Spending a day in this sprawling city means there is never a dull moment, but for those with only a short time to [...]]]> The English capital is a popular destination for tourists from across the world, offering an exciting mix of entertainments and attractions with something to excite every kind of traveller.

Spending a day in this sprawling city means there is never a dull moment, but for those with only a short time to visit it is best to plan in advance to ensure the best use of time.

What you will do around London in one day depends on your personal preferences – below are a few suggested itineraries for visitors hoping to make the most of their trip. The public transport system in London is good, and an Oyster card travel ticket makes it easy to hop on buses or tube trains to reach destinations quickly and conveniently. Those who are looking for more independence may wish to consider one of the London car hire options but should bear in mind that visits to the city centre will be subject to a congestion charge – so this option may be best suited to those who prefer to explore the outskirts.

London Art and Culture Day

London is a big centre for artistic and cultural pursuits, so those looking to nourish their minds and soothe their souls in this way will certainly find a day in the city to be stimulating. Suggested activities include:

• The National Gallery – situated on the world famous Trafalgar Square, The National Gallery boasts a stunning collection of art through the ages.
• The Victoria and Albert Museum – The V&A in South Kensington as it is known locally is a real treasure trove of art, design, architecture and fashion making it a popular choice for the cultured traveller.
• The Royal Opera House – this imposing theatre in London’s Covent Garden is home to the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet, meaning it is a great place for culture vultures to end their day in London.

London Shopping Day

If you prefer to spend your time in London indulging in a little retail therapy, you won’t be disappointed. Great spots to shop include:

• Oxford Street – London’s most famous shopping street is home to some of the biggest UK high street stores, as well as department store giants Selfridges.
• Bond Street  – If you are looking for bespoke and designer piece then Bond Street is the place to be – this is the destination of choice in London for the serious shopper.
• Knightsbridge – This up market area is home to the iconic Harrods store, just bear in mind that a dress code does apply for visitors to the store, check the website for details in order to ensure entry.

London History and Heritage Day

This famous city is steeped in history and offers a number of insights into the country’s heritage. Consider visiting the following spots:

• Buckingham Palace: The London home of the Queen, ‘Buck House’ as it is affectionately titled is a stunning sight, while the changing of the guard offers a constant draw for spectators.
• The Tower of London: Home to the Crown jewels and site of some the bloodiest moments in British History – with its resident rooks and Beefeaters in traditional dress this is often a hit with the kids.

What makes a perfect London hotel? The right price is a good first step, but it’s not so good if the hotel is in the wrong location. A modern hotel is great, unless the customer is looking for that quaint English charm. In fact, it would really help to know the ratings and services of [...]]]>

What makes a perfect London hotel? The right price is a good first step, but it’s not so good if the hotel is in the wrong location. A modern hotel is great, unless the customer is looking for that quaint English charm. In fact, it would really help to know the ratings and services of all the hotels in the right location and price range, but none of that helps if they’re already booked or closed for renovations. These two hotels sound almost perfect, but what do they really look like? That seaside inn is quite charming, but maybe not in the wintry gales of December. What new hotel is trying to attract attention with great specials on luxury suites?

London’s a big city with world-renowned museums, theaters, parks, sporting events, and attractions. Maybe it would be fun to spend a couple of nights in a luxurious four-star hotel near the West End and then set up base camp in a cheaper inn near Paddington station for day excursions. That means the customer has to find two perfect hotels with two completely different criteria. Okay, the perfect hotel is a mirage, and every question answered begets two more unanswered questions. How can the customer judge competing claims when she’s halfway around the world and doesn’t know London? Surely, there must be experts one can turn to for advice.

An airline or travel agent will be happy to steer the customer toward one of the four hotels they’re supposed to push, but they aren’t really experts. Their package tours are convenient but offer a very limited selection in hotels. Whether this is your tenth or first trip to London, you want your hotel to be memorable. Don’t let a faceless airline make this choice for you – it’s possible to do it yourself.

What about that picturesque lodge near Battersea Park that Uncle Harry said not to miss? The travel agent has never heard of it, and Uncle Harry isn’t sure of the name. The guidebooks are confusing and make every place sound basically the same, except for the prices, and some of the information is way out of date. Ads and brochures don’t help much, because they make every lodging in London sound terrific. To believe the ads, the only difference between a four-star and a two-star hotel is the mint on the pillow. No, what you need is an unbiased counselor with encyclopedic knowledge of London and its environs, someone who knows where the bargains, specials, and vacancies are.

That information is on the Internet but not in corporate websites that are designed to sell one chain hotel over another. The customer can check out individual sites for every hotel, but that’s no different than reading a stack of brochures or a page of ads. They’re just sales tools, not honest advice from an organization designed to help the consumer. To find the perfect London hotel, the customer needs real facts and easy methods to compare lodgings by the most important criteria – price, location, size, style, rating, and availability.

