliding underneath. If you time it right you might catch the bascules lifting to let a tall ship through, a free spectacle that still stops crowds in their tracks.

The bridge opened in 1894 and the lift times are published online, so you can plan to be there for a raising. Even without one, crossing on foot with the towers rising over you is one of the most quietly thrilling free things you can do in London.