Travellers check into accommodation in the Heathrow area of the London – often, primarily, for their proximity to the globally-renowned airport that serves the UK capital – but they’re often a diverse blend of business people and leisure travellers looking to discover and explore the city on their doorstep. So, for those who’ll be making use of an executive stay Heathrow in the month November, what’s going on for them to attend and enjoy…?
Attend this year’s World Travel Market
(ExCEL London, Royal Victoria Dock, 1 Western Gateway E16 1XL/ 5th-7th November)
First, one for business travellers – and, indeed, should you be jetting into the capital at the beginning of November (and possibly staying at the likes of the Park Grand London Heathrow), it could be you’ll be doing so attend the World Travel Market conference; an annual event specifically held to help travel industry professionals connect and network and unlock their ideas that’ll shape the world’s dreams and plans for travel in the coming years. It’s also an opportunity for attendees to discover and learn practical tips and simple innovations that, once implemented, their customers will doubtless quickly come to love. Indeed, this is the place – and time – for 51,000 global travel trade professionals mix to purchase products and services, do business and see what’s new in the travel industry.
Bonfire Night at Battersea Park
(SW11 4NJ/ 3rd November)
Battersea Park’s fireworks display, put on by the local Wandsworth Council, will this year be held on the Saturday nearest Guy Fawkes Night itself (so, the 3rd as opposed to the 5th November) and is sure to light up the skies of the surrounding area. Engineered by the acclaimed pyro-technicians that are Jubilee Fireworks, the event itself is expect to last just over 20 minutes but, with a bonfire to boot as well as many restaurants, cafés and bars available to pop into for refreshment at the riverside quarter that’s Circus West Village at Battersea Power Station there’s much to enjoy (or, alternatively, why not – before you travel to the area for the evening – dine at your accommodation; quite possibly one of the hotels near Great West Road?). Note that gates open at 6pm and the bonfire’s due to be lit at 7.30pm.
The Lord Mayor’s Show
(procession runs from Mansion House to the Royal Courts of Justice on Aldwych/ 10th November)
For more than 800 years now, each Lord Mayor of London travelled to London’s ‘Square Mile’ to Central London to officially (and, today, symbolically) swear loyalty to the Crown. Over that times, the procession grown into a pageant of riotous colour and vibrancy that’s nowadays referred to as the Lord Mayor’s Show; it’s, indeed, the oldest and surely grandest civic procession held anywhere in the world. Indeed, the modern version of the procession’s a direct descendant of that first Mayor’s journey to Westminster; sure, the precise route and its date’s altered over time but all the pageantry and echoes of Hogarth and Canaletto remain in its lively blend of the best of the past, present and future of London – for instance, the ostentatiously gilded state coach that’s used is more than 250 years old and, frankly, the pikemen who flank it are pleasingly pretty ancient too! In today’s processions, many of the businesses of the City are represented, as are the Livery Companies, charities, Britain’s armed forces, the City’s police force and so much more.