The major travel websites would be tempting for a search like this, but they don’t offer more than a dozen affiliated hotels. Again, that’s not a real selection when London offers hundreds of diverse establishments of all types. It’s better to find a service that focuses exclusively on hotels, without trying to rent cars and sell airline tickers at the same time. Every hotel in London should be available for scrutiny and comparison shopping, from the quaint inn over the pub to the newest luxury resort. There should be photos of the rooms and the major facilities in each hotel, so the customer knows he’s getting the experience he wants. With the incredible array of history and architecture on display in London, there’s no reason why the customer can’t find the perfect lodging to suit his dream vacation.

Prices and room availability have to be current and reflect seasonal conditions, and by the time the customer makes a reservation, he should feel totally confident in his choice. A full-service website should offer maps, attraction guidelines, and transportation tips, making sure that the visitor has the right location for the excursions he wants. If theater is a major interest, some hotels offer theater packages that include tickets and transportation. Other hotels offer packages that include tickets to sporting events, and a rare few offer pure luxury at discount prices. A good hotel is more than a place to park one’s head on a pillow after a hard day of sightseeing – it’s the base of operations, a place for meals and reflection, and sets the tone for the whole day.

Unless the customer knows a particular chain where he prefers to stay in any city, perhaps to use or accrue bonus points, he should avoid the corporate websites. Even then, it’s often a good idea to go to compare the hotels in a given chain on an unbiased site, where they rank all criteria objectively. In a large city like London, every major chain will have several hotels, and they may vary a great deal in amenities and style. One may be a brand-new tower of chrome and mirrors and another a quaint old inn with a new corporate name. One may be conveniently located for business meetings but not so great for general sightseeing, and another may be gorgeous but distant from public transportation. Yet all carry the same name, and the corporate website makes them all sound delightful.

There really isn’t any reason to let an airline or Uncle Harry pick a hotel for you in London, when all the information is available on the internet, often in one place. These guidelines try to stay current, too, so a list of helpful sites appears below. A consumer-oriented site that includes every lodge of every description is recommended, because the only way to find the perfect London hotel is to have the perfect selection.

If you are traveling to London, make sure to see Piccadilly Circus which can be found at the junction of Shaftesbury Avenue and Regent Street. Much like Times Square in New York, this centrally located area offers most anything that you may find interesting. With it’s neon lights and diverse crowds, no wonder it has [...]]]>

If you are traveling to London, make sure to see Piccadilly Circus which can be found at the junction of Shaftesbury Avenue and Regent Street. Much like Times Square in New York, this centrally located area offers most anything that you may find interesting. With it’s neon lights and diverse crowds, no wonder it has the ability to attract tourists.

Besides the theaters, pubs, shops and monuments of London, here you’ll also find some very interesting people. This area was officially named in 1819 but was un-officially known as Piccadilly Circus since 1743.The Shaftesbury Memorial fountain is located here and was a technological innovation for 1893 because it was cast using aluminum. In 1980, it was moved from the center to it’s present day location.

Erected in 1859, the London Pavilion is located in the northeast corner and was originally constructed as a music hall. Shaftesbury Ave bisected the site in 1885 and a new music hall was put up in 1923. This new hall even had electric billboards. The original facade from 1885 was conserved when the building was rebuilt in 1986, after it became a shopping mall. Since that time it’s been attached to the Trocadero Center. The stores of interest that are located here are the Virgin Megastore, Lily Whites and the HMV. Below ground you will find the London underground subway system. The locals know it as the “tube”.

If you go to the Criterion Theatre, you will see the reduced Shakespeare Company, which is located close to the center of Piccadilly Circus. It’s a theater group that specializes in presenting Shakespeare’s complete works in only 97 minutes. It’s performances are fast-moving and very highly improvised. They’ve been performing here since 1995 and if you want to see this interesting event, you had better plan ahead, as the shows are often sold out

If traditional theater is more to your liking, the best of British theater can be found at one of London’s West End shows. These are so good that they are often adapted for Broadway. You might want to check out the latest technology that is fairly new here. It’s a huge curved TV screen that rivals even Times Square.

There are many interesting things in Piccadilly Circus including plenty of pubs. However, be careful when selecting a London pub, because some are for the tourists and others are for the locals, where they might be a little tourist unfriendly.

London today teems with so many theatres at the well-renowned West End. Many talented artists who want to get their breaks and begin their acting careers seek the spotlights of the West End theaters for the promise of brilliant and shining show business careers. The London theatre is where all things can begin for actors [...]]]>

London today teems with so many theatres at the well-renowned West End. Many talented artists who want to get their breaks and begin their acting careers seek the spotlights of the West End theaters for the promise of brilliant and shining show business careers. The London theatre is where all things can begin for actors so every hopeful has his eyes on the high profile roles, the applause, and that chance to perform on these famous theatres.

