london

when i was about three or four i apparently climbed halfway up windsor castle walls. was there with my nan, who only realised when she tirned to see what the commotion was behind her (i believe we were having a picnic and I'd gone off to "play").

it seems i was going great guns exactly up until the point my nan called out to stay exactly where i was and then *slowly* make my way back down. this was altogether a different proposition and it took an age of people calling out where to put my foot for the best hold etc. warm brace and applause at the bottom apparently. "I never did tell your mother" was how the story ended. i feel i have a very dim recollection of it but it's v hard to say. maybe i shd go back and relive it.

Do it

you're right. putting it in the diary.

http://i.imgur.com/aijwWRb.jpg

Windsor next time! We left it a little late in the end.

Thanks for the tip, Matt! It's very close to where we live and getting the cable car across the Thames is a delight. Trinity Buoy Wharf itself was like a crazy steampunk microcosm of art and parkour hidden amongst expanses of grand industrial development. The little singing bowl longplayer in the lighthouse was very sweet and equally chilling. A lovely time.

Is Longplayer still there?

haha xp

Haha it certainly is. Still haunting away and surrounded by the skeletons of old iMacs.

The best best best bit was scoring front seat of the DLR on the way back to Woolwich. The highlight of any right-thinking person's week. I am five.

To a ticket inspector: "I won't need to show you. I'm the driver!"

I only went for the first time a couple of weeks ago - I had no idea there was even a lighthouse in London. Trinity Buoy Wharf is a place so obscure there isn't a single mention of it on ILX prior to today but it's totally magical and weird and of course Longplayer is an astonishing endeavour. Feels miles away from everything.

Yeah, it was a truly bizarre little colony, both hypermodern and weirdly antiquated. It has two cafes and they are both containers, and a museum in a small shed. Very much worth a visit, even if you find the idea of a Parkour Academy hilarious. Cheers Matt!

Went to a big Warp Records party there back in 2000, with Aphex, Autechre, BoC and the rest. Have been back a couple of times since - were the mechanical sculptures out on display?

That sounds incredible. Regretfully I have not been to a gig in a lighthouse. The sculptures (a man and a woman being fragmented on turning cogs?) were in the courtyard, just outside the 'container town'.

I used to enjoy the Green Chain Walk when I was living in Plumstead and Woolwich in the 90's. It wasn't an adequate substitute for genuine greenbelt walks where all you can see is nature, but I spent some pleasant summer Sundays wandering along it.

Xp I went there on a kind of open day and they seemed to have a resident mad inventor who makes the sculptures, he was going round in a steampunk walking contraption and there were quite a few others on show.

Here's some of his sculptures in action, although it doesn't have the walking thing I saw which iirc was a bit like a motorcycle sidecar with legs. My favourite is towards the end, a device for automatically carving out of wood a copy of a cast iron sculpted torso.
https://vimeo.com/34806774

The bit of the Green Chain that leads from Beckenham out to Chislehurst is a bit like that if only because so much of it is in Elmstead Woods.

If you carry a bit further around towards Sidcup you find Scadbury Park Nature Reserve, which in summer must be one of the loveliest spots I've been to inside the M25.

All the sculptures at TBW were steampunk as hell, maybe I might post a picture in a bit

I never knew about Longplayer before and it is fascinating and I am listening to a livestream of it now. Thank you ILX.

I go to London in July! First time. Only four nights and want to make the most of it because I don't imagine I'll get there again for a very long time.

Let's pretend price is no object. What neighborhood/hotel would you choose? Killer restaurant? Too many choices and I don't know where to start, really.

I love gardens, so garden recs also welcome!

London! I go to it!

Aaaa, great! When? I'll be there late July but not sure exactly when yet.

Top-end London extends from 'seems like too much even for London' on up into the stratosphere. What would be a realistic '£X and not a penny more' budget ceiling for a hotel?

Kew Gardens is not a very original garden recommendation (though I like it a lot). Others might know smaller, maybe more central places better than I do.

Holland Park is probably my favourite of London's major parks. It's a little out of the way so is rarely overflowing with people. Blossoms, giant chess etc. Gordon Square always lovely for a Central London lunch.

Other than parks and gardens what do you want to do? That has a pretty big impact on where you should stay.

If you love gardens then it would be remiss NOT to go to Kew. Approaching it by boat from Central London is by far the best way to get there and will give you really good overview of how the city changes in that direction (fwiw the parts around the river are the only good bits of West London).

Actually, would recommend a walk up Portobello Road north of Talbot Road (Rough Trade's 'original' store is on that corner) stopping for the following:

Clothes market beside Portobello Road in the shadow of the Westway bridge, combination of vintage and new designers (and a pretty good tights and socks stall). There's a great Malaysian restaurant called Makan there, which is inexpensive and has been there for ages.
Ignore the food trucks on your right and carry on up Portobello Road - it turns into cheaper old-clothes stalls and shops, and on the left is a massive old Spanish convent/school.
At the corner of Portobello Road and Golborne Road, there is a tapas restaurant called Galicia that's very reliable and good value. Grizzled old Spanish guys work there and it meets with the approval of my friend C's picky Spanish mum.
Turn right (east) into Golborne Road - antiques on the road and in shops, lots of cafés - Moroccan, Lebanese, one new and chi-chi Danish one. There are tons of chairs and tables around food trucks on the north side of the road; I call them Fake Morocco.
Stella McCartney's corporate HQ is on Golborne Road roughly opposite the Portuguese bakery/café Lisboa - there's nothing nicer than to sit at an outside table there or at Oporto opposite, drinking a galao and having a pasteis de nata in the sun.
That huge brutalist apartment building looming over the road is Trellick Tower, designed by Erno Goldfinger.
Just off Golborne Road by the Trellick Tower is a very expensive and fashiony vintage store, Rellik It's always worth a look.

Ooooooh thank you for these recs!

Hotel: Price-wise we can swing up to £350/night. Someplace old and cozy with a good bar for nightcaps would be ace. Would like to be in a good walking and eating neighborhood (who doesn't?), but I'm not wedded to any particular spot. I don't know the first thing about London, really! Where are would you choose for yourselves with that budget?

I will definitely do Kew, my mother (a master gardener) would kill me if I didn't. Suzy, that walk sound right up my alley! Holland Park and Gordon Square duly noted.

We're seeing the Pixies on July 11 hahaha I am so old and lame.

Please consider FAP if you don't hate middle-aged Americans.

Hotel: Price-wise we can swing up to £350/night.

For the kind of money, cant you look at airbnb'ing an apartment?

You are lucky with the exchange rate right now. Your mother will also probably kill you if you don't do the Chelsea Physic Garden (bonus: uniformed Chelsea Pensioners).

If you're oriented east, try the Ace Hotel in Shoreditch - very chichi hipster, but don't hold that against it. I like Hoi Polloi, the restaurant in it.

The Zetter and the Rosewood hotels are central - the former is modern, the latter is in an ornate, refurbished old insurance HQ (you'll never believe insurers could be that baroque) with about five good restaurants inside, and they have a hotel dog you can borrow (I've met this golden lab being taken for runs in Lincoln's Inn Fields right behind the hotel).

Try the Mr and Mrs Smith group of hotels for cozy nightcap style accomodation in various neighbourhoods, and make sure you eat at St John.

Second Golborne and Goldfinger, it's an ace spot.

It's not a garden, but I highly recommend the canals - you can walk from Paddington to Hackney along Regent's Canal and check out several different neighbourhoods and parks along the way, or cycle/walk up the River Lea from Leamouth through Hackney marshes to Lea Valley Park.

Chelsea Physic Garden and nearby Battersea Park both worth strolling. Hampton Court gardens are near-ish to Kew too. Richmond Park has amazing views.

I work near the Zetter - nice hotel but I wouldn't recommend it as a base as it's not well connected.

