Skip the grisly tower, let them change the guards without you. Okay, if you must, shop at Harrods and come home with all those green bags full of excessiveness. But if you want to see London more like the natives do or move off the first 10 pages of the guidebooks,
read on.
If you read Condé Nast Traveler or Gourmet magazine or most fine living publications, one hotel keeps appearing and reappearing: One Aldwych London. If your summer or fall
plans call for a trip across the pond, this is
one special hotel worth experiencing. And
the word experience is not overstated. From the moment you walk in, the hotel is both
modern and old world and unique in its
own quirky way. It’s also, it turns out, an excellent launching point to some delightful surprises.
The hotel is located near central London on the edge of the theatre district and close to the Thames. But before exploring, make your first stop the hotel itself. The exterior recalls the Flatiron Building in Manhattan. Built in 1907, it was in fact home to a newspaper for many years. It was bought by Gordon Campbell Gray and converted into its present hotel about six years ago and is named for the street it starts.
Amazingly, there are 400 pieces of art in
the hotel and lobby including each and every guest room. Each piece was selected by the owner whose philosophy about art is all enjoyment, not name-dropping. Thus the collection is at times whimsical and offbeat but always enjoyable. The flowers in the lobby and throughout are a work of art in themselves, too, and it was enjoyable to see what creations would be bursting forth daily. By now it might be obvious this is not a formal stuffy hotel. Nor is it a place for wannabees. It’s low key, relaxed and unpretentious. Staff are friendly, helpful and unobtrusive.
You only have to walk outside the hotel to explore and enjoy a rarely mentioned gallery. Somerset House is home to three world-class collections: the Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery, Gilbert Collection and Hermitage Rooms.
• We chose the Courtauld Institute of Art’s Gallery which has one of the most important collections in Britain, including world-famous Old Master and Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, together with sculpture and applied arts, and a world-class prints and drawings collection which includes works by Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Cézanne and Turner.
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• Somerset House also has an excellent
gift shop with a good selection of books and cards and is run by knowledgeable staff. Cost: Monday 10-2, free. Otherwise, joint collection ticket (any two collections) $16. Joint collection ticket (any three collections) $24.
Continue walking up the Strand and you’ll pass two churches: St. Mary Le Strand and St. Clement Danes. Keep that map out and meander back through an enclave that includes the courts of justice (which offer tours which would be fascinating to take; be sure to check times) and, once there, take another squiggly path to a place called Lincoln’s Inn Fields. You hardly feel like you’re in London. Along the way you’re likely to pass wigged barristers as well as many fine shops selling clothing for the right courtroom appearance.
• Soon you’ll find Sir John Soane’s Museum at 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields. It’s a museum, but was also an architect’s home for many years. Soane was born in 1753, the son of a bricklayer, and died after
a long and distinguished career,
in 1837. Perhaps his most famous work was the Bank of England building.
Soane designed this house to live in, but it was also as a setting for his antiquities and his works of art. After the death of his wife (1815), he lived here alone, constantly adding to and rearranging his collections. He established the house as a museum to which amateurs and students should have access. Soane lived amongst his work and eclectic collection: paintings, etchings, drawings, assorted architectural embellishments, statuary and an amazing
sarcophagus pinched by someone from Egypt.
Sir John Soane’s Museum is open free Tuesday-Saturday, 10-5 pm. Also on the first Tuesday evening of each month, 6-9 pm when parts of the Museum are lit with candles. There is a museum tour each Saturday at 2:30 pm; tickets are on sale from 2 pm and cost around $6.
Visitor numbers are high, but due to the delicate nature of the building and the exposed collections, they limit the number of people in the museum at any one time.
To avoid lines make your visit as early (the museum opens at 10 am).
• If you decide to linger in this charming enclosed area, you’ll find some small tearooms and sandwich shops amongst some clothing stores offering tailored English clothing. One very notable one is T.M. Lewin at 27 Chancery Lane (their main store is at 106 Jermyn Street). It’s a great place to pick up some well-made shirts and matching cufflinks which, I might add,
I did! |
One Aldwych is just a block from the Thames and we started by crossing over Waterloo Bridge. Once over you’ll find a footpath that runs all the way east and offers many places where you’ll want to stop. And walking allows just that, plus it’s a good way to shake off the last bit of that embolism and get the legs working again.
•After you’ve walked a stretch,
consider stopping
into the Tate Modern.
