Before you jet out the doors of your Park Grand London hotel, ready to soak up everything the capital has to offer, read this to ensure you have a sense of what we consider to be the eight most unmissable London experiences.
Kensington Gardens
Nearest tube station: Queensway, Lancaster Gate or High Street Kensington
Madame Tussauds
Nearest tube station: Baker Street
Harrods
Nearest tube station: Knightsbridge
Shopaholics have not shopped until they have shopped at Harrods, a department store on Brompton Road in Knightsbridge. Harrods is not just one of the biggest and most well-known department stores in Europe, but it also sits on a five-acre plot containing 330 departments and covers 1.1 million square feet of retail space. At Harrods, you will find British brands such as Alexander McQueen, Pringle, Burberry, Vivienne Westwood, Paul Smith and more, as well as international brands such as Alexandre Turpault, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Giorgio Armani… just to name a few.
Chinatown
Nearest tube station: Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Tottenham Court Road, Oxford Street and Covent Garden
Chinatown is incredibly accessible, given that it is surrounded by and is in equal distance to five tube stations. This means that even a guest at a London Heathrow hotel could get there via the Piccadilly Line without even needing to change trains! The first site to see when arriving in Chinatown is the Chinatown Gate. Chinatown as an area has been around since the 1970s, and the gate was completed in 2016 and is one of the largest Chinese gates in the country. While the gate is impressive in its own right, what it marks the entry to is the real showstopper: a bustling district of restaurants and shops. You do not need to book a restaurant – just walk along the lantern-lined street and see what piques your interest (and taste buds) the most. However, if you can’t help but plan ahead, the Four Seasons does a sensational Peking duck signature dish.
Bayswater Road Sunday Art Exhibition
Nearest tube station: Lancaster Gate
Bayswater Road Sunday Art Exhibition is an often underrated street-shopping hub, but is in every way an equal to the likes of Portobello Road Market or Brick Lane Market. For the last 60 years, Bayswater Road has been a main West London thoroughfare from Monday to Saturday and a full-blown open-air art exhibition on Sundays. As a result of Covid-19, the exhibition is only between the Lancaster Gate entrance to Kensington Gardens and the Marlborough Gate entrance, which is no problem for guests staying in hotels near Lancaster Gate tube station. Hopefully, the section which runs from Lancaster Gate to Queensway will return when the “new normal” kicks in.
The British Museum
Nearest tube station: Tottenham Court Road
St Paul’s Cathedral
Nearest tube station: St Paul’s
West End Theater
Nearest tube station: Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Tottenham Court Road, Oxford Street and Covent Garden
The West End is considered to be the pinnacle of commercial theater in the English-speaking world, and has been exuding artistic energy since the first West End theater was opened in 1663. Nowadays, there are 38 theaters, meaning on any given evening, you have at least 38 shows to choose from. You can choose between musicals, such as The Six and Dear Evan Hansen, or plays, such as The Mousetrap and Life of Pie.