Want an all-American Independence Day? Try London

LONDON (AP) — There are few better places to celebrate the United States and its Independence Day than London.

Whether you prefer sipping bubbly at the wood-paneled home of America's brainiest founding father, Ben Franklin, or downing an ale on the jetty where the Mayflower set off for Massachusetts, the British capital is packed with options for a patriotic week away.

"It is surprising — it's shocking — how much there really is here," said Delaina Stone, the secretary of the American Society in London.

American heroes cling to the corners of some of the British capital's greatest monuments. Abraham Lincoln keeps watch over Parliament Square, while Martin Luther King Jr. peers serenely over the camera-toting tourists thronging to Westminster Abbey. Even rebel-in-chief George Washington, whose insurgency tore the British Empire apart, has a commanding view of Trafalgar Square.

Just down the street is Benjamin Franklin House, where the bespectacled philosopher-statesman spent nearly 16 years probing the mysteries of science, tinkering with his inventions and trying, with varying degrees of success, to manage relations between Britain and her petulant colonies.

The curators of his recently restored four-story Georgian home plan a reception on Friday, July 3. Keep the kids busy with Franklin action figures (complete with kite) sold in the gift shop.

The main event — a party at the U.S. Embassy — comes a day earlier. The invitation-only bash tends to feature barbecue, although embassy spokesman Philip Breeden said mini-burgers were also a possibility.

Even if you can't finagle an invite, the embassy's Grosvenor Square address is still worth a visit. The area has been associated with the United States ever since John Adams, the first U.S. Minister to the Court of St. James, moved here in 1785. Home to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower's European headquarters during World War II, the square once known as "Little America" is the perfect place for a Fourth of July picnic.

Work up an appetite with Kim Dewdney, who is leading an Independence Day walking tour starting at 2:30 p.m. On the itinerary: The crypt of St. Martin-in-the-Fields' church, where the bodies of the king and queen of Hawaii were briefly kept after they succumbed to measles during a 1824 visit to London.

Music lovers may want to stay there all week. St. Martin's hosts a series of U.S.-themed concerts from July 2-4, including a family friendly event Saturday featuring works by Aaron Copland, George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein.