London has no shortage of workshops promising an entertaining weekend afternoon. You can throw a pot, shake cocktails, paint canvases, and generally spend a few hours making something you probably won’t attempt again once you get home.

These courses are a little different. Each one is designed to leave you with a skill you can actually use afterwards, whether that means fixing your bike’s puncture, dealing with a leaking tap, sewing your own clothes, baking delicious sourdough, or getting comfortable with proper workshop tools.

We’ve kept things beginner-friendly, and everything here can be completed in a single day.

Some are undeniably more practical than others, but the common thread is simple: you should leave knowing how to do something you couldn’t do when you arrived – and, ideally, feeling confident enough to have another go on your own.

Before you go and book

All prices are per person and were checked in Autumn 2026. Course dates, locations, and availability can change, so it’s worth checking directly with the provider before booking to avoid disappointment.

We’ve used “one-day course” fairly broadly here – some run for a full working day, while others are shorter sessions you can complete in a single visit. Unless stated otherwise, the courses are suitable for beginners and include the basic materials or equipment you’ll need.

The Goodlife Centre – learn to fix your own plumbing

A leaking tap or blocked sink can turn into an expensive problem in a flash, especially if your first instinct is to call out a plumber. The Goodlife Centre’s £225 DIY in a Day plumbing course is designed to make the basics feel a lot less mysterious.

The full-day course is aimed at complete beginners, covering common household jobs such as dealing with taps, blockages, radiators, and toilet cisterns. Tools and materials are included, and the focus is on giving you enough confidence to tackle straightforward problems yourself.

You won’t leave ready to refit a bathroom but knowing what you can safely fix – and when it’s time to call a professional – is a pretty useful skill to have.

Getting there: The Goodlife Centre is in Bankside, around a 10-minute walk from Southwark or Borough stations.

Bikeworks – learn to keep your bike running

A puncture is annoying enough at the best of times, but it’s even worse when you know the repair itself is relatively simple. Bikeworks’ Essentials Maintenance Course is for anyone who wants to feel a little less helpless when something goes wrong with their trusty stead.

The £84 course runs from 10am to 4pm, with no previous maintenance experience required. You’ll learn the everyday basics, including fixing punctures and looking after your chain. You can bring your own bike, or use one provided by Bikeworks.

There’s also an Advanced Maintenance Course for anyone who wants to move on to meatier jobs like adjusting your brakes and gears.

Getting there: Courses run at Lee Valley VeloPark in Stratford.

Fixing Factory – learn to solder and repair electronics

Most of us don’t think twice about replacing a small electrical item once it stops working. Fixing Factory’s Fixperience workshops are designed to make opening one up and attempting a repair feel less daunting.

Its beginner-friendly Solder On workshop costs £35 and takes just over two hours. You’ll learn how to work safely, splice wires, and practise soldering by building a small electronics project, with plenty of hands-on, expert guidance along the way.

It’s one of the shorter courses on our list, but soldering is the kind of skill that can unlock all sorts of future electronics projects and repairs.

Getting there: Fixperience workshops run at several locations across London, including Camden, Hackney, Barking, and Victoria.

London Green Wood – learn to carve a spoon

There’s something pleasingly simple about London Green Wood’s one-day spoon-carving course: you start with a piece of freshly cut timber and, seven hours later, should have something recognisably spoon-shaped to show for it.

The £70 course teaches you how to work safely with an axe and carving knife, including the basic grips and techniques you’ll need to carry on carving afterwards. The wood is locally sourced, and the whole thing takes place outdoors – under cover if the weather turns.

Courses run at both Hackney City Farm and Abney Park Cemetery, putting you among some lovely city nature.

Getting there: Hackney City Farm is near Hoxton Overground, while Abney Park is just a few minutes from Stoke Newington station.

Blackhorse Workshop – learn to use proper workshop machinery

If you’ve ever wanted to get comfortable with the kind of tools you normally only see in a professional workshop, Blackhorse Workshop is a great place to start. Its one-day Introduction to Machine Shop course costs £130 and runs from 10am to 4:30pm.

You’ll learn how to safely use equipment including bandsaws, chop saws, pillar drills, and sanders, before putting those skills into practice by making your own chopping board.

Better still, the course includes Blackhorse’s Level 1 induction, which means you can return and book a workbench afterwards, rather than just treating it as a one-off experience.

Getting there: Blackhorse Workshop is located in Walthamstow, at 1–2 Sutherland Road Path, E17 6BX.

Print Club London – learn to screen print

Screen printing seems simple until you actually see how much goes into getting an image onto paper. Print Club London’s beginner workshop takes you through the process from preparing your artwork to producing the finished prints yourself.

The one-day course costs £75 and requires no previous experience. You bring along an A4 design, then learn how to prepare and expose a screen before getting hands-on with the printing itself.

By the end, you’ll have produced an edition of around six to 10 prints to take home, easily enough to cover your walls as well as your friends’ and family's walls.

Getting there: Print Club London is in Dalston, at 10–28 Millers Avenue, E8 2DS, around a 10-minute walk from Dalston Junction.

e5 Bakehouse – learn to make sourdough properly

As many people found during the pandemic, sourdough has a well-earned reputation for being slightly intimidating. e5 Bakehouse’s full-day class is a good way to get past the guesswork, with experienced bakers taking you through the process.

The seven-hour beginner course costs £180 and covers everything from keeping a starter alive to kneading and shaping dough. You’ll make several different breads during the day, then leave with your own starter, flour, and a few bits of kit.

Getting there: e5 Bakehouse is under the railway arches on Mentmore Terrace, a couple of minutes from London Fields Overground.

Ray Stitch – learn to use a sewing machine

Learning to sew opens up considerably more possibilities than simply fixing the occasional loose button. Ray Stitch’s Beginners All Day course starts from scratch, before moving into some of the techniques you’ll need if you eventually want to make or alter your own clothes.

The £160 class runs for around seven hours, with all tools and materials included. You’ll spend the morning getting comfortable with a sewing machine and making a tote bag, before moving on to basic garment construction in the afternoon.

It’s designed for complete beginners, so there’s no expectation that you’ll know your bobbin from your seam allowance beforehand.

Getting there: Ray Stitch is on Essex Road in Islington, within walking distance of Angel and Essex Road stations.

It’s been a long time since I’ve graced the illustrious halls of the London Science Museum. I’m almost a bit ashamed to say that it’s not since the early noughties that I last journeyed to South Kensington to whisper excitedly to my friend across the sound dishes.

What finally made me return? Pokémon.

And let me tell you, this new multi-stop experience that weaves its way across four levels of this iconic building is not just for kids.

The London Science Museum is currently home to the Pokémon Space Trail, a unique collaboration between The Pokémon Company International and the European Space Agency. At nine separate stops, pillars of information stand amongst the galleries to teach you not just about space, but about the relationship the featured Pokémon have with their own universe.

Interplanetary Pikachu

Upon arrival at the Exhibition Road entrance, visitors are immediately met with the start of the trail, lining up nicely with the museum’s first exhibition, the Energy Hall. Simply pick up a free leaflet and your trail has begun. And it seems only befitting that astronaut Pikachu should be there to greet you and begin your journey.

I think it’s also only right to share with you a nugget of information I found out about this cuddly little space-exploring Pikachu. And that’s that they actually travelled, in plushie form, up into space on a voyage to the International Space Station, spending 67 days in orbit.

But, I found myself asking, who’s this Space Trail actually for? As Pikachu’s own pillar quickly answered: “Whether you’re an aspiring astronaut or a budding Pokémon Trainer, we’re confident you already possess the key to success: Curiosity!”

And curious you’ll have to be as each location on this multi-stop tour asks you to take a moment, have a read and learn about the Pokémon hidden at each spot. Though, if you’ve picked up a leaflet, you may have guessed who they are by their silhouette alone.

Science with a dose of Nintendo magic

At each stop, there’s definitely a focus on the astounding explorative work of the ESA, but there’s also a section dedicated to naming and enlightening you on the links between the Pokémon found there and their own universe.

From learning about various historically-poignant ESA missions to the agency’s current plans for further space exploration, each pillar then entwines unique information on each Pokémon like Lunatone, the Meteorite Pokémon, active on nights with a full moon.

And when I asked other Space Trail-goers how they felt about the experience, they mentioned not only how they enjoyed its interactivity, but also how it helped them focus on each section of the Science Museum with more knowledge in hand.

Using the Space Trail map, you’re also provided with a route of which to take around the museum, which gives you a sense of purpose as you peruse what each gallery has to offer. Though, it’s worth noting that due to refurbishment closures you will have to do an extra bit of travelling between levels to access the whole experience.

As you reach the end, you’ve also got a photo opportunity to take a photo next to the infamous astronaut Pikachu who has guided you on your journey.

WIDER COLLABORATION

The ESA x Pokémon collab is not limited to London. It spans across Europe, reaching 7 different countries; Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, and the UK.

And with this wide reach, it hopes to inspire curiosity about space exploration among audiences of all ages. Something I indeed noticed as I made my own way through the experience, speaking to other Space x Pokémon fans from all walks of life.

“Inspiring future generations is a key part of ESA’s mission. Through this collaboration with Pokémon, we are unlocking new ways for people across Europe to connect with space through a unique and engaging experience,” says ESA’s Director General Josef Aschbacher.

“By taking space exploration beyond traditional settings, we hope to ignite curiosity, spark a sense of wonder about our Universe and encourage people of all ages to discover the opportunities that space offers for the future.”

With Pokémon old and new gracing the halls of the London Science Museum, you can certainly tell they’ve tried to engage an array of fans. But, the collaboration is also not limited to the multi-stop experience alone.

In fact, as part of the wider reach for engagement, they’ve launched a special Pokémon GO event that's running to April 30th, 2027. This means trainers visiting any of the participating science and space museums across Europe can take part in special gameplay inspired by the wonders of space, including encounters with astronaut Pikachu, One-Star Raids and Timed Research.

And if you’re not on Pokémon GO, but are keen to engage even further into the Science Museum’s collaboration, there’s a special ESA x Pokémon shop. Access to which is only granted by free timed entry tickets, which in my experience, sell out fast. Though these tickets are also on their own timed release schedule, so forward planning is essential.

Inside the shop, you’ve got special collaboration merchandise, games, books, cards, plushies, accessories and more. And while I was tempted to purchase my very own astronaut Pikachu, available in both white and blue, I ultimately decided that I’d already caught ‘em all after the fun I’d had completing the exhibition and learning about our cosmos. But, I did walk away with a lovely tote.

The ESA x Pokémon Space Trail, is running until January 3rd, 2027. It’s completely free, though donations to the London Science Museum are always welcome.

This week one of our more anticipated art exhibitions opened up in London — Hokusai: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji.

