Orientation
LONDON
To say that London is a sizeable city is to adopt the infamous British tendency for understatement. London is bloody massive. The central knot of museums, historical sights, shopping, and entertainment stretches along the Thames from the City of London (yes, a city within a city) through the West End to Westminster. The luxurious residential neighborhoods of Chelsea, Kensington, Notting Hill, and Marylebone lie to the north and west. Add in the university neighborhood of Bloomsbury and the culturally prominent South Bank and you’ve got the whole of central London in a nice package.
Now for the fun bits. With sky-high rents in the city center, the beating heart of city life has migrated a few miles out from the center. North London is the most upscale, East London is home to the city’s hip and artsy, and South and West London are defined by their large immigrant communities (and great ethnic cuisine).
Navigating the sprawl of London can be incredibly frustrating. Fortunately, the ever-obliging Brits plaster the city center with maps, which can be found reliably at bus stops. If you don’t want to leave your direction to chance, you can always out shell out for the all-knowing A-Z city map.
THE CITY OF LONDON
One of the oldest and most historic parts of London, the City of London, often referred to as “the City,” is home to many of London’s finest (and most crowded) tourist attractions as well as the city’s financial center. The City holds many of London’s Roman artifacts, including vestiges of the ancient London Wall. Next to these relics, the spires of famous churches are juxtaposed with the towers of powerful insurance companies. Many old buildings are marked by two of the city’s most devastating tragedies: the Great Fire of 1666 (which destroyed 80% of the city in five days) and the German Blitz during WWII. The fantastic architecture that either survived these calamities orreplaced the less fortunate buildings now stands as a monument to London’s resilient spirit. As you head farther north, the City fades into Farringdon and Clerkenwell, which provide something of a buffer zone from East London. Here you’ll find a mix of the yuppie-gentrified City and the hipster-gentrified East; somehow, this turns out to be a magical combination, producing quirky pubs and terrific food.
THE WEST END
The West End is one of the largest, most exciting parts of London. Its twin hearts are Soho and Covent Garden, but the neighborhood encompasses the area between Bloomsbury and the Thames, from the edge of Hyde Park to the City of London. Within that expanse are some of the city’s best public museums (such as the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery), world-famous theater, interesting restaurants, loads of shopping, and vibrant nightlife. You can find just about anything you’re looking for here (except maybe a good curry—Indian culture is strangely absent in this part of London).
Soho, most easily accessible via ØTottenham Court Road, is one of the hipper and seedier parts of London. Home to one of the city’s most prominent GLBT communities, Soho bursts at the seams with nightlife for gay and straight clubgoers alike. By day, this area (particularly Chinatown, located off Gerrard St.) is known for its excellent restaurants. North of Soho, Oxford Street is the capital of London shopping streets, with department stores and cavernous flagships of major clothing chains. Smaller boutiques and many salons can also be found in this part of town. To the south and west, the buildings get fancier and the streets are quieter in regal neighborhoods like St James’s. All in all, the West End feels like one of the most touristy parts of the city, but perhaps that’s because it so conveniently encapsulates what London is (deservedly) famous for.
WESTMINSTER
Westminster lays claim to the remainder of London’s most famous sights unclaimed by the City of London. Between Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, and Buckingham Palace, Westminster still feels like the seat of the royal empire. Aside from these sights, though, there isn’t much to do here. Nearby ØVictoria is a transport hub, surrounded by fast-food restaurants and touristy pubs. South of Victoria lies Pimlico, a residential neighborhood offering a few accommodations, many of them on Belgrave Rd. This area is also home to some higher-quality places to eat and drink.
THE SOUTH BANK
This neighborhood is located in the south of Central London on, you guessed it, the south bank of the Thames. Populated with the renovated factories of yore, the South Bank has undergone a renaissance, reinforcing its status as a hub of London entertainment. This reputation didn’t spring from nowhere: both the Rose and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre once stood here. Now, the Southbank Centre hosts classical music concerts, films, and more. There are also some of the best museums and galleries in London, including the famous Tate Modern. Millennium Mile stretches from the London Eye in the west eastward along the Thames, making for a beautiful walk, especially around sunset. More than just a cultural or aesthetic destination, the area around London Bridge and Borough is full of great pubs and restaurants with an eye on quality, perhaps thanks to the local Borough Market.
KENSINGTON AND CHELSEA
Kensington and Chelsea—excuse us, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea—is quite possibly the poshest part of London. And it knows it. The winding avenues and tree-lined side streets are full of mansions, columned townhouses, leafy gardens, and even royal residences. You’ll know you’re in the right place if you find yourself surrounded by nice suits, pearls, and the smell of money. High-priced restaurants are found alongside swanky cocktail bars and plenty of grand pubs. The shopping is to die for, and the museums are the city’s best—and most are free. This is a big neighborhood—its geography almost as intimidating as its prices—extending roughly from Hyde Park Corner south to the river, and west all the way to Earl’s Court.
HYDE PARK TO NOTTING HILL
Hyde Park is, we promise, actually a park. It’s roughly rectangular with a Tube stop at pretty much every corner—Marble Arch, the unhelpfully named Hyde Park Corner, High Street Kensington, and Queensway. North of the park are a set of neighborhoods that get progressively nicer as you move west. Paddington, Edgware Rd., and Queensway mix fairly fancy houses on their back streets with main roads that have plenty of cheap ethnic eateries, souvenir shops, and stores of questionable legality that can unlock your phone, cash your checks, and wire your money across the world. Notting Hill has the mansions you would imagine, butpopping out of the Tube at Notting Hill Gate may be a bit of a shock if you’re expecting the set from a Julia Roberts movie—it’s pretty much dull commercial real estate. Head slightly north, though, and you’ll find the villas you were expecting. In the middle of that, Portobello Road has a market, antique stores, vintage clothing, and the kind of minimalist, hip cafes and restaurants that seem to appear anywhere you can get a secondhand prom dress or a pair of cowboy boots.
MARYLEBONE AND BLOOMSBURY
It doesn’t get much more British than Marylebone—from the fact that Sherlock Holmes lived here to its mystifying pronunciation (it’s Mar-leh-bone). Lush Regent’s Park is surrounded by gleaming mansions, Marylebone Lane is lined with pubs, and the side streets are pocketed with clusters of Indian and Middle Eastern restaurants. The neighborhood stretches from Regent’s Park south to Oxford St., and from Edgware Rd. east until it bleeds into Bloomsbury. While Marylebone is fun to poke around in, the prominence of fancy residential areas and spiffy office buildings means that good values here are hard to find.
Bloomsbury, on the other hand, is famous for its bohemian heritage. The namesake Bloomsbury Group included luminaries like Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, and EM Forster. Today, you can feel the continuation of all that cleverness emanating from the British Library and University College London—though creeping gentrification means there are few affordable garrets left for the burgeoning artist-intellectuals of today. Bloomsbury, centered on Russell Square, stretches east to King’s Cross Rd., and is bounded on the north and south by Euston Rd. and High Holborn, respectively. The western part is now very high-end, while the eastern and northern bits retain more of the old student vibe. You can find some cheap pubs and restaurants throughout the streets surrounding the university, and the area is packed with good hostels, especially around King’s Cross.
NORTH LONDON
North London is a sprawling expanse of fairly residential, but often quirky, neighborhoods. Hampstead, Islington, and Camden Town are the most popular draws. On the whole, north London is characterized by its gentrification, which has made the area safer without entirely depriving it of character. Hampstead provides pleasant dining and a proper small-town feel. Camden was once punk central, but it’s now full of safety-pin-wearing 16-year-olds pretending that it still is. It also offers the glorious and meandering Heath, a must for all nature-lovers. Still worth a visit, Camden contains some underground culture and many upscale restaurants and boutiques. Islington is the easternmost part, quite pretty and residential but still with a bit of East London grit. Check out Upper St., which runs between ØAngel and ØHighbury and Islington, for great restaurants, bars, and shopping.
EAST LONDON
Once upon a time, East London (and especially the East End) was considered a den of poverty and crime due to poor dockworkers and waves of immigrants who settled there over the centuries. You can see traces of the neighborhood’s gritty past in the winding old lanes and thriving curry houses of Brick Lane, but it has slowly evolved into one of the most interesting parts of the city. The converted warehouse galleries and cutting-edge exhibitions attest to its popularity with artists. The hipsters and students who flocked to the cheap rents and underground cool factor have made it a haven for exciting and alternative nightlife (centered on Shoreditch and Old Street). The presence of immigrant communities mean that it’s packed to the gills with cheap ethnic cuisine, and a new Overground line has made it more accessible than ever.
SOUTH LONDON
South London has long been maligned as one of London’s dodgier neighborhoods. While the area has enjoyed something of a renaissance in recent years, it’s still not as safe as much of central London. Clapham is a good place to find pubs and restaurants full of young professionals. Clapham has also become a cultural hub as the home of the Battersea Arts Centre, renowned for its groundbreaking productions. Brixton is less quaint, but a bit more fun. Bible-thumpers preach the Apocalypse from convenience store pulpits, and purveyors of goods set up shop at the nearby Afro-Caribbean market, despite the overpowering smell of fish. Brixton is the place to come if you’ve started missing fast food, though some truly excellent restaurants peek out from between the fried-chicken stands. At night, it’s a popular place to hear underground DJs and live reggae shows. The local Underground stations across the south of the city play classical music, thought by many to be a tactic for keeping young people from accumulating in the Tube, Clockwork Orange-style.
WEST LONDON
West London is one of the most shape-shifting parts of the city. Shepherd’s Bush is a hub of ethnic life, evident in the varied restaurants lining Goldhawk Rd., culminating in the veritable World’s Fair of Shepherd’s Bush Market. Shepherd’s Bush is also home to Westfield’s, a 43-acre ode to consumerism that makes American strip malls look like rinky-dink corner stores. Hammersmith, the neighborhood to the south of Shepherd’s Bush, is quieter and more gentrified. It feels more like a seaside resort than London—once you get out of the thriving area surrounding the Tube station, that is. Farther south and west are Kew and Richmond, which have the luscious greenery of Kew Gardens and Hampton Court, two easily accessible places to escape the urban jungle.