We booked the Rosewood, it looks amazing.

Any theater nerds out there? I'm partial to small-medium size venues (my favorite in DC is 200 seats). Open to anything that isn't a musical.

Do check out the John Soane museum - it's just by the rosewood

It's also worth checking out St James Park, which can be combined with a visit to main sites of Westminster (Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Houses of Parliament).

If you're feeling energetic, it's possible to walk through 3 or 4 parks in Central London almost continuously (St James, Green Park, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens) - an amazing mount of green space in the centre of the city. For example, it's possible to walk from St James Park through to Notting Hill (where Portobello Market is) through these Parks.

Other suggestions, it's worth a visit to the South Bank to eat and/or drink alongside the Thames and walk a bit. In July, might be best in the evening.

If it's just 4 days, I'd personally concentrate on the main sights (mainly central London), with maybe a day out to Kew Gardens (combine it with Richmond Hill/Richmond Park or Hampton Court Palace). Kew Green (just by Kew Gardens)is also an amazing exquisite example of a classic English green with cricket pitch, church and beautiful houses.

If you do visit Portobello Rd market, it's not much of a stretch to Holland Park, as recommended above with superb formal gardens, Japanese garden and peacocks.

xp and the Hunterian, across the Fields. Another gallery rec when you're in the West End, my favourite in London and always near-deserted is the Wallace Collection, which has Canalettos, Poussins, the Laughing Cavalier and a huge collection of arms and armour, porcelain etc. It also has a restaurant in its covered internal courtyard.

Re:restaurants, the really high end ones will serve you incredible food but can also exude a particular kind of joylessness, a couple of the Michelin starred ones have such a hushed, rarified atmosphere it can feel like eating in a museum. Having said that if you're looking for both a romantic meal and a total once-a-year blowout then I'd go with Alain Ducaisse at the Dorchester or one of Gordon Ramsay's places (I've only been to Petrus but that is excellent).

If you want somewhere that will serve you amazing food but also feels fun and a bit more casual I'd always recommend St John (unless one of you is vegetarian) or one of the Social places (Pollen Street/Social Eating House/Berners Tavern). The latter has more spectacular surroundings and as a bonus you can go to the punch room upstairs and have a literal bowl full to drink.

There's a lot to be said for spending an evening in Clerkenwell - the Zetter Townhouse is the best cocktail bar in London. That and then St John would be as good an evening out as I could recommend in London.

It also has to be said that you don't HAVE to spend a load of money to eat well in London. Going down the Time Out best restaurants list will provide you with ample options but braving the queues and going down to Tayyabs in Whitechapel (or Lahore Kebab House round the corner) with a bottle of your own booze is my standard go to recommendation there.

on that budget for a hotel - maybe somewhere like the rosewood in holborn? i walk past it every day and it's beautiful. also that area is extremely close to everything central, and you'll have a wealth of brilliant restaurants nearby.

perhaps zetter townhouse would also be good - i've never stayed there but if the rooms are like the cocktail bar i assume it's great. there are two now - i'd say the one in farringdon is a better location.

oh lol i see someone already recommended both of these. good work guys. SUZY OTM.

so if you're at the rosewood, go to barrafina on drury lane. tapas. the best. maybe great queen street too, on great queen street. dunno if you want a more high-end blowout "event" type meal - barrafina is sort of that but it is a tapas bar. i'm not as well versed in the 10 course tasting menu type places. i suspect matt might be? xpost.

for theatre i'd prob recommend something like the young vic or the national theatre, not reinventing the wheel but you'll see good stuff there. the young vic is smallish and usually has interesting youth-orientated takes on classics. if you do go to the young vic a good night out would be to eat at the anchor and hope restaurant which is beside it - quite casual but one of the first gastropubs and still one of the best imo.

second st john for sure. if you don't manage to go at night (to the one on st john street) maybe go there in the day and have a snack at the bar.

Wallace Collection is great, and can also easily be combined with a walk up Marylebone HIgh St up across Baker St into Regents Park (yet more beautiful gardens and a rose garden to die for in summer).