The exhibition began on 20th October at Dulwich Picture Gallery. And you need to be on the ball for this one as loads of the days have already sold out, and it’s not on for all that long.

Hokusai: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji ends on 17th January. You book a half-hour entry slot, and tickets are £21.50 for adults — or £19 if you remove the optional donation.

According to the curators, this is the first time the full series of works has been shown together in the UK.

“Across the series, Hokusai depicts Mount Fuji from shifting viewpoints, seasons, and moments of everyday life, transforming Japan’s most sacred mountain into a powerful presence within both landscape and human activity,” the description reads.

As well as the classic Clear Day with a Southern Breeze, the exhibition features Hokusai’s best-known work, the Great Wave.

“Visitors can see the complete Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji series, comprising all 46 prints, including the ten additional designs added after the original publication,” says the Dulwich Picture Gallery.

The series of original works was made between 1830 and 1832, by which time Hokusai was in his 70s. His original drawings were transformed into woodblocks to create the prints, with a separate block used for each main colour in the final work. It's masterful stuff.

A few events drop during the exhibition’s run too. On 3rd November there’s a curator’s talk — sadly sold out. Or on 19th November there’s a Hokusai Paint and Sip workshop. Standard tickets cost £40 and it runs from 6:30pm to 9pm at the Gallery Cafe.

Or for something a little different there are supper club evenings on 24th and 25th November. There’s more too — check out the full listings over at the Dulwich Picture Gallery website.

Also coming soon to Dulwich Picture Gallery, on 3rd November, is an exhibition from illustrator Charlie Mackesy. It’s a one-room affair included as part of a general admission ticket.

• David Shrigley exhibition is coming to South London next year, and it's not an ordinary one

English Heritage has long been a curator of some of the nation’s most important tourist attractions, and while London has no shortage of places to visit, the English Heritage sites located in and around the capital tend to go under the radar.

This is a genuine shame, as within these bounds, you can gain insights into the lives of people who changed the worlds, from monarchs and scientists to soldiers and statesman. There are palaces, gardens, monuments, and maybe the odd pop-culture phenomenon.

Here, we take our pick of the English Heritage sites that you really must visit the next time you take a trip around the capital…

1. Eltham Palace

Originally a royal home of Edward II in the 14th century, and remaining in use for further generations (Henry VIII was once a resident), today Eltham Palace is an art deco masterpiece, having been restored from the ruins it had fallen into by the 1930s in a style inspired heavily by Christopher Wren’s work on Hampton Court Palace.

You can experience this first-hand, gaining an insight into the lives of the eccentric Courtauld and their design tastes, including specially adapted spaces for their pet lemur, a golden bathroom and a World War 2-era bunker. It’s not just about the modern era, though – the palace’s great medieval hall is still standing, and there are extensive, beautiful gardens, trails and a playground for all the family to enjoy.

2. Down House

The home of Charles Darwin – and subsequent family members – from 1842 until 1906, the entire residence at Down House is a tribute to the life and remarkable achievements of the man whose discoveries changed the world as we know it.

Nestled away from the city centre in the borough of Bromley, there is an exhibition covering Charles’ life and achievements – taking in the Voyage of the Beagle and the penning of On The Origin Of Species – plus an insight into his family life, and the extensive gardens where he spent much of his time. It’s a time capsule into the life of one of the greatest Britons.

3. Ranger’s House

Does this place look familiar? It will be if you have been watching Netflix mega-hit Bridgerton, with the Ranger's House modelling the exterior of the titular family home. Inside the residence itself, you can get a better introduction to the regency era that the series models itself on, including taking in the Wernher Collection – one of the most impressive assemblies of art ever assembled in a private residence.

There are over 700 pieces of art on display, from paintings and sculptures to jewellery and tapestries. One of Greenwich’s hidden gems, this is truly one to make sure you check out.

4. Kenwood

Situated on the northern edge of Hampstead Heath, Kenwood House is a great example of the many free-to-visit sites that English Heritage has to offer. Housing a gallery exhibiting the works of world-famous artists like Rembrandt, the interior showcases the work of 18th-century Scottish architect Robert Adam, with the Great Library being a standout.

Regular guided tours take place, during which you can learn more about the people who made the house their home (including a Prime Minister, Chief Justice and Russian Duke), and there are 112 acres of woodland to explore on a sunny day, encompassing an old dairy, a variety of sculptures and a sham bridge.

5. Jewel Tower

Nestled away in Westminster, it’s easy to overlook this three-story tower. However, to do so would be to miss out on a genuine slice of history. Originally built in the 14th century under the orders of Edward III to house his treasure, Jewel Tower has since been used as a storage archive by the House of Lords, before being used by the National Weights and Measures Office.

As well as hosting a number of items dating back centuries, there are also model reconstructions of nearby structures like Westminster Hall and St Stephen’s Church of how they looked before they were destroyed by the 1834 fire. Amid all the hustle and bustle of the capital, this is a great change of pace.

6. Wellington Arch

Amid all the famous sights in the capital, Wellington Arch is one of the most iconic, with the bronze Angel of Peace – the largest bronze sculpture in Europe – looking outwards from Hyde Park Corner.

Built to commemorate Britain’s victories in the Napoleonic Wars (although it was proposed even earlier than this), it allows those who climb up to the balconies a breathtaking view over London – sights like the changing of the guard and the passing of the Household Cavalry are even visible at certain times.

Contained within are various exhibitions, including the Royal Regiment of Artillery and their sacrifices during the Battle of Ypres.

7. Chiswick House and Gardens

Another attraction that can be enjoyed completely free of charge, Chiswick House and Gardens remains a compelling example of 18th century British architecture.

Built by the 3rd Earl of Burlington as a setting for his collections and to showcase his travels around Europe, it houses an extensive array of paintings, in addition to a conservatory that’s home to the largest collection of camellias in Britain. The restored garden is a delight too — both to wander around and for the large number of events that it plays host to, from dog shows to book festivals.

8. Apsley House

A more low-key memorial (of sorts) to the Duke of Wellington exists at Hyde Park Corner in the form of Apsley House, the home of the Duke between 1819 and 1829. During this time the house underwent extensive renovations, much of which is still in evidence today.

Of course, there are exhibits on display that tell of the life of the ‘Iron Duke’, famed for his victory over Napoleon at Waterloo, as well as displays showing assorted artwork and gifts from the many important figures and dignitaries that he plays host to. The house has remained a residence for future Dukes, and stands as a showcase of the amazing life of a true British hero.

• 8 London luxury hotels with Grade II listings, fascinating histories and famous fans

One of London’s best micro-perks is the hopper fare, letting you take multiple buses or trams and only pay once. But that fare is going up next month.

TfL has announced fare rises for buses and trams, the first such rise since 2023.

From the 1st November, bus and tram fares will jump by 10p to £1.85. And the correspding daily fare cap goes up to £5.55, from its previous £5.25 limit.

It is, thankfully, not too egregious a rise, and marks the end of mayor Sadiq Khan’s price freeze.

“Had bus fares increased in line with inflation since 2016, they would be £2.35 today - but previous Mayoral fare freezes over the last 10 years mean customers continue to pay 60p less per journey than they would have if the Mayor of London had not taken action,” TfL said back in July when the freeze was extended until November.

It works out at a roughly 5.7 per cent price rise, which is significantly greater than the current rate of inflation of 3.1% according to the Office for National Statistics.

“London’s bus fares remain some of the lowest in the UK, and this is only the third time they’ve increased over the past decade, meaning they are still 17 per cent lower than if they had risen in line with inflation throughout this period,” a TfL spokesperson said in a statement.

But what happens now, and next? The outlook for further future price bumps rests on the UK Autumn Budget, which will be announced on 28th October by chancellor John Healey.

However, Andy Burnham has already signalled a bus-forward approach to public transport. In July the Prime Minster unveiled his plan for a 2027 £2 cap on bus fares in England, affecting areas outside of London.

It’s a plan estimated to cost £500 million, funded by changes to international climate-based projects.

National rail fares, meanwhile, are frozen until March 2027. This was announced almost a year ago in November 2025, the first rail freeze of its kind in 30 years.

That freeze lasts until March 2027, after which there may well be another price jump for train fares.

Elsewhere in London bus and tram travel, TfL has annonunced tram engineering works that will affect routes during the upcoming half term holidays. There’s disruption on tram lines east of Croydon from 24th October to 5th November, so double check planned routes for any trips during that period.

“We're carrying out most of these works during the October half-term period when demand is lower to minimise disruption as much as possible,” says Mark Davis, TfL general manager.

• Forget the airport queues, London is set to get direct trains to Cologne by 2030

The Eurostar is pretty much synonymous with the Channel Tunnel for most folks, but that’s about to change thanks to Virgin. And now we know what that future looks like.

Virgin has shown off rendered mock-ups of what its cross-Channel trains will look like, bearing of course plenty of the brand’s signature red.

12 of these Avelia Stream trains have been ordered for Virgin’s upcoming rail services, and they’re capable of reaching speeds of up to 300km per hour — 186mph if that’s more your speed.

The concept of these trains’ interiors will also be a little different to what you’ll have experienced if you’ve taken the Eurostar before.

Virgin wants to introduce more relaxation and social spaces to these trains, apparently inspired by the lounges on Virgin Atlantic flights. Granted, these typically boil down to a small-ish sofa area in the space between toilets in one of Virgin’s great big airplanes.

Still, it’s better than Virgin simply copy-pasting what Eurostar already offers.

“Virgin has a proud history in UK rail. With our latest venture we are drawing on more than four decades of experience across travel and hospitality to create something genuinely new,” says Josh Bayliss, CEO of VIrgin Group.

Details of Virgin’s plans in this area have slowly dipped out over the last few years. But big moves are finally happening.

Back in August, Virgin got the green light from the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) regulator to run services from London to European destinations including Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels. It has also secured a deal for train storage, while the agreements mean Virgin can potentially start these Eurostar-rival routes from 2030.

It will be able to run up to 20 services a day. This is roughly around half the number of collective services Eurostar runs at peak periods.

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Want to know what’s hot in the hotel world? Graded hotels.

And no, we’re not talking about properties with seven stars (a rating which doesn’t actually exist, despite the hoteliers who’d have you believe otherwise) but historic properties with Grade I or II listings. Here are London’s top heritage hideaways.

1. Sofitel London St James, Piccadilly Circus

This Grade II-listed neoclassical beauty was built in 1923 as the headquarters of Cox & King’s bank. It was clearly built to last, because during WWII George VI's prized stamp collection was stored in the bank’s vault (probably not its intended purpose, admittedly). Today this five-star hotel offers a fitting nod to its heritage albeit with modern touches, such as the Banksy in the hotel lobby. Legendary Parisian interior designer Pierre-Yves Rochon steered the recent refresh of the signature suites.