Love it or not love it, the Tate nonetheless has cafés on the ground and 7th floors with excellent views of the city. You can take in some of the collection, take a breather and enjoy the view—a work of art in itself.
 Continue walking and you’ll pass the Globe Theatre and lots of tourists. Detour a bit away from the river and you’ll soon come across
the Borough Market in an area known as Southwark. Arriving on a Friday at lunch hour, the market was jammed with young office types out to grab lunch and catch up with their friends. At a less crowded time you’d be able to see a wide variety of cheeses, lots of breads, cakes and cookies, exotic meats and fish, organic produce, hearty, fresh-made sandwiches of every type, and one lone fajita seller. Borough Market’s history can be traced back nearly a thousand years. It is the last remaining wholesale fruit and vegetable market still operating from its original site, adjacent to London Bridge.
Specialist farmers and producers travel from all over the country to sell their wares. This first-rate market has gained quite a reputation amongst London’s foodies, as well as top chefs and restaurateurs and rightfully so.
• Just outside the market is Neal’s Yard Dairy. They offer cheeses from small and often family- run producers in the British Isles. In addition to cheeses, but they also offer oils, chutneys and yogurts. They also have a store in Covent Garden (Neal’s Yard Dairy, 17 Short’s Gardens). Neal’s has friendly, knowledgeable staff who will ask what your tastes are and make helpful suggestions while offering you generous slices to sample. By now you should have some goodies for your picnic.
• Further along the South Bank, and somewhat less crowded, is London’s modernistic City Hall which, we’re told, also offers a
wonderful view of the city. Call ahead though, as when we arrived, it was closed for a private party. The public may visit parts of City Hall Monday to Friday, 8 am to 8 pm and on
occasional weekends. It’s an odd looking
building—kind of shaped the way we all look when we see our reflection in a hubcap.
If you’ve got bags in each arm by now you can hop a cab and take in a ride over the stately Tower Bridge. If you ate too much, proceed to walk the river, heading west! One Aldwych’s rooms have mini fridges, so our goodies will keep.
Though a weekday, we attended the church of St. Harrods and St. Harvey Nicks. The former, in particular, was a madhouse of people seemingly buying anything and everything in sight. Harvey Nicks is more sly cool and you must visit their own food hall. There, a nice man came by and offered sliced mangoes from Israel. You’ll also find a good selection of
travel and cookbooks, magazines and must have unnecessary household items. The mood is subdued, but chic and, like Harrods, if you have to ask how much...
• For a different scentsation (deliberate misspell there) take in, no, breathe in, Jo Malone, the store. Sounding like a pub in Boston or maybe a pugilist from the 40s, this is actually the name and brand of a clever and delightful store offering deliciously uncomplicated and clean scents for the body and home.
Jo is a she who started 20 years ago in
the skin business—giving facials, that is. She
treated, as the web site explains, every client differently and would create scents just for him or her. Others began to notice she had
a natural talent for unusual combinations
of ingredients that others insisted would not blend. One of her first was a nutmeg and
ginger bath oil, created as a thank-you gift
and given to her first facial clients, one of whom ordered a further 100 bottles to give
as gifts to her party guests. From those 100 guests, 86 called to place their own orders
for this delicious scent – marking the point
at which the Jo Malone brand was born.
Some of her 18 original fragrances may include lime, orange, basil, honey and sandalwood and are based on clean, natural ingredients, always with a twist of the unexpected.
Jo has a mini store in Harrods’s and a store at 150 Sloane Street. If you’re in New York, they have one at 949 Broadway (www.jomalone.co.uk.co).
After shopping and walking, the hotel offers afternoon tea in its sunny bar which offers a great view of people, traffic bustling by. It’s suits by day, but in the evening, One Aldwych’s Lobby Bar stays open late and the mood is quite charmingly different. It’s a good place for that after-theatre drink or to simply watch the live theatre taking place in front
of you.
But between those pleasures, enjoy a picnic in Hyde Park, a huge mass of green grass, tress going back centuries and various gardens. Sit, yes sit, on the grass, slip off your shoes and say to yourself: This is what relaxing on
vacation is all about!
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The lap pool in the basement is stunningly stark and has underwater music. Just off the pool area are wet steam and sauna rooms that make it possible to do wondrous things to the blood vessels and pores provided they can keep up. They also offer, aside from the wet and sweat, manicures, facials and massages.
