Heading over in October with my wife for a long weekend post business. Any suggestions on hotels, restaurants and must sees? Haven’t spent any time as a tourist there in over 20 years, so might as well be a newbie. Thanks for any thoughts!
If you’re there on a Friday or Saturday morning, you should definitely check out the Borough Market (under the south end of London Bridge). Great food for sale and fun to walk around. You’re quite near the Tate Modern, which is a great modern art museum with a terrific cafe for lunch. From there, you can walk along the South Bank, check out the Globe Theater, walk across the river toward the Tower of London or St. Paul’s. Some great London sights. I often stay in that area for work–check out the Southwark Rose Hotel. Good rates, and a solid location.
My wife & I were in London for a week this past July. We stayed at the Berkeley Hotel which was terrific if you don’t mind spending a few bucks. Right off Hyde Park in Kensington, but on a quiet side street; classy, great service, but not ornate or over the top. Although I live in NYC, I sometimes find the throngs of people on London streets to be a real pain – the Berkeley location offered a great respite. I made inquiries to a variety of hotels a couple months in advance of our trip and almost all of them offered me pretty good deals. As you may be in the same position as to timing (and off-season), you may want to do the same – contact hotels that interest you by e-mail or telephone (most places have an 800 number) and see whether they will offer you some type of deal.
I agree with Ken’s suggestions about the Borough Market, Tate Modern, Globe Theater, crossing to the Millenium Bridge to St Paul’s. We also really enjoyed the Courthauld Institute along the Thames embankment, a small but great museum with some Rembrandts, Van Goghs, Manets, and a Vermeer, among others. It also has a nice outdoor eating area. If you want to be outdoors and to take a 1/2 day trip by tube, you might also try Kew Gardens or Hempstead Heath. Both are easy to get to and nice visits outside of London proper.
Good Luck.
Thanks for the thoughts!
A great evening event is the Tower of London Ceremony of the Keys.
This is a very interesting “tour” given by a Beefeater - and has been going on every evening for the last 700 years.
It is free but you have to reserve a spot months in advance.
Just google it and there is a lot of info - but it was fascinating.
Kew Gardens may have something going on for the autumn - this is the 250 anniversary for them and they have been having special events all year.
I also recommend doing at least one London Walk — just do the “real” London Walks. All “blue badge” guides and very good value.
Here is the URL: http://www.walks.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I think I have been on most of them. The Beatles walk was great - if you are a fan. Also Dickens and Shakespeare walks are great. They also have them to Stonehenge, Oxford, Hampton Court and other out of London day tours - but if you are going for just a long weekend it might not be doable. PM me if you have a question - I am friends with one of the main guides ---- because we took so many tours with him, we got to know him.
Have fun. These are some not so ordinary suggestions.
Ted, great idea on the London Walks. I’ve done the Dickens walk (in the same neighborhood as the Borough Market) and the Jewish London walk, which is really very cool and includes a visit in the oldest Sephardic temple in London (maybe in all of England) which is in the financial district and essentially intact from the 17th century, including candle-lit chandeliers. It’s where D’Israeli’s family worshipped, along with Moses Montefiore. Not sure if it’s open to the public otherwise (for tours).
We took the Jewish walk years ago. There was an old deli/eating club which had the largest matzoh balls in the soup I have ever seen.
Yes, that is an interesting one. Another is the Unknown East End tour — where Lenin, Trotsky and a bunch of other “trouble makers” lived.
The web site has descriptions of all the tours. I see they have added a Harry Potter tour.
Also - worth it was the Legal London walk — Old Baily and the Inns of Court. We got to visit the wig shoppe.
Jud- great thread. I’m doing the same thing so I’m enjoying reading the responses. I’m actually going before you so I’ll report back on anything I learn.
I highly recommend the Sofitel St. James. It’s expensive, but centrally located. Very nice and elegant.
I always stay at:
The Park Lane Hotel
Marriott Bonvoy Hotels | Book Directly & Get Exclusive Rates" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Great location. Walking distance to most everything. Theatre, shopping, Saville Row, Embassy Row…
I have looked at:
Mayfair London Westbury Hotel
http://www.westburymayfair.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
which is just around the corner.
I’m terrible with names but there is a Lebanese restaurant closeby, just down an alley no more than 4 blocks away, that is always a “must stop”. Just ask the hotel and they can direct you there.
Food:
http://www.veeraswamy.com/" onclick=“window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.thequilonrestaurant.com/” onclick=“window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.tamarindrestaurant.com/” onclick=“window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.rasarestaurants.com/UserPages/index.aspx” onclick=“window.open(this.href);return false;
Moti Mahal Restaurant
Mirabelle Restaurant
Masters Superfish Restaurant
Madhu’s Brilliant Restaurant
Ledbury Restaurant
http://www.lahore-kebabhouse.com/” onclick=“window.open(this.href);return false;
Hakkasan Restaurant
Gavroche Restaurant
Chutney Mary (44 20 7351 3113)
http://www.benaresrestaurant.com/” onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Perhaps too far: http://www.fatduck.co.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
BY RAIL FROM LONDON At Paddington Station, take the 40-50 minute train to Maidenhead. From the station to The Fat Duck is about a five-minute taxi ride.
Jud,
In terms of restaurants, check out:
The Ledbury in Notting Hill - a little out of the way but incredible food
The Square - same owner as ledbury.
Dan
I will recommend the Rex Whistler restaurant at the Tate Britain. The museum itself is definitely worth a visit, and you could combine it with a visit to the restaurant for lunch. The food is pretty good, but they have an excellent and reasonably priced wine list in a beautiful room.
Jud, Kyle just got back on Sunday - shoot him an email and he might have some suggestions
Thanks Zach!
