Although at times it does come over like an expensive advertisement for technology firm Siemens – whose groundbreaking sustainable building it inhabits – the Crystal's highly interactive displays on urban sustainability and the pressures facing the modern city are thoroughly engaging. There's also a cafe, with views over Royal Victoria Dock. You can tie it in with a cable-car journey across the river to North Greenwich.
The Crystal
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
26.86 MILES
The world’s largest and oldest continuously occupied fortress, Windsor Castle is a majestic vision of battlements and towers. Used for state occasions, it…
6.23 MILES
A splendid mixture of architectural styles, Westminster Abbey is considered the finest example of Early English Gothic. It's not merely a beautiful place…
5 MILES
One of London's most amazing attractions, Tate Modern is an outstanding modern- and contemporary-art gallery housed in the creatively revamped Bankside…
8.36 MILES
With its thunderous, animatronic dinosaur, riveting displays about planet earth, outstanding Darwin Centre and architecture straight from a Gothic fairy…
4.98 MILES
Sir Christopher Wren’s 300-year-old architectural masterpiece is a London icon. Towering over diminutive Ludgate Hill in a superb position that's been a…
3.99 MILES
Few parts of the UK are as steeped in history or as impregnated with legend and superstition as the titanic stonework of the Tower of London. Not only is…
4.9 MILES
Seeing a play at Shakespeare's Globe – ideally standing under the open-air "wooden O" – is experiencing the playwright's work at its best and most…
6.23 MILES
With almost six million visitors trooping through its doors annually, the British Museum in Bloomsbury, one of the oldest and finest museums in the world,…
Nearby attractions
0.08 MILES
This cable car makes quick work of the journey from the Greenwich Peninsula to the Royal Docks. Although it's mostly patronised by tourists for the views…
0.36 MILES
As the site of London’s only lighthouse, its smallest museum and the world’s longest-running song, Trinity Buoy Wharf is an enclave of quirky superlatives…
1.32 MILES
This wholesale fish market is open to the public, but you’ll have to be up at the crack of dawn to see it in action. Formally established in 1699 in the…
4. Thames Barrier Information Centre
1.35 MILES
The Thames Barrier looks best when it’s raised, and the only guaranteed time this happens is when the mechanisms are checked once a month. For exact dates…
1.55 MILES
Entering Mudchute Park from East Ferry Rd through the canopy of trees, you’re greeted by the surprising sight of cows and sheep roaming in 13 grassy…
1.56 MILES
Cesar Pelli’s pyramid-capped 235m-high skyscraper was built in 1991, and was the UK's tallest building when it opened – a title it held until 2010, when…
1.74 MILES
Housed in an 1802 warehouse, this educational museum combines artefacts and multimedia displays to chart the history of the city through its river and…
1.74 MILES
One of two remaining mills from a trio that once stood on this small island in the River Lea, House Mill (1776) operated as a sluice tidal mill, grinding…