“Come December, the Opera Suite will always be my favourite spot, says general manager Marie-Paule Nowlis.

“Looking out towards the Christmas tree on Waterloo Place from this beautiful historic space is a wonderful reminder of the hotel’s connection to the city and its heritage.”

2. Rosewood London, Holborn

A belle-epoque Grade-II stunner built in the early 1900s, the building which once housed the Pearl Assurance Company has been carefully preserved, and original features include the ornate interiors of the east and west banking halls, the grand staircase and the original carriage way. There are vast expanses of the original Cuban mahogany which, managing director Tessa Gorman points out, is just one reminder of the ‘no expense spared’ approach by the architects.

"There's something special about calling a 1914 Edwardian, Grade II-listed building your workplace,” admits Tessa, who says the staircase is one of her favourite spots.

“It features seven different types of marble, some of which can no longer be found anywhere else in the world.”

3. The Great Scotland Yard Hotel, Westminster

For a five-star history fix, check into the Grade II-listed Great Scotland Yard Hotel, built in the 1820s on a site given to Kenneth III, King of Scotland, 1,000 years ago, to provide him with a base for his visits to the British monarchy. Later, it was the home of the London Metropolitan Police for over 200 years, but while the coppers are long gone, we suspect those checking into the hotel’s swankiest offering, the hotel’s five-story No.1 Townhouse Residence, accessed from the hotel via a secret corridor, will probably have their own security in tow.

As for general manager Gregory de Clerck’s’ must-see spot? The hotel’s green entrance doors.

“They've been immortalised in some of Britain's greatest works of fiction,” says Gregory.

“Charles Dickens, who occasionally accompanied constables on their nightly rounds, drew inspiration from the area, while Sir Arthur Conan Doyle regularly featured officers from Great Scotland Yard in his Sherlock Holmes stories.”

4. Flemings Mayfair, Mayfair

This beautiful hotel was established in 1851 by Robert Fleming, who became a valet for the Marquis of Anglesey. He was paid handsomely for his work and started buying London properties, later establishing the hotel in 1851 – the year of the Great Exhibition, and a time when six million visitors (all of whom needed somewhere to stay) flocked to London. Agatha Christie was one of several fans of the hotel, which was the inspiration for her novel Bertram's Hotel. Bookworms should try and bag the three-bedroom Townhouse Suite, inspired by Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest (the author lived nearby and was a regular at the hotel). Other notable guests are less well known, for various reasons.

“During the Second World War, it also became a discreet meeting place for members of the Special Operations Executive,” says Henrik Muehle, managing director of Flemings.

“Vera Atkins, one of Britain's most influential intelligence officers, met agents here before they departed on dangerous missions into occupied France.”

5. Eccleston Square Hotel, Belgravia

A Belgravia retreat comprising two Grade II-listed Georgian townhouses, Eccleston Square Hotel has had numerous former tenants, including from an era when the property offered somewhat simpler accommodation.

“A few years ago, we heard from a gentleman who'd lived at this address in the 1950s as a teenager, when the building was a hostel for young people working in London's hotel trade,” says owner Olivia Byrne.

“The one photograph he kept from that time was of himself standing on our balcony. Knowing that others have happily gathered on the balcony for so many decades gives the spot a real sense of continuity — it's an oasis in the heart of London, then and now."

6. Threadneedle’s, City of London

Another Grade II-listed hotel which was a former bank (in this case the headquarters of City Bank), the building occupied by Threadneedles was designed to resemble an Italianate palazzo. Built in the late 1800s, it’s the oldest surviving premises of a joint-stock bank in the City of London, and there’s a wonderful sense of space, thanks partly to the hotel’s stunning circular stained-glass dome installed in 1856. Our top tip? Admire it from the bar, with a drink in hand.

“My absolute favourite spot has to be the bar,” says Cedric Horgnies, area general manager for YTL Hotels.

“From there, you have a perfect view of the stained-glass dome, which survived the London bombings during WWII. If you look closely at the glass panels, you can see the letters CB – a tribute to the building's origins as the Victorian-era City Bank.”

7. Spread Eagle Wandsworth, Wandsworth

The best things really do come in small packages, if the Spread Eagle Wandsworth is anything to go by. A Grade II-listed (posh) pub with rooms, it’s been the flagship property of Young’s Brewery since 1836, when dray horses would carry the casks to the pub (handily, the brewery was just over the road).

General manager Joshua Sissons often meets customers keen to regale him with stories about the hotel’s past:

“I’ve heard some great tales from our guests, including regulars who tell me about the time when the pub showed silent films on the walls - long before these were covered in the pictures and mirrors which you’ll find today!”

8. The Clermont Victoria, Victoria

When the Clermont Victoria opened in the 1860s it was one of the first London hotels to have an elevator – a device known as an “ascending room” and powered by the city’s water pressure.

“Later, they were operated manually by hotel porters using ropes,” says general manager Michael Hedges.

“Recently, I was contacted by a former employee from Finland who worked here as a porter in 1971, pulling those very ropes!”

We suggest toasting the hotel at the Réunion Bar, which previously doubled as the first-class lounge of the Brighton Belle train.

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It’s finally happening. London’s Oxford Street is being partially pedestrianised this month.

From 26th October, almost every form of transport bar legs will be barred from roughly a kilometer of the famous shopping street.

That includes cars, bicycles, taxis and buses.

The first stretch to be pedestrianised runs from Orchard Street to Great Portland Street. While this doesn’t include some of the busiest parts of the strip, the bit running from Great Portland Street to Charing Cross Road, this strategy no doubt reduces the immediate effect on traffic flows in the wider area.

But it does include IKEA, the spot where the giant Topshop used to reside.

This has been one of the key aims of London Mayor Sadiq Khan, and it should help make the always-busy street much less of a nightmare to navigate.

“Following strong support from Londoners and businesses, I'm excited to see my bold vision for Oxford Street really coming to life next month as we start going traffic-free, just in time for the busy Christmas shopping period,” Khan said after the date was announced.

“On 26 October the transformation of the nation's high street into a pedestrian plaza will begin in earnest – a world-class space where flagship retail will sit alongside next-generation workplaces, designed to host exciting retail and leisure experiences from sport to fashion and cultural events in the future.”

Earlier this year we saw concept images of how a pedestrianised Oxford Street might look, lined with trees while the thoroughfare was painted green. But it’s not yet clear what timescale we’re looking at for a full, footfall-friendly revamp of the space beyond banning vehicles.

Further pedestrianisation of the street also has a big TBC over it, although this initial stretch has been dubbed the “first stage” of the plans.

The Oxford Street Development Corporetaion told Londonist in August that it was “exploring the potential” to move beyond that first phase, although that this is a relatively politically incendiary topic makes such moves fraught.

Westminster City Council doesn’t sound too happy about it, for one.

“Westminster City Council, residents and businesses on Oxford Street still have a long list of unanswered questions about how it will work,” says councillor Tim Barnes, who is deputy leader of Westminster City Council.

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You know the Michelin Guide for its famous and coveted restaurant Michelin stars, but there’s now a similar standard for hotels. And four more London locations have been handed one of these Michelin Keys.

Plenty of you may be faimilar with this system already — you can skip on to the new additions. But for those new to the concept, the Michelin Key has only been around since 2024, just a fraction of the lifespan of the now hundred-year-old Michelin Star.

“The Michelin Key is to hotels what the Michelin Star is to restaurants,” says Michelin. You earn one based on anonymous visits from the team, based on aspects like quality of service, character and, yes, even value for money.

None of the four new additions come cheap, though, lodged firmly in the aspirational hotel category. Let’s take a look.

The Newman, Fitzrovia

A literary-inspired hotel from the Mr & Mrs Smith Group, with elements of arc deco style. This hotel only opened in early 2026, and features 81 rooms including 16 impressive suites. Room rates start at £513.76 according to the website.

The Chancery, Rosewood

An undeniably impressive hotel based in the old spot of the US embassy. Features an impressive spa, and no fewer than eight bars and restaurants. It’s not one for mere mortals to spend a night in, mind. Accomodation is split into suites signature suites and “houses,” with no ordinary rooms on offer. But each of these is truly special.

Six Senses London, Bayswater

Wellness is the specific angle of this hotel. “Find courtyard calm at the heart of the city,” reads the website. The spa area is, sure enough, massive, and features a pool, sauna, steam room and a separate magnesium plunge pool. But it’s sadly so exclusive you can’t get access if you don’t fancy paying around a £1000 to actually stay there.

Pan Pacific London, City

Likely the most practical and accessible of these four, a night at the Pan Pacific need only cost you £400-odd if you pick the right night. And it’s located neat Liverpool Street station — ideal for business travel. It’s a beautiful hotel and the Asian fusion restaurant offers a £29 two-course lunch menu we recommend trying out.

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The world’s first Minecraft hotel is coming to Greater London next year, and we’ve been given a first look at what we can expect.

The Minecraft hotel will be part of Chessington World of Adventures, where a Minecraft World area opens next year.

This project appears to be a repurposing of the current Azteca hotel, found within the Chessington World of Adventures wider grounds. It features rooms themed around The Gruffalo as well as “Monkey Temple” designs.

The Minecraft hotel will feature 69 rooms spread across four floors, with the decor of both those rooms and the reception area drenched in Minecraft-inspired colourful and blocky visuals. Expect wood block-style bunk beds, walls luridly attired with game visuals, Minecraft bed spreads and a stool that looks like a TNT block.

Don’t let the kids see the concept images unless you want them to be begging you for a visit for the rest of the year — and it may be enough to induce a migraine in some adults. The current Azteca hotel does feature some non-themed rooms but there’s no word of that for the Minecraft revamp’s more grumpy visitors.

The hotel will feature a restaurant with “game inspired” meals, replacing the Temple Restaurant & Bar found there today. It will have an underwater theme, while the bar area will be decked out in Woodland Mansion style.

“Every room, corridor and detail has been crafted with immense love for this game, the stories made within it and its community,” says Daisy Mercedes, Creative Producer at Merlin Entertainments.

This is a part of a £50 million project to bring Minecraft World to the park. It replaces the Wild Asia area, which opened in 2010. The unusual Kobra rollercoaster(ish) experience from that zone will reportedly be repurposed in Minecraft World, but the main attraction of the new area is a rollercoaster called Escape the Nether.

It’s dubbed an “indoor-outdoor” ride, and an early visualisation suggests we’ll sit in a four-a-row blocky Minecraft cart. Height requirements for the ride are yet to be revealed, but there is a little time for the kids to sprout up.

Minecraft World’s opening date is yet to be revealed beyond being some time in 2027. Peak season for the park is, of course, during school holidays so the team will want the area, and the hotel, open by July 2027.

