Things to Do in London

Immortalized on-screen in the eponymous 1999 romantic comedy film, Notting Hill is much more than just a backdrop for the famous Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts’ love affair. The west London district, stretching over Ladbroke Grove, Portobello Road and parts of North Kensington is one of the city’s hippest destinations, lined with vintage boutiques, bijou cafés and indie music venues. Located between the upmarket neighborhoods of Knightsbridge and Kensington, Notting Hill brings a dash of bohemian cool to the stately Victorian townhouses and cobbled side streets, making it the perfect location for the annual Notting Hill Carnival, Europe’s biggest and most flamboyant street festival.

Notting Hill is also home to the world famous Portobello market, where one of the largest antique markets in the world is held alongside stalls selling everything from vintage and alternative clothing to handmade crafts and jewelry, music (legendary record store and label Rough Trade is in these parts) and fruit and vegetables.

Notting Hill’s nightlife is also renowned – the Notting Hill Arts Club hosts a number of live bands and DJs; The Castle, Prince Albert and The Cow are popular local pubs or else there are dozens of trendy bars on and around Portobello Road. A number of art house cinemas make it a popular destination for film fanatics too, including the funky Electric cinema with its plush leather sofas and an in-house bar; the small yet luxurious Gate cinema and the grand Coronet cinema, London’s oldest operating cinema, which has been showing movies since 1916.

Piccadilly Circus is the meeting place of many of London's most famous roads. Here beautiful Regent Street (shopping heaven), famous Piccadilly (Fortnum and Mason's, The Ritz, the Royal Academy of Art), and cultural Shaftsbury Avenue (theaters, Chinatown) intersect. In the middle of it all is the famous 1893 statue of Eros, the winged messenger of love, which commemorates Lord Shaftesbury.

The circus was originally created as part of a plan to connect Carlton House, the home of the Prince Regent who became King George IV in 1820, to Regent's Park. When Shaftesbury Avenue was created in 1885, the area became busy with traffic and advertisers saw the potential for advertising; in 1895 London's first illuminated billboards were put up in Piccadilly Circus. For the next century it was London's version of Times Square but now only one building carries billboards. For history buffs, the name Piccadilly dates from the 17th century and comes from piccadill, a type of collar or ruff.

Located in London’s theater land of Covent Garden, the New London Theatre is owned by Lord Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group, and although there have been theaters and music halls on this site since the 17th century, it was redesigned in the early 2000s by Croatian architect Paul Tvrtkovic. Along with its vast, 18-m (60-ft) stage, contemporary acoustics and a new orchestra pit, the new auditorium seats an audience of 960 on two levels and it is currently showing sell-out performances of the deeply moving and award-winning musical War Horse, adapted from the novel by former Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo and featuring life-size puppets of horses on stage.

Owing legendary status to its monopoly board incarnation – the most expensive property on the board, no less – Mayfair maintains its reputation as one of Central London’s most affluent districts – it was even the birthplace of Her Majesty the Queen. Stretching between Oxford Street, Piccadilly and Regent Street, and bounded by Hyde Park to the West, the area was named after the May Fair held there during the 17th and 18th centuries. At its heart, the popular Grosvenor Square - affectionately termed ‘Little America’ with its statue of Franklin D Roosevelt and stately American Embassy building - was named after the Grosvenor family, who still own a good portion of Mayfair.

The district’s principal shopping streets include the world famous Bond Street, home to Balenciaga, Christian Louboutin, Jenny Packham and Marc Jacobs, among others and Saville Row, legendary for its exquisite men’s tailoring. The elegant Royal and Burlington shopping arcades are also worth a wander, with luxury boutiques set to a stunning backdrop. New Bond Street is famed for its auction houses, including the ever-popular Phillips and Sotheby's.

It’s not just shopping that draws visitors to the streets of Mayfair – there are around 20 art galleries in the area, as well as the Handel House Museum, set inside the former home of the renowned composer, and the Royal Academy of Arts lies on the cusp of Picadilly. If you can afford to stay in Mayfair, you’ll be spoiled – the area is home to the highest concentration of luxurious hotels in London, including the illustrious Ritz and the local nightlife is among the glitziest in town, with celebrity-studded nightclubs like Mahiki just a short stroll from a selection of plush wine bars. A number of exquisite restaurants have put Mayfair firmly on the map for roving gastronomes too - celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay owns a number of restaurants in the area and the world-famous Nobu has an outlet on Berkeley Street.

Home to one of London’s most famous street markets and some of West London’s trendiest eateries, Portobello Road has earned itself legendary status among Londoners, running through the trendy West London districts of Notting Hill, Westbourne Park and Ladbroke Grove.

Portobello market is world renowned for its antiques market with over 2,000 specialist dealers and vast crowds of bargain hunters, but the two-mile long sprawl includes a plethora of other goods. Vintage clothing, local designers and handcrafted accessories make up the fashion section of the market, with an array of unique and trend-setting pieces on offer, and plenty of incognito celebrities scouring the clothing racks. Hoards of eccentric retro memorabilia, one-of-a-kind furniture and second-hand household items, a wide range of bootlegged music and vinyl and a sprawling fruit and vegetable market, make up the rest of the stalls.

The street market is open six days a week but the Saturday market (which includes the main antiques market) is the most popular and crammed with vendors. There’s plenty to keep you occupied when you’ve finished shopping too – a number of independent art galleries, vintage clothing boutiques, bars and chic cafés (don’t miss the cupcakes at the renowned Hummingbird Bakery) are dotted along the main drag and side streets. Alternatively, film buffs can spot landmarks from Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts’ Notting Hill, much of which was filmed on Portobello Road – look out for that famous blue door, the location of the Travel Bookshop (actually a shoe shop) and the coffee shop where the romantic leads first meet.