I was in 1597 when an actor decided to put up his own theater and launch himself as a star. Richard Burbage established the Globe Theatres when he took over the lease of The Theatre, which was the first ever playhouse in Shoreditch, that was put up in 1576. The Theatre started the rich history of the London theatre and the West End. When the lease expired, Burbage took over and launched much more ambitious efforts to push the industry and the craft. Soon enough, Burbage became a big name as a great actor and he came to be known too, as the first to play Shakespeare’s Hamlet, King Lear, as well as Othello.

In 1663, the West End legacy of artistic excellence in stage performance soared with the opening of the first London West End venue at Drury Lane. This very famous venue witnessed careers of the earliest icons – the likes of Charles Hart and Nell Gwyn. The old theatre, unfortunately, suffered during a fire in 1672.

Since London already had a taste for the theaters, it didn’t take much time before a new venue rose on the very same spot in 1674. The Theatre Royal of Drury Lane came about and picked up after where the former theatre left off. This theatre, designed by Christopher Wren managed to survive for the next 120 years. That was quite a long-standing record especially those days. Along with other theatres that sprung like the Theatre Royal Covent Garden (Royal Opera House) and the Haymarket, The Theater became a catalyst in the evolution of the West End Theatre.

In 1737, a wine seller by the name of David Garrick got magnetized to the call of London’s West End at Drury Lane. He became the legendary manager of the Theater Royal and made his mark on the theatre scene. He soon became famous for playing the roles of Richard III and became a very great influence in the London Theatre scene in the next 20 to 30 years. The Garrick Club and the Garrick Theatre are memoirs of his great contributions to theatre arts in London.

Most of the beautiful buildings that house the modern theatres were built during the 19th century. The middle and upper classmen in London have somehow made theater-going an enduring fashion trend in the city. Many of the theaters started to appear along Shatesbury Avenue too, at the end of the 19th century and soon, this area became the focal point for London Theatre. Many of the buildings are still around and well maintained these days for everyone to appreciate.

Theatre-going never ceased to be a fashion statement and more and more talented actors are being born in these theaters. The London Theatre scene continues to attract so many people from around the world.

Lord Chamberlain’s Men, the playing company of William Shakespeare, initially built the Globe Theater in 1599. After a fire cindered down the theater in 1613, another resurrection was done on the same place in 1614; this however, was shut down in 1642. The current modern “Shakespeare’s Globe” was constructed and opened in 1997, and is [...]]]>

Lord Chamberlain’s Men, the playing company of William Shakespeare, initially built the Globe Theater in 1599. After a fire cindered down the theater in 1613, another resurrection was done on the same place in 1614; this however, was shut down in 1642. The current modern “Shakespeare’s Globe” was constructed and opened in 1997, and is around 230 meters distant to the initial site.

The actors who worked for the Chamberlain’s Men also had shareholdings in it. Notably, Richard Burbage, and his brother Cuthbert Burbage, and John Heminges, Augustine Phillips, and Thomas Pope. Although the actual size of the original theater structure can’t be verified, it was said that it was almost a hundred feet in diameter and could seat over three thousand viewers. Later on, it has also been stipulated that it had a polygonal shape.

Where the base of the stage was located, there used to be a pit, where people could stand and see the shows if they paid a penny as the charge. These viewers were referred to as the Groundlings in those times, as they would eat groundnuts during the shows and threw the nutshells about. Many nutshells were even discovered during an excavation of the place. The remainder seating structure was in the form of three tiers, as seen in stadiums, and was relatively pricey compared to the standing room.

In the open-to-air yard, the rectangle shaped “apron stage” was placed and measured almost forty-three feet by twenty-seven feet, with a height of approximately five feet. The apron stage had a small door , which the performers could emerge from onto the stage through the “cellarage” underneath.

The large columns on both sides of the stage also carried a roof and the area was referred to as the “heavens”. This was painted with clouds and skies. There was a small hidden door here that would render performers able to sort of “descend” on to the stage, although with using ropes or other such supports. There was a “tiring” house backstage where the performers could prepare themselves before a show. There was also a balcony that could be either used to seat musicians or if required could be used for enacting the parts of a play, for instance, the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. All of these sections are reconstructed in the new Shakespeare’s Globe theater.

When you visit the the Shakespeare’s Theater, make sure you spend a few days at a London hotel. Millennium Hotel London Knightsbridge has much to offer a visitor and there’s no better way to relax at the end of a day of sightseeing than among the comforts of a high-grade hotel.