A couple of very personal views:

- East London- the elephant in the room. Don't be talked into spending all your time drinking or hanging out in east London on the grounds that it's somehow the 'real' London or more authentic. Yes, it can be great to drink in a grimy Bethnal Green boozer, or sit among the barbecue fumes on London Fields, but if you've only got 4 days it's good to see the main sites.

- Cycling: can easily be hired and are great for getting around the main parks or along the Thames embankment, but I personally don't feel safe on the main roads and wouldn't risk it for a 4 day holiday.

Also (seriously) think about how much you REALLY want to see inside Westminster Abbey/the Tower of London/wherever. When you've taken travel and queuing into account it's quite easy to lose half your trip on this stuff and it probably won't be the best use of time. If I had to do one it would probably be climbing to the top of St Paul's Cathedral, although don't plan on doing anything energetic afterwards.

And if you're staying in Holborn, spend an hour or so wandering around the winding passages of the Inns of Court, which also has some lovely gardens. If you start at Grays Inn and walk down towards the river from there, through Lincolns Inn and Temple you'll see a London that has barely changed for centuries.

Also at risk of sounding like a broken record, a round-trip boat from Westminster Pier (or wherever) out towards Greenwich and back won't take you very long and will give you a view of most of the big sights while being more pleasant than a corny open-top bus ride. Also if you get off at Greenwich and wander up to the top of the hill by the observatory you'll see not just an excellent park but also the best natural view of the city anywhere in London (people will say Primrose Hill but those people are wrong). That might be stretching it for a four-day trip though.

Definitely visit both Madame Tussauds and the London Dungeon.

Seriously though, Greenwich and the Royal Observatory are well worth a trip if you don't mind a bit of walking. And to be less partisan about my corner of London, you might also enjoy a stroll up through Hampstead Garden Suburb up to the Free Church/St Jude's Church, especially if you want a flavour of the arcane powers which preside yet over this city, or a walk along Regent's Canal if you want to explore East London in style, with a possible Docklands Light Railway tie-in (you can sit at the front! It goes to Greenwich!) - then there are the Green Chain walks, backstreets Bloomsbury, the South Bank.......

Maybe keep it simple tho

Aberdeen Angus steakhouse opposite Leicester square tube stn is a must-visit

lol not really

amble through leicester square on a saturday night and soak up the quaint atmosphere.

walk along Regent's Canal if you want to explore East London in style

Not sure 'style' is quite the right word. Ready to dodge the cyclist who come zooming up behind. I'd also stick to a selected well-populated stretch and combine with Victoria Park maybe.

A great many London ILXors work in Holborn and I live about 200m from the Rosewood.

It would be almost more worthwhile to have a FAP at Tayyabs or Lahore Kebab than at a pub, just sayin' like.

Canal walks: either go from Little Venice to Ladbroke Grove or Angel Islington to Hackney Wick (lots of canalside cafés on the latter walk).

Restaurant wise, Tayyabs/Needoo/Lahore pretty essential, St John is good but I'd go for Quality Chop House. Similar(ish) style of food but more interesting in my opinion, and less ambitious pricing. Also the interior is one of the oldest in a restaurant in London, I'd say it's a must-visit. I'd also very strongly recommend Clove Club for something more creative (and expensive).

Also on a clear night cocktails at Dandelyan and/or dinner at the Blueprint Café for views along the river which are hard to beat.

If you go to Kew do grab lunch at the Glasshouse. It's not especially exciting but the quality is really really high and it has a cosseted/nothing bad ever happens here/ladies who lunch/home counties vibe which none of the other places mentioned so far really cover.

Oh yeah the Clove Club really is excellent, one of the best meals I've had in London in the last couple of years. For similar food at less crazy prices the room upstairs at the Ten Bells is also great, and there's tourist interest of a sort too (basically Jack the Ripper guff).

The only thing I don't like about the Clove Club is their ticketed booking system, which dements me.