The last new major park area was World of Paw Patrol, which opened in May 2026.

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London’s Oxford Street is probably not the first place you’d expect to stumble across a contemporary art exhibition. But that’s rather the point. This October, W1 Curates is bringing together the worlds of art, music, nightlife and technology, transforming its Oxford Street public art platform into an immersive cultural experience as part of Frieze London.

The centrepiece is MUSIC by Sir Michael Craig-Martin, running from 5th October to 4th November. Following its debut in Ibiza, the exhibition brings three decades of Craig-Martin’s instantly recognisable paintings of musical instruments to W1 Curates, with the works blown up to monumental scale across its digital screens.

For its London outing, MUSIC will also feature a specially curated audio component, turning the exhibition into an audio-visual experience and further blurring the boundaries between visual art, sound and live performance.

It’s an idea that W1 Curates has already been exploring in Ibiza. Its second Culture Collective: Ibiza Art Weekend, held in September, brought 70 international artists together with figures from music, fashion and culture across . The programme deliberately placed contemporary art inside spaces better known for DJs and dancefloors. Now that same philosophy is heading back to London.

Frieze week specials

There are two particularly important dates during Frieze week. On 15th October, W1 Curates will host Craig-Martin in conversation with Gagosian, exploring the development of MUSIC and the artist's career, as well as the possibilities of taking art beyond conventional galleries.

Then, on 16th October, things get a bit louder. W1 Curates and The Night League will host a special event featuring headline DJs and live programming incorporated directly into the exhibition. For one night, MUSIC becomes part art exhibition, part club night and part live cultural experience. W1 Curates will also host an October launch party for Tinie Tempah’s forthcoming album The Night’s Not Dead, alongside an exhibition of its album-cover artwork by David King Reuben — another collaboration born from the conversations and connections made during Culture Collective in Ibiza.

For W1 Curates, it’s all part of a bigger idea: getting art out of the gallery and into the places where people actually spend their time. So, whether you’re heading to Frieze specifically for the art or simply passing through Oxford Street on your way somewhere else, this October offers a rather different way to experience it. Just don't forget to bring your ears.

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Fancy adding some real art to your walls without spending a small fortune? The Other Art Fair is returning to East London this October, bringing more than 135 independent artists to Brick Lane’s Truman Brewery for four days of exhibitions, live events and creative happenings.

Running from 8th - 11th October, the fair is designed to make buying art feel less intimidating for those more accustomed to blue tacking a poster to their walls. Visitors will be able to meet artists, hear the stories behind their work and buy directly from the people who made it. Almost 80% of the artists taking part are based in the UK.

There’s plenty of new talent to discover, too. Four artists will be making their London debuts, including London-based oil painter Holly Garbett, Korean-American painter Courtney Bae, hyperrealistic pastel artist Danielle Verbeeten and painter Emmanuelle Walker, whose work finds beauty in everyday scenes through grids, repetition and abstraction.

British photographer Amelia Troubridge is the fair's 2026 Guest Artist, showcasing photographs from her England archive spanning 1995 to 2023, including portraits of Steve Coogan, Nick Cave and Olivia Colman. She'll also be at the fair throughout the weekend, giving visitors the chance to meet her and hear more about her work.

Friday night gets an Ibiza twist, meanwhile, as legendary club institution Manumission takes over for a special evening of DJs, conversation and culture, including a discussion around its new book, The Motel. Saturday will be soundtracked by London collective Club Lune Bleue, which champions women DJs and producers.

There are plenty of hands-on bits, too. You can get a poem written for you on the spot by resident typewriter poet Luke, contribute to the evolving Creative Corner display, or simply browse the Under £300 Collection, which brings together original works priced at £300 or less.

Tickets and further information are available via The Other Art Fair website.

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If your idea of a good Sunday involves eating your way through a Japanese street-food market while watching sumo, taiko drumming and dreaming of becoming a ninja, we've got some very good news.

Japan Matsuri is returning to London’s Trafalgar Square on Sunday 4th October, bringing a huge celebration of Japanese culture, food and entertainment to the city centre landmark. This year there's an added reason for Nintendo fans to turn up to the annual event: Pikmin are coming to the party.

The festival, which has been running since 2009 and has been held at Trafalgar Square since 2012, is free to attend and runs from 10am until 8pm.

Here's everything you need to know.

Japan Matsuri 2026: In short…

• What: A one-day celebration of all things Japanese culture, including food, music, art and entertainment in the heart of Central London
• When: Sunday 4th October 2026, 10am–8pm
• Where: Trafalgar Square, London
• How much: Free entry

The event is spread throughout Trafalgar Square, with food stalls around the fountains and further stalls and activities dotted around the front of the National Gallery.

The nearest Tube station is Charing Cross, although Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus and Embankment are also within walking distance.

It's worth getting there early, though. If Trafalgar Square reaches capacity, organisers will operate a one-in, one-out system. Bags larger than A4 size, bikes, scooters, e-scooters and weapons are among the things prohibited from the site — so leave your katanas and sake at home.

What’s on?

The main stage will host entertainment acts throughout the day, beginning with traditional taiko drumming and a performance of the event’s Japan Matsuri song "IBUKI" with Naomi Suzuki — kinda like a theme tune for the festival. The opening ceremony will feature a mikoshi procession (a spiritual event where a shinto shrine is paraded), while later performances include Yosakoi dance, Eisa dance (a kind of folk dance usually performed by children), a ‘Samurai Rock Band’ and a ninja show.

You’ll also get to limber up with Radio Taiso (Japan’s popular morning calisthenics routine), quizzes, traditional Japanese music, dance and martial arts, with more performances scheduled throughout the afternoon and evening.

You can see the entire day’s performance schedule at the Matsuri website.

What’s cooking?

The food offering might be reason enough to make the trip. The square will be packed with Japanese food and drink stalls, with options including ramen, takoyaki, karaage, yakisoba, okonomiyaki, Japanese curry, donburi, gyoza and onigiri.

Among the traders are Shoryu Ramen, IPPUDO, Japan Centre, Okan & Oton, Hiden Curry, Tsujiri and Matchado, alongside a host of smaller food businesses.

And it isn't just savoury food. There'll be Japanese sweets, wagashi, mochi, matcha drinks and ice cream, while belly-loving yoghurt drink Yakult is also going to have a stall. Yakult’s presence isn’t as odd as you might think — it’s actually a Japanese invention.

Pop culture shopping

Japan Matsuri also has plenty for fans of Japanese pop culture.

The stalls include Otaky, with Pokémon, ONE PIECE, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Dragon Ball and other anime and manga merchandise, alongside Japanese toys, figures and trading cards.

Elsewhere you'll find everything from ukiyo-e prints and vintage kimono to Japanese ceramics, calligraphy, jewellery and handmade accessories.

There are also plenty of opportunities to learn more about Japan itself, with tourism organisations representing destinations including Tokyo, Hokkaido, Oita, Tohoku and Central Japan, as well as Japan's railway network and travel companies.

Pikmin are coming to Trafalgar Square

Mario makers Nintendo are returning to Japan Matsuri with a collection of free Pikmin activities and goodies — you know, the colourful little lads that have the plants sprouting out of their heads.

Nintendo is using its Pikmin Bloom app — the walking game that turns your everyday strolls into a Pikmin-collecting adventure — into a special Japan Matsuri Party Walk, running from 28th September until 7th October, meaning you don't actually have to be in Trafalgar Square to participate.

If you're heading to the festival itself, visit the Nintendo stall to find a pop-up Pikmin Bloom ‘Special Spot’. Players can receive a Gold Seedling which grows into an exclusive Red Photo Button Badge Decor Pikmin, as well as a postcard. Only one seedling is available per player.

Those taking part in the Party Walk can also show their screen at the Nintendo stand to receive a Pikmin-themed gift, such as a smartphone lanyard. Nintendo will also have a Pikmin photo opportunity and — more exciting than that lanyard — free Pikmin headwear to give away at its stall.

The Party Walk can be registered for in advance through the Pikmin Bloom app, which should save you having to sort everything out when you arrive.

Irasshaimase! (That means ‘Welcome!’)

If you've got even a passing interest in Japanese food, gaming, anime, travel, music or culture, there's a lot to get stuck into.

The best bit is that it's completely free, so you can dip in for an hour, spend the afternoon eating your way around the stalls, or make a full day of it.

And if you're a Pikmin fan, this year's Nintendo presence gives you an extra reason to visit – particularly if you want to pick up the limited-edition goodies and exclusive Pikmin app treats.

For more info, visit the Japan Matsuri festival website.

• The Bayeux Tapestry and the 8 most important historical artefacts you can see in London right now

Luckily, London’s art scene is not reserved for those with an art history degree nor a toothbrush moustache and pinstripe trouser suit. Instead, there are plenty of free glorious galleries and museums dotted across the city which regularly host displays of some of the biggest and most celebrated names. One of which is the Gagosian Gallery who will be hosting a huge new surrealist exhibition this month.

“This Is Still Not a Pipe: The Afterlife of Magritte” will show around 70 works by the Belgian Surrealist and dozens of contemporary artists inspired by him.

The exhibition will be on view at the Gagosian’s Grosvenor Hill outpost in London from 24th September until 12th December, showing a collection of some of the most celebrated surrealist works, as well as new works which are being made especially for the show. The location for the exhibition is a nod to the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition which was staged just down the road at the New Burlington Galleries, marking a key moment for the surrealist movement and in making Magritte’s name.

Gagosian has not yet released a full list of artworks or the names of the contemporary figures who will be involved in the exhibition. However it has confirmed that the show will include more than 20 Magrittes, some for sale and some on loan from major collections.

One of the paintings includes La Lampe philosophique, which the artist made just ahead of the 1936 Surrealist exhibition. It’s the one you’ll probably recognise from a postcard someone in your family got in a museum gift shop or a jaunty teatowel that has been slung over the oven for half a decade. The painting depicts Magritte smoking a pipe by candlelight, his overgrown nose snaking into the pipe’s bowl. He wrote of it: “The meditations of an absent-minded, obsessive philosopher may conjure up the image of a mental world closed in upon itself as, in this case, the smoker is the prisoner of his pipe.”

Other Magrittes with his most iconic motifs—apples, bowler hats, clouds, and of course more pipes—will be peppered throughout.

The show comes 20 years after “Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images” (2006–07), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art‘s landmark group exhibition designed by artist John Baldessari that traced the Surrealist’s influence on postwar American and European artists.

Larry Gagosian, owner of the Gagosian, said: ‘It is difficult to imagine a world today without Magritte. Almost six decades after his death, his influence continues to resonate within contemporary artistic production, and beyond into the broader landscape of visual culture – shaping advertising, design, fashion, and even music.

‘I am delighted to be presenting his work at the gallery once again, and to offer audiences a renewed opportunity to engage with the poetry, wit, and mystery that define his vision.’

The exhibition is free to look around, although if you did want to buy one of the pieces for sale, just a heads up, his last pieces that were up for auction went for for £16 million (La Belle Promenade) and $121.2 million (Empire of Light) the last couple of years.

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One of the most important artefacts in British history is now available to view in London, but securing tickets to see the Bayeux Tapestry is proving tricky. Thankfully, there are plenty of amazing alternatives.

The 1,000-year-old Bayeux Tapestry is currently on loan from France to The British Museum until 11th July, but the initial run of 100,000 tickets turned out to be heavily oversubscribed. Another batch of tickets will be dropping on 21st October, but these are for dates in the New Year, and are likely to be similarly challenging to procure.

It’s no great mystery as to why this might be the case. We’re talking about a 70-metre-long piece of embroidered cloth, portraying the lead up to the hugely consequential Norman Conquest of 1066, which has had to be housed in a bespoke case.

What’s more, the tapestry can only be exposed to a certain number of hours of light in any day in order to preserve the delicate material.

In other words, the Bayeux Tapestry’s trip to London was always going to be popular, and access was always going to be limited.

Still, there’s a fair chance that this is going to scupper the plans of many hoping to visit London for a spot of culture over the coming months. It’s a good job our beautiful capital isn’t short of priceless relics, which have been curated and presented for your perusal.

Here are eight important historical artefacts that you can see in London right now.

1. The Rosetta Stone

The British Museum is a literal treasure trove of important artefacts, even without the Bayeux Tapestry. Perhaps the most venerated of all is The Rosetta Stone, a 2,200-year-old fragment of a slab that proved crucial to the initial translation of Egyptian hieroglyphics in the early 19th century. It’s only a partial text, taken from a fairly dry official decree about Ptolemy V, but the key here is that it’s inscribed in three separate scripts – hieroglyphs, Demotic, and Ancient Greek – which enabled scholars to finally crack the code.

• Where to see it: The British Museum

2. The Crown Jewels

If you were to assemble a list of old London tourism cliches, then a mention of the Tower of London, the precious baubles housed within, and the tall-hatted guards commissioned to protect them would probably all feature somewhere near the top. It’s easy to take these things for granted, but The Crown Jewels are well worth seeing at least once in your life. They take the form of a collection of 140 royal ceremonial objects, inlaid with some 23,000 precious stones. These include the crown, orb and sceptre used in British royal coronations.

• Where to see them: The Tower of London

3. The Coffin of Ramses II

Head over to the iconic Battersea Power Station, dodge the obnoxious nouveau riche residents, and ignore the more soulless aspects of the project’s multi-billion-dollar revamp, and you can catch a genuinely world class exhibition. At the heart of the 180 assembled ancient Egyptian artefacts sits the 3,000-year-old coffin of Ramses II, arguably the greatest (and certainly the most self-aggrandising) pharaoh of them all. These artefacts are on loan from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and have never been seen in the UK before, so this is a rare opportunity.

• Where to see it: Ramses and the Pharaohs' Gold exhibition, Battersea

4. The Abraham Tapestries

If you’re specifically in the market for a big old tapestry (how very specific of you) then head on down to Hampton Court Palace in Richmond. There you’ll find ten of the suckers, all hanging on the wall of the Great Hall. This is probably exactly where they were always intended to live, given that they were commissioned by Henry VIII around 1540. True, that means these tapestries are ‘only’ 500 years old, but they stretch out an impressive 84 metres in total, and they offer a remarkable depiction of the life and deeds of the fabled Bible prophet.

• Where to see them: Hampton Court Palace

5. The Tarkhan Dress

I’ll see your 1,000-year-old length of cloth and raise you a 5,000-year-old linen garment. The Tarkhan Dress is thought to be the oldest surviving piece of woven clothing in the world, and you can view it for free at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archeology on the UCL campus. The garment was excavated south of Cairo in 1913, but was only discovered among a larger pile of linen in 1977, when the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Textile Conservation Workshop was commissioned to clean it all up.

• Where to see it: Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archeology

6. Cleopatra’s Needle

One of the oldest and grandest artefacts in London is free to see at any time. Cleopatra’s Needle is right there on the Embankment, with thousands of commuters and visitors marching past it every day – possibly quite oblivious as to its history. This is no replica, but rather a genuine 3,500-year-old Egyptian obelisk, made for Pharaoh Thotmes III. The story of how it came to rest by the Thames in 1878 is an epic story in itself, involving a traumatic voyage in a specially designed ship called – you guessed it – the Cleopatra.

• Where to see it: London WC2N, 6NU (near Embankment station)

7. Bloomberg Tablets

The London Mithraeum is built around a restored third-century Roman temple situated in the basement of Bloomberg Europe’s headquarters. Around 14,000 objects were dug up between 2012 and 2014, and around 600 of those are on display here. Among them are the Bloomberg tablets – a collection of some 405 wooden writing slates that were discovered underneath London’s gleaming financial district. They’re the oldest written documents found in Britain, dating as far back as 50 AD, which places their writing to some time soon after London’s establishment as a Roman settlement.

• Where to see them: London Mithraeum

8. Parthenon Sculptures

These Ancient Greek sculptures have been central to a heated debate over the continued postcolonial ownership of historical artefacts. They were removed from Ottoman-ruled Greece by Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, in the early 19th century, earning them the informal name of the Elgin Marbles. For now, you can check out the Parthenon Sculptures in the very same building as the Bayeux Tapestry, in Room 18 of The British Museum. These impressive Ancient Greek sculptures were carved 2,500 years ago, and would once have adorned a temple on the Athenian Acropolis.

• Where to see them: The British Museum

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As the famous saying goes, 'when you are tired of London, you are tired of life’. The capital has enough to fill years of weekends (and weekdays), from brilliant restaurants, pubs, and green spaces to historic buildings, museums, galleries, and world class institutions such as Tate and the V&A.

In 2026, making the most of it all is not always cheap, though.

Exhibition tickets, cinema screenings, concerts, and major attractions can quickly turn an ambitious cultural calendar into an expensive habit. The right membership can soften the blow – and, in some cases, pay for itself after only a couple of visits.

To help you make the most of this amazing city, we’ve found the best cultural memberships – from the National Art Pass to the Barbican to the BFI – that may well help you avoid spending a king’s ransom next time out.

How did we pick?

For each option, we looked at the cheapest standard adult membership, the usual cost of entry, and how many realistic visits it would take to recover the fee.

While temporary discounts can improve the maths, the figures below are based on regular prices at the time of publication wherever possible. We’ve also left out private clubs and memberships built mainly around donations or priority booking.

1. National Art Pass

• Best for: Culture hopping
• From: £65.25

The National Art Pass is the broadest option on the list, making it a good starting point for anyone who prefers exploring London’s cultural landscape rather than repeatedly visiting one favourite museum.

Members get half-price entry to many major exhibitions, alongside free admission to more than 250 museums, galleries, and other historic places across the UK. The Art Pass website is also a helpful starting point for keeping up with what’s happening.

In London, that could mean catching a blockbuster show at the V&A one weekend, visiting the Design Museum the next, then trying somewhere smaller such as Dulwich Picture Gallery or the Courtauld.

Visiting even a handful of major exhibitions should cover much of the annual fee, particularly during the discounted first year. (Paying by Direct Debit gives you a further discount.)

Dedicated museum memberships may offer better perks for loyal regulars, including members’ rooms and access to sold-out shows. For variety, however, Art Pass is hard to beat. Members also get a nice physical membership card.

2. Historic Royal Palaces

• Best for: Two big days out
• From: £65

Historic Royal Palaces membership opens up some of London’s biggest historical attractions, from the Crown Jewels and Yeoman Warders at the Tower of London to Henry VIII’s state apartments, kitchens, gardens, and maze at Hampton Court Palace.

The £65 annual membership is easy to justify when you break it down: a standard visit to the Tower costs £37, while Hampton Court starts at £29, so seeing both once already costs more than joining.

After that, you can return for seasonal events and bring visitors to your favourite palace. For families and history fans, the membership is a no-brainer, and even long-term Londoners who have never quite made it to the Tower may find it pays off surprisingly quickly.

3. Royal Museums Greenwich

• Best for: A full day out
• From: £48

Greenwich is exactly the sort of place where a day out can easily become a huge operation, especially with family in tow.

You might begin aboard the Cutty Sark, climb the hill to stand across two hemispheres at the Prime Meridian, wander through the National Maritime Museum, and still somehow find yourself rushing the final attraction before closing time.

Royal Museums Greenwich membership removes that pressure. Though currently reduced to a bargain £48, Individual membership normally costs £65 by Direct Debit, while a combined ticket for the Cutty Sark and the Observatory is £38. Two full visits are therefore enough to come out ahead.

It’s especially good for families, local residents, and anyone who enjoys a day out with several possible directions in a beautiful and sometimes under-explored part of London.

The Planetarium is currently closed for refurbishment (reopening around spring 2028, which may explain the recent discount), but there is still more than enough here to justify the return journey.

Plus, it’s a nice excuse to get an Uber Boat.

4. Barbican Membership

• Best for: People who never stick to one thing
• From: £59

The Barbican is made for the indecisive among us. One week you might be watching a restored film in the cinema, the next sitting through a full orchestra, exploring a gallery exhibition, or taking a chance on a piece of theatre you know almost nothing about. Not to mention the amazing Conservatory.

Membership makes experimentation easier, with 20% off many tickets for you and a guest, free entry to exhibitions, and no booking fees. A few evenings out as a pair can make a serious dent in the £59 annual cost.

Not every event is discounted, and reduced-price allocations can sell out. Even so, it is one of the most flexible memberships here, and also works nicely as a present for any culturally-minded friends or family. I got a membership earlier this year and love it.

5. Southbank Centre Membership

• Best for: Making a habit of the Hayward
• From: £60

The Southbank Centre is easy to treat as somewhere you simply pass through on the way to somewhere else, like the BFI IMAX to see The Odyssey or the London Eye.

Membership gives you a reason to linger, whether that means dropping into the latest Hayward Gallery exhibition or turning an aimless riverside walk into a cultural outing.

The biggest draw is unlimited Hayward Gallery entry, which makes it much easier to take a chance on an exhibition you might otherwise skip. See three major shows across the year and the £60 Direct Debit fee is already close to earning its keep, before counting booking fee savings or discounts elsewhere around the site.

6. Prince Charles Cinema Membership

• Best for: Making movie nights spontaneous
• From £15

I love the Prince Charles Cinema, one of London’s last truly renegade institutions. Sitting just off Leicester Square, the programme jumps from 35mm classics and cult favourites to all-night marathons, singalongs, director Q&As, and the occasional gloriously questionable double bill.

Annual membership costs just £15, with at least £2.50 off most screenings, cheaper weekday matinees, and the odd £1 ticket thrown in, making it a permission slip to book the strange film you spotted while scrolling the listings.

Just six screenings can pay back the membership, and with persistent threats over its rent and continued operation, supporting one of the city’s gems is more worthwhile than ever.

7. BFI Membership

• Best for: Taking film seriously
• From: £44

If the Prince Charles is for seeing the movie marathon you didn’t know you needed, then the BFI is for turning a casual interest in cinema into a full-blown hobby.

The BFI’s Southbank and IMAX programme moves between new releases, restored classics, director seasons, archive discoveries, and films you may never get another chance to see on a big screen.

Membership costs from £44 per year, and comes with two free tickets, ongoing discounts, no booking fees, and early access to much of the programme, including the London Film Festival, set for October, and IMAX (although these sometimes have their own rules).

I’m coming off a week of seeing two films at the BFI (Rose of Nevada and Eraserhead); having an excuse to head down to the river and soak up the evening sun before enjoying some cinematic excellence really can’t be beaten.

Bonus memberships worth knowing about

We’ve highlighted some of the main memberships to consider, but London is so varied that we thought we’d include some honourable mentions.

The London Transport Museum’s annual ticket is one of the easiest wins, especially for families or anyone with a child who could happily inspect buses for several hours. One visit gets you through the door, while every return trip over the next year is free.

Younger Londoners should also check the free schemes run by Tate, the Barbican, Southbank Centre, and the BFI, which unlock cheaper tickets without an annual fee.

Meanwhile, dedicated memberships at places like the V&A or Design Museum can still work brilliantly if you visit often enough.

• All the A-list celebrities starring in London’s West End theatres (and beyond) in 2026

Notting Hill Carnival is back this Bank Holiday weekend, and 2026 is a particularly big one: the legendary west London street party is celebrating its 60th anniversary.

From its beginnings as a small community event in 1966, Carnival has grown into one of the world's biggest celebrations of Caribbean culture, with music, dancing, costumes, food and sound systems taking over the streets of Notting Hill. This year, the main event takes place on Sunday 30th and Monday 31st August, with a ticketed steelpan competition on Saturday 29th August.

If you're planning to join the estimated millions of revellers heading west, here's everything you need to know.

1. Start Times

Technically, Carnival begins on Saturday, when the UK National Panorama Steel Band Competition takes over Emslie Horniman's Pleasance Park. The event starts at 4pm, with Junior Panorama at 5pm and the main Panorama competition at 8pm. Unlike the main Carnival, this is a ticketed event, with the winning junior and adult bands announced on the night.

Sunday is the traditional family and children's day, but the really committed can get started much earlier. J'Ouvert runs from 6am to 9am, beginning at Sainsbury's by the Canal Way Roundabout. The official opening ceremony takes place from 10am to 10.30am at the Mas Judging Point on Great Western Road, followed by the Children's Day Parade from 10.30am to 5pm.

Sunday's Dutty/Fun Mas also begins at 10.30am, while sound systems and the Powis Square live stage run from midday to 7pm. There is then a judging zone from 8.30pm until close.

Note also that Sunday afternoon at 3pm sees a moment of reflection held in memory of those who lost their lives in the Grenfell Tower fire, a tragedy still keenly felt by Londoners nine years after it occurred.

Monday is the big one. The Adults' Parade starts at 10.30am with sound systems and live entertainment getting going from noon and ending at 7pm. A reflection moment for Grenfell takes place on Monday too, also at 3pm.

2. How to Get There

Do not drive. Seriously.

Carnival closes huge numbers of roads and public transport operates differently, but the Tube, Overground and Elizabeth line remain the best ways of getting there. The official Carnival advice recommends travelling to Paddington, then walking into the Carnival area using the signed route.

Several of the obvious stations will be closed or restricted. Ladbroke Grove is closed all day, while Westbourne Park has no entry from 11am and Notting Hill Gate has no entry between 11am and 6pm. Holland Park and Queensway also have restrictions.

Paddington is therefore your friend. It also gives you plenty of options for getting home afterwards, including the Elizabeth line, National Rail, Bakerloo, Circle, District and Hammersmith & City lines.

If you're meeting friends, agree on a meeting point before you arrive. Mobile reception in a crowd of this size can be temperamental, and "I'll find you by the really big speaker" isn't a particularly useful plan.

3. Parade Routes

The Carnival parade covers roughly three and a half miles, following the same basic route on Sunday and Monday. It starts around Westbourne Park and winds through west London before finishing around Elkstone Road, taking in Westbourne Grove, Ladbroke Grove, Kensal Road and Golborne Road.

There are a few particularly good places to watch. The Judges' Area, beside the Brunel Estate near Westbourne Park Station, is where you'll see the bands performing at their most spectacular. The judging grandstand is open to the public again this year, although you'll need a ticket for it. Grab one here.

Otherwise, Ladbroke Grove is a good bet simply because it's such a long stretch, giving you a better chance of finding a viewing spot. Westbourne Grove is another lengthy section; the organisers recommend sticking to its northern side.

And don't treat the parade as something you simply stand and watch. The whole point is to move with it, dance, stop at a sound system, eat something, wander off and discover something else.

Here's the official map from the event organisers:

4. Performers and Sound Systems

The stars of Carnival aren't just conventional stage performers. The streets themselves are the show.

There are dozens of 'Mas' (Masquerade) bands, whose elaborate costumes form one of Carnival's most spectacular traditions. Bands including Mahogany Carnival Club, Mas Africa, Chocolate Nation, Colours Carnival, Karnival Mania, Soca Massive, Tropical Fusion and Utopia Mas UK will be among those taking part this year.

You'll also hear the unmistakable sound of the steel drum, an instrument woven into Carnival's history from its earliest days. This year's participating steel orchestras include Ebony Steelband, Glissando, Mangrove Steelband, Pan Nation, Panectar, Pantonic, Real Steel, Stardust and UFO Steelband.

Brazilian carnival culture is represented by groups including Baque de Axé, Batala, Dendê Nation, Império da Rainha, Kinetika Bloco, London School of Samba and Tribo, bringing choreographed dancing and huge live percussion to the streets. If you want Soca and Calypso, you actually are best off heading out on Thursday 27th August — the ‘Calypso Monarch Finals’, are held then at The Tabernacle, ahead of the main carnival celebrations.

Then there are the sound systems, arguably the beating heart of Carnival for many regulars. This year's roster includes Gladdy Wax, King Tubby's, Saxon Sound System, Trojan 7, Rampage Sound, Volcano Sound and many more.

For something more stage-based, head to Powis Square, where live performances run from noon to 7pm. Meanwhile Gardens also hosts family-friendly entertainment.

Among the sound-system highlights flagged for this year's event are Different Strokes, playing hip-hop, jungle and drum'n'bass; Gaz's Rockin' Blues, bringing ska and rocksteady; and KCC and the Rockin Crew, supplying house music.

5. Food and Drink

Come hungry. There are more than 300 food stalls around Carnival this year, a big leap from the 250-odd selling great eats last year.

The obvious place to start is Caribbean food: expect Jamaican jerk chicken, Trinidadian roti and Guyanese pepper pot — the sort of street-food dishes that are particularly satisfying when you've been on your feet building a dance-sweat for eight hours.

There are vegetarian choices at most stalls and organisers say the number of vegan traders has increased this year, too.

The trick is not to commit to one enormous meal immediately. Wander, investigate, follow your nose and build your own Carnival tasting menu.

And remember that this is a huge street event rather than a conventional festival site. Bring a reusable water bottle if you can, keep hydrated and carry some cash as a backup.

6. Weather Forecast

After a summer of seemingly endless heatwaves, the forecast has taken a rather more British turn.

Saturday is currently expected to see rain from around midday, with temperatures reaching about 22C and a chance of thunderstorms in the evening. Sunday looks considerably better, with rain less likely but a chance of light drizzle and a maximum of around 23C. Monday is currently forecast to bring sunny intervals, a moderate breeze and temperatures around 22C.

A lightweight waterproof jacket is considerably more useful than pretending you're going to spend eight hours dancing through a downpour under a tiny umbrella. Comfortable shoes are essential, too. You will walk much further than you think.

In other words: pack for everything, but a couple degrees of cooler weather won't hurt when you're heating up the street dance floor.

Most importantly, don't let a bit of drizzle put you off. Carnival has been doing this for 60 years and, as the organisers put it, it goes ahead rain or shine.

So charge your phone, pick a meeting point, wear something you don't mind getting sweaty, wet or covered in something colourful, and get ready for one of London's great weekends.

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The Natural History Museum’s exhibition of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year opens on 16th October, and some for the competition’s most-lauded shots have been revealed.

More than 65,000 photographs were submitted to the competition’s judges, while the final exhibition will feature 100 images. A handful of those have been published for anyone on the internet to enjoy.

You’ll find a handful of them below.

“This exhibition offers visitors a rare opportunity to experience the wonder of our planet through the eyes of some of the world’s most talented photographers. At a time when nature is under more pressure than ever before, these photographs remind us of both what is at stake and what is worth protecting,” says Doug Gurr, Director of the Natural History Museum.

Tickets for the exhibition are on sale now. Adults will pay £19 for standard admission, while off-peak mid-week tickets are £17.

You book a time and that includes entry to the museum too — it’s free to enter, but you may not be able to do so if it’s sold out that day.

This will be the 62nd Wildlife Photographer of the Year show, and the actual winners will be revealed a few days ahead of the exhibition’s opening, on 13th September. That ceremony will be available to check out on YouTube too.

The image at the top of this article is from Audun Rikardsen, a Norwegian photographer who papped the female polar bear using a rigged-up underwater camera.

You wouldn't want to get that close a polar bear, and Rikardsen apparently spent eight hours waiting for it to get far enough away to safely retrieve the images.

Here are a few of the other most eye-catching photos we’ve seen so far:

This shot from Andrea & Maceo Grammatico is called Btiing Back and was shot in Costa Rica. It’s a mosquito on the head of a viper, a venomous snake.

Split-Second Escape by Germany’s Jens Cullman is an action shot of a bullfrog attempting — and failing — to eat a butterfly. It was captured in Botswana.

Shane Cross from Canada was the winner of the 2024 competition, and got a highly commended prize for Calm Amid the Storm. Taken in Seychelles, it’s half a scene of Bigeye trevally fish swimming underwater, half of an incoming storm. Atmospheric.

Or for something completely different there’s Pooltime Pastime from the USA’s Loren Elliott. This one barely needs an explanation, but her capture of a black bear chilling in the outdoor pool of a home in Monrovia, California, is something else.

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There are few sentences guaranteed to make a parent’s eyebrows raise like: “I’m going on Roblox.”

For years, the platform has occupied that seemingly unknowable corner of the internet where children go to play games, make friends and generally spend an amount of time online that you’re fairly sure can’t be healthy. And the concerns aren’t exactly imaginary. Roblox has faced sustained scrutiny over child safety, prompting interventions from regulators including the UK’s Ofcom, while the company has introduced increasingly stringent age checks, account types and communication restrictions.

So if you’re a parent wondering what, exactly, your child is getting up to on Roblox, you could be forgiven for imagining something sinister.

Well, it might be time to breathe a sigh of relief. Perhaps they’re simply driving the 198 through Croydon.

To be more specific, they might be playing Croydon: London Bus Simulator, a game within Roblox in which the primary objective is to drive a London bus around a painstakingly recreated version of one of the capital’s most misunderstood boroughs.

Yes, really.

After a while spent messing about with the game, and after meeting the impressively-young team behind it, there’s something oddly reassuring about discovering that, among the countless strange and occasionally alarming things happening on Roblox, tens of thousands of people have apparently decided that the best use of their evening is operating a fictional bus company.

A bus-spotting success

The game has become a considerable success. For the uninitiated, Roblox, rather than being a single game, is made up of thousands of games built on a core platform, predominately created by its userbase, with some breakout developers turning their titles into full blown business operations. Count among them Centro, the small team behind Croydon: London Bus Simulator.

It has attracted tens of millions of visits and, according to its developers, has at times pulled in up to 90,000 daily users. Its current Roblox listing describes a vast map, hundreds of buses, realistic physics, multiplayer “Shifts”, Simulation Servers and the ability to create and grow your own bus company.

Part of that success comes down to accessibility, says Toby Johnson, the 21 year old Product Designer at developer Centro.

“Roblox runs on pretty much anything that’s connected to the internet nowadays. I think even the latest edition runs on smart TVs,” he explains.

“I think the fact that you can open an app on pretty much any device, click play and within 30 seconds you're playing. There's no friction that might come with a standalone game. You can download it to more than one device. It's very snappy. Roblox has its own multiplayer servers — that's great for us — and also deals with all the monetisation and moderation. So we don't have to focus resources on those areas. We can just be game developers and make a game.”

It’s an efficient money-maker too, he continues:

“Roblox is weird — I heard someone say this a few weeks ago: Roblox is the only platform where you can make a game, and every time it will turn a profit because there's no running costs. Even if you have a quiet month, you might not make as much, but you're never making a loss.”

In fact, Roblox has been key to the team's formation. Toby and lead programmer Dylan Rowley (responsible for “the enthusiast nerdy stuff”) found each other through playing a Roblox game that was part of the inspiration for Croydon: London Bus Simulator — Mind the Gap, by Alex Berry.

“Roblox has certainly been the platform that's nurtured us all the way through,” says Toby. “We get asked, ‘Did you learn specific game development courses or did you do it through Roblox?’ Roblox has taught us everything we know.”

Despite the meme-worthy title, the game’s appeal is considerably more sophisticated than ‘drive bus, lol’.

You choose a vehicle, select a route, operate the doors, pick up passengers, follow the roads and attempt to maintain a service. There are interactive ticket machines, realistic sounds, working accessibility features and a sprawling network of routes. Players can join organised services, operate alongside other drivers and even create their own bus companies, complete with custom liveries, interiors and routes.

There are also trams. There are night buses. There are bus-spotting sessions. Yes, in what might be the most heartwarmingly quaint gaming trend of 2026, people genuinely go bus spotting in a video game about buses.

“With Croydon[‘s playerbase], if they're not outside, the chances are that's what they're doing for their entire spare time,” jokes Dylan.

“Some people, certainly in the winter months, spotting is their way of socialising,” adds Toby.

“I think it's just a new way for people to get to know people in niches. It's great.”

The Croydon factor

It sounds ridiculous until you realise that this is exactly the sort of mundane detail that makes the game so appealing. Croydon is not being presented as some fantastical gaming environment. It is being recreated as a place where ordinary things happen: buses arrive late, passengers get on, someone misses their stop and you spend 30 minutes driving across South London.

And that brings us to the game's inspired choice of setting.

Because if you were going to build a lovingly detailed simulation of London, you probably wouldn't immediately choose Croydon. London has plenty of glamorous candidates. Westminster. Camden. Shoreditch. Notting Hill. Greenwich. The sort of places that come with ready-made cinematic appeal.

Croydon? Less so.

“You know, we've had clips of our game go viral on social media and all the comments have been like, ‘Oh, it's not realistic. It hasn't got this. It hasn't got that, it's not got some guy just on the street yelling at you!’” says Toby.

“And these [comments were from] all local people. People also saying, ‘Oh my god, that's my local bus stop.’”

The borough has spent decades being used as shorthand for urban dreariness, crime and general metropolitan disappointment. Even Croydon councillors have previously acknowledged that it has been the “butt of jokes for a very long time now”, while attempting to remind outsiders that there is, in fact, loads to love about the place.

That reputation is, of course, rather unfair.

“I think there's definitely a reputation to Croydon,” nods Toby, “But I think it's a lovable one. It's an amicable one. We love it.”

Croydon is one of South London’s biggest commercial centres, with a huge population, major transport connections, a long musical and cultural history (in part thanks to housing The BRIT School) and something genuinely useful for a bus simulator: lots of buses.

It is also unusually varied. You can go from dense town-centre streets to residential neighbourhoods, railway interchanges and greener stretches of South London without leaving the game's world. West Croydon, Elmers End, Thornton Heath and Norwood Junction all become part of the playground.

“I'd never been to Croydon before starting this,” reveals Dylan.

“I was sort of going in blind, and I do like learning about new places. I didn't realise how close everything was together — you’ve got such a good selection of routes, a good selection of scenery, all in a small place. When I think of London, I think of those 1930s terrace houses. But Croydon has got a huge variety of housing types. It's got loads of interesting building types. I didn't realise there was a huge, really nice looking library in the centre until I was working on it.

“There's even industrial estates — maybe not people's favourite areas,” adds Dylan. “But the variety is there within a small range.”

And to both the benefit and frustration of the team, Croydon is never standing still.

“I think Dylan also thinks Croydon council is winding him up because every time he builds something, they change it!” jokes Toby.

“They change the road layouts, and it's like ‘you've got to remake it!’ They've got rid of the underpass, and they've changed the roundabout on Dingwall so many times. Like, stop it!”

Everyday excitement

And perhaps that's the secret: Croydon is interesting precisely because it’s so normal.

The game turns the everyday into the extraordinary. A bus route becomes a shared adventure. A bus interchange becomes a social hub. A rainy-looking South London high street becomes somewhere worth exploring because you've got a virtual timetable to stick to.

It is a particularly British form of escapism: escaping reality by meticulously recreating it, like the Airfix model makers of old.

“People like to experience something that resembles what they see when they walk out of their house,” reckons Toby.

“You go from a cityscape to suburbs to countryside within a very small distance, which means that you can create routes which resemble those that maybe you're familiar with in your own life or in your own area.”

But it’s also, crucially, a very social game.

“It's a very social experience in the sense that you see other players driving,” says Toby of the game’s key strength.

“In standard play you can just drive through other buses, there's no collisions. You just go through them. But there is a simulation server which has a paywall, and it's moderated as well. People submit clips of other people driving badly, and then you get suspended — people crash into people, and yeah, people love that shared experience.”

Toby and Dylan began developing Croydon: London Bus Simulator when they were teenagers, with Toby choosing development over university. What started as an extremely niche idea has grown into a game with tens of millions of visits, an enthusiastic community and enough depth to attract important fans — the team are regularly contacted by Croydon’s actual bus drivers, who praise the attention to detail (and point out room for improvement, naturally).

“Bus drivers actually play the game,” stresses Toby. “They message and say ‘I'm a bus driver at this depot. I really love your game. I play it after work’. It’s literally the busman's holiday. They love it.”

That might be the most charming thing about Croydon: London Bus Simulator. In an era when we're increasingly anxious about what children are doing online, here is a Roblox game whose greatest achievement is making the most ordinary aspects of British life feel, if not exciting, then certainly engaging.

“I joined Roblox when I was six!” says Toby.

“I'm 21 now. I used to be that younger audience, but it has grown.”

“Because of that core 15 - 17 audience age range, there are those who then go and become bus drivers or bus mechanics. People can find their niche, find their people who will then help each other to get into the industry. It's one of the only communities that I know of that is really nurturing, to get people into their love of the bus industry.”

Your kid might be chatting to strangers online, of course. They might be spending too much time staring at a screen. The wider concerns around Roblox and child safety are real and shouldn't be dismissed simply because one game happens to be wholesome.

But if you peek over their shoulder and discover they're carefully pulling a virtual double-decker into a bus stop in Croydon, following a timetable and saving up for a better bus, perhaps you can relax for a moment.

So what next for Croydon: London Bus Simulator? The team would be open to a TFL collaboration “if they approached us”, but there’s been no contact thus far. And “map-wise, we have actually reached the limit of what Roblox can do,” says Toby.

“But!” he continues, “That means splitting the game into different servers, like a portal where you transition players into a different path. That should hopefully allow us to just rapidly expand.

“I mean, you should see how fast Dylan can make maps. It's incredible, he's churning out streets in minutes.”

And Dylan might have his most fiendish route yet to conquer:

“There’s one route called 464. It goes from New Addington to Tatsfield, and it goes down this narrow roadway that can only physically fit one bus at a time. I know it's going to be absolute chaos.”

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The National Conversation has dug into government data to work out the most and least friendly places in the UK.

Want the headline-grabber? Barking and Dagenham is the bottom of the pile according to the data, scoring a measly 8/100 points.

This is based on The National Conersation’s connection barometer, which is based on questions like how much someone feels like they belong to their neighbourhood, whether they are proud of their local area and whether people from different backgrounds get on.

Let’s cut to the chase and run down the top five best and worst scorers:

The bad list

1. Barking and Dagenham
2. Stoke-on-Trent
3. Ashfield
4. Mansfield
5. Ipswich

The good list

1. The Isles of Scilly
2. South Hams
3. West Devon
4. The Derbyshire Dales
5. Richmond upon Thames

You can see what score your own area gets over at the National Conversation website.

All this data comes from Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government survey and statistics info. But part of this attention-grabbing presentation of the data by the National Conversation is to get us to fill in the initiative’s own survey.

It’s operated by the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, which is part of the University of Oxford.

“Your participation will help create one of the few resources where people can see how their area feels, not just how it votes,” is the pitch.

But what are they gong to do with it? The stated aim is to “conduct academic research and analyse societal trends,” which it deems are in the “public interest.”