Jud- got your email. Figured I’d post here in case it ever helps anyone else too.
London was great.
We did:
Tower of London
Westminster Abbey
St Pauls Cathedral
Buckingham Palace
for the historical stuff. Tower of London was definitely my favorite. They have guided tours given by the staff, I think every 30 mins- I would highly recommend that as they are very talented. THen after the tour we just putted around and wend back to look at some of the things more closely that was pointed out on the tour.
We were going to do London Eye but it’s so crowded and touristy we never got there. If you go to St Pauls you can walk up to the very top. THe view from there is amazing and felt like it made London Eye unnecessary. Don’t do this if you don’t like heights or narrow windy stairs.
We also rode the Big Bus tour which I was a bit sceptical about but turned out to be great. Dunno what your travel schedule is but we flew overnight so we arrived early in the am… it was a great overview of the city that first day and was the perfect thing to do while exhausted and brain dead and did the whole loop. THe ticket is good for 24 hours so we also could use it the next morning as more of a hop on / hop off transportation.
They guy in this thread who suggested the walks.com company - spot on. Very entertaining and we’d have done more if we had more time. Hard to recommend a specific walk because each day has a different schedule - so you just need to go download the pdf schedule from their website and fit in whatever works. We did the Changing of the Guard tour which was valuable because the guide knew when and where to stand… way better than just blindly crowding along the roads.
I don’t have a lot of advice about food because it wasn’t a focus. I can tell you the French bread pizza at Wembley is pretty good for stadium food but that doesn’t really help you (we saw Coldplay which was the reason for the trip)… Our nicest meal was at a Thai restaurant called Blue Elephant which was definitely good – but very pricey- and chosen mostly because of the location near the local friends we were meeting (near them, not us)… breakfasts we grabbed on the go at the numerous bakery / cafes on every block – Eat, Pret a Manger, etc…. I think Paul was our favorite but we tried them all. Wine prices in general were pretty tough to swallow but even US restaurant prices get me crabby. Lots of beer and cider on this trip. One more Wembley sidenote - they have beer sellers wandering the pitch (field) with coolers of beer - love it! and you can buy 4 at a time, not 2 like here.
We had lunch one day at Ye Old Cheshire Pub, which is apparently the oldest pub in England. Not sure that there’s anything special about that one, but I’m sure you’ll want to hit one or more somewhere on your travels.
The London theatre scene is so famous, we figured we should see something. Although, with time short, not sure it’s a must do, given we’re from Boston and have great access to shows… we saw Billy Elliot (the musical) which was really entertaining.
If it’s nice weather, I think a good walk is along the South Bank – starting at London Bridge and walking west, past Globe Theatre and along the river… lots of places to eat and poke around.
Final tip – definitely get day passes for the tube. Single rides are 4 pounds ($7 – tell that to all the people complaining here in Boston about the fare raise from $1 to $1.25 !!) but day passes are 5.20 or so; we learned quickly how stupid it was to buy single rides. The tube is great, as I’m sure you read everywhere- and we rode it extensively- mostly to hit spots that we just wanted to pop up and “see” briefly – Trafalgar, Piccadilly, Covent Gardens.
That’s my advice for what it’s worth. Can’t say it’s an extensive “best of” because I have nothing to compare it with. We had a blast and there’s nothing I did that I thought was a waste of time.
Thanks Kyle!
I’m in London at the moment, so this thread is great.
Does anyone have a recommendation for good wine shops in London, preferably near Paddington, with good French and Italian lists?
Thanks,
Larry
Just returned from London last night. Great advice throughout this thread and I won’t repeat, but I can’t recommend the Tower of London highly enough. Terrific tour by the beefeaters and fascinating history throughout. We spent hours there. Blew away my expectations. Also enjoyed the British museum, as well as walking through the city’s different neighborhoods. Theater is of course good as well.
For food, we had an excellent dinner at The Square, a very good dinner at St. John, an tasty but way overpriced and pretentious dinner at Amaya, and serviceable late-night Chinese in Chinatown. Stellar dim sum lunch at Hakkasan too and a nice bite at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese.
We stayed at the Renaissance Marriott Chancery Court, which was a very nice hotel in a fine location for a killer rate of something like 160 pounds/night.
Great town, although the food in Paris (our stop before London) really is incomparable…
Thanks again to everyone for the recommendations. We had a fabulous meal at The Ledbury - one of the best I have had in the last few years. They had a partridge special that was phenomenal and the 02 Boillot Volnay “Les Chevrets” did not stink either. Did two walking tours with the folks from Context, who we have had good luck with in the past in other European cities. Both were very good and covered a lot of ground in a very short period. On our own time, loved the Tate Modern, Westminster Abbey and in particular the John Soane museum - very cool and eclectic. For Bostonians, think of an even more ideosyncratic Isabella Stewart Gardner museum. A must see if you like architecture or antiquities. We stayed at the Sheraton Park Lane - great location, good service, but tiny rooms even by European standards.
The most shocking thing for me not having been in London in 25 years was what a melting pot of Europe it has become - only a 50/50 chance of English being spoken in any of the conversations I overheard on the street.
Finally got some time this week to check out some wine shops in London. I can highly recommend Huntsworth on Kensington Church St. Nice array of older wines at quite reasonable prices and great people to chat with. Also Kensington Wine Rooms which had a nice 01 Cote Rotie and 04 Brunello by the glass.
But the best was the 190 Bistro in the Gore Hotel on Queens Gate off Kensington High St. which had a 95 Rostaing Cote Rotie La Landonne for 65 pounds with a pork tenderloin. Absolutely fabulous.
-Larry