Whether you want to participate or not, it’s kinda interesting to dig into the data of your current and previous home towns.

The primary source is the Community Life Survey 2024/25 — which was undertaken between October 2024 and March 2025, and includes answers from upwards of 175,000 participants aged 16+, from across the UK.

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Virgin Trains has secured a deal to let it operate trains running from London to destinations across Europe, including Paris.

This is all thanks to the rather unglamorous-sounding Office of Rail and Road (ORR), which has granted Virgin Trains the right to operate on the lines you currently have to head to Eurostar to travel across.

Eurostar has effectively had a monopoly on its services since its passenger services began in 1994. And that’s about to be nixed — although we do have a bit of a wait ahead.

The deal will allow Virgin Trains to operate rival services from October 2030, and runs until 2040.

Plans are for up to 20 “return services a day,” with locations including Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam.

More competition, better prices?

This not a new plan, of course, just another step along the road to making it happen. For example, almost a year ago in October 2025 Virgin Trains was granted access to the Temple Mills International depot. And rumours of these Virgin Trains plans began circulating at pace in 2023.

The hope, from the consumer’s end, is the increased competition will see these train services become lower-cost. Book early enough and you can get a return ticket to one of Eurostar’s key terminals for under £100, or under £80 during the company’s fairly regular sales events.

It’s not bad, but it’s not on the level of the £50 return flights to Paris you can pick up from Easyjet for this September, if the less desirable times suit your schedule.

“This is an important next step in bringing competition and growth to the market for international rail services, and we welcome the progress Virgin Trains and London St Pancras High Speed have made,” says Martin Jones, the Office of Rail and Road’s deputy director of “access & international.”

“While there is still more work to do, we are supporting Virgin and the wider industry to grow international services.”

One of the next steps is for Virgin to actually get hold of the trains it needs. Back in August 2025 it was reported the company made an order for 12 high-speed trains capable of running at up to 300km per hour.

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In what sounds like the start of an Indiana Jones movie, London’s Natural History Museum is cracking open a previously sealed secret gallery that has been off limits to the public since World War Two. Instead of secret enigmas, buried treasure, or soon-to-be-reanimated extinct species, the gallery will be showing a new exhibition, all about humans' relationship with nature.

Called Nature and Us, the exhibition opens up on 16th September and will explore our evolving relationship with the natural world through 50 remarkable objects. The space was previously an osteology gallery in the 1890s, with mammals from around the world displayed and studied.

Closed to the public since 1943, this gallery will initially reopen for 18 months, with Nature and Us being the primary exhibition during that run. According to the museum, some of the highlights and key specimens appearing in Nature and Us include a miniature model of a Crystal Palace dinosaur, illustrating how early scientists and artists imagined prehistoric life; Jenny, a Victorian skeleton of a monk seal that reveals how wild animals were once exploited for entertainment; a bryozoan-encrusted Star Wars toy from the 1980s, showing how everyday objects can acquire new meanings through nature and time; and a 400,000-year-old handaxe whose discovery transformed our understanding of when humans first existed.

Visitors will also be able to touch a replica jaw of one of Britain's earliest known domesticated dogs, dating to around 14,300 years ago and offering evidence of the long relationship between people and pooches.

The exciting announcement is part of NHM150, a transformation of the Museum that will open a new or revitalised gallery each year leading up to its 150th anniversary in 2031.

The space can be found on the second floor of the museum, and has been used for different features across the years. After the Museum's original herbarium was damaged during the Second World War, the gallery was repurposed to house the botanical collections and closed to the public. The gallery's original wooden herbarium cabinets remain in place, reflecting its history as a working scientific collections space.

• A first-of-its-kind punk festival dedicated to women is heading to London

Bus-driving members of the Unite union have plans to strike this week, and beyond, over concerns about working conditions.

The first of these strike dates land on 14th and 15th August, the start of this weekend, and will likely affect routes around Barking, Edmonton, Enfield, Grays, Palmers Green, Stamford Hill, Tottenham and Wood Green.

So why are drivers striking? It’s a pretty understandable complaint if you’ve been on a bus recently: the drivers argue all buses should have proper aircon, and that what they have today is insufficient.

Some buses have it, others have a simple air recirculation system that ends up just pushing hot air around.

The strike is part of a dispute between around 1500 bus drivers working out of eight London bus garages, and Arriva North London, the company responsible for services in the affected parts of North London and Essex.

This first duo of strike dates arrives during a week when London temperatures are set to reach peaks of 35 degrees centigrade, on Thursday.

Here are the proposed list of strikes dates ahead:

• Friday 14th August - Saturday 15th August
• Tuesday 18th August - Friday 21st August
• Tuesday 25th August - Friday 28th August
• Friday 4th September - Saturday 5th September
• Monday 7th September - Tuesday 8th September
• Friday 18th September - Saturday 19th September
• Monday 21st September - Tuesday 22nd September
• Friday 2nd October - Saturday 3rd October
• Monday 5th October - Tuesday 6th October
• Friday 16th October - Saturday 17th October
• Monday 19th October - Tuesday 20th October

It is not yet clear how widespread the disruption will be on these days, or exactly which routes will be affected. And Arriva is yet to publish any updated advice on the news section of its website.

You can expect delays and cancellations of services, though, particularly if you’ll be around the areas mentioned at the top of this story.

“We know those who rely on these bus services will be dismayed to hear of industrial action, but it is entirely the fault of Arriva who has completely failed to listen to our members,” says Unite officer Steven Stockwell.

Transport for London published the results of a freedom of information request regarding aircon on public transport last year, which indicate it is — unsurprisingly — the older buses around London that do not have full air conditioning.

“All buses introduced since circa 2006 have air conditioning in the driver's cab and air cooling on the top deck of double-deck buses. Buses featuring the newest specification for air conditioning have entered service since 2024,” says TfL.

The post does seem to claim all London buses have aircon for the driver, though.

“Air conditioning technology varies across London's bus fleet, but all London buses have some form of air cooling. All London buses have air conditioning in the driver's cab,” says TfL.

This could be a case of disagreement over what actually constitutes "air conditioning" in action.

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There’s something intrinsically magical about a night lit up with soft lighting – and we’re not just talking about never switching the big light on, and using your hundreds of lamps instead. Think: London’s fairy lit Southbank or literally any pub with pallet furniture that also sells its own Pale Ale. London will be taking its love of illumination one step further this September, taking inspiration from the ancient Thai tradition and lighting up one of its local lakes with hundreds of floating lanterns.

Like the kid who went on a gap year or Erasmus and hasn’t stopped talking about it or taken off their shell necklace since, London will be just one of the cities around the world who will be taking part in a world-famous glowing water celebration. For one night only, London will transform into the waters of Chiang Mai as the boating pool at Bexleyheath's Danson Park will be transformed into a stunning scene of light, music, and storytelling. Scenes straight out of a Disney film.

The group behind the evening have taken the event across the world, delighting visitors in New York, LA, Paris, and Berlin before finally coming to the Big Smoke. The whole gig is inspired by the traditional Asian floating lantern celebrations like Thailand’s centuries old Loy Krathong festival, or Toro Nagashi in Japan. On 5th September, Londoners are invited to gather at Danson Park lake to release thousands of illuminated lanterns onto the water’s surface as the sun sets over the city, and watch as the space transforms into a glowing array of love, memories, and community.

The evening starts with each festival-goer designing their own Water Lantern with live music, vendors, and food trucks to help turn the night into a proper celebration. All the materials to design your own water lantern are included in the ticket alongside your entry. Doors open at 4.30pm to get designing and enjoy the space (Danson Park is a Grade I listed Palladian estate with a whopping 12-acre lake) but it’s at 7pm that the magic really gets going in earnest with everyone stepping to the water’s edge to launch their lanterns and watch them drift across the lake in a bubble of light.

Also, if you’re worried about the David Attenborough effect that a load of paper lanterns will have on the environment then let us put your mind at ease – the company have a strict Leave No Trace policy. This means all the materials are 100% biodegradable (each lantern is made from rice paper and solid wood bases), staff operate a strict full lake cleanup afterwards, and they work with a non profit, Water.org, meaning by heading to the festival you’re actually supporting and helping fund clean water access around the world.

After one night at Danson Park, the festival will be having two days at Clapham Common from 19th-20th September.

You can head to the festival's website to see more and book tickets which are currently priced at £27 for general admission.

• Pop, pots and prints: V&A museums' full exhibition schedule for 2027 and beyond revealed

London is a pretty cultured city, a multicultural melting pot that everyone benefits from through art, music, food and more.

But it's multicultural design that set to get the spotlight soon, as a major new exhibition all about contemporary Black design heads to the capital this autumn.

Called The Nue Black Aesthetic, the exhibition will be heading to London’s Design Museum from November 2026, running until August 8th 2027. The exhibition has been guest curated by author and journalist Charlene Prempeh and charts some of the most innovative contemporary Black designers working right now. From clothing to carpentry, the selected artists all show case the best and quite frankly coolest designers who all help answer the question (and displace the stereotypes about) what Black design looks like, and who gets to shape design culture.

The exhibition will take visitors on a journey across six different individual sections. The first, 'Towards a Nue Black Aesthetic' presents the background and context to the current moment, followed by 'Identity as Inspiration', before going onto the 'Community Building' segment. Next up the 'Rethinking the System' section will look at the Black designers challenging the norms, leading to the penultimate section which will see a new film specifically created for the exhibition in 'Black by Design'. The finale (unsurprisingly) concludes the exhibition with a brand new site-specific commission by Nigerian American designer Ini Archibong.

'A landmark exhibition'

Artists will be sharing their different experiences of their communities, balancing shared experience with the distinct traditions of their specific heritage, showcasing their varied approaches to identity, culture and community. The featured designers include Tejumola Adenuga, Taiba Akhuetie, Ini Archibong, Simone Brewster, Mac Collins, Phoebe Collings-James, Foday Dumbuya, Feben, Nifemi Marcus-Bello, Andu Masebo, Saul Nash, Tosin Oshinowo, Bianca Saunders, Rachel Scott, Samuel Ross and Giles Tettey Nartey.

There will be some additional works and graphics by over 20 designers, from Yinka Ilori whose colourful designs you will have spotted everywhere from Dunelm to M&S, to the trailblazing Althea McNish, the first Black British textile designer to earn international reputation for her stunning creations.

The title of the show references the cultural movements of the ‘Black Aesthetic’ of the 1960s and the ‘New Black Aesthetic’ of the 1980s. But this exhibition proposes a ‘Nue’ era — one defined by nuance, where there is no single way to be a Black designer. The museum has praised the showcase as a “landmark exhibition”, calling it “thought provoking and nuanced” and added it will “enrich our understanding of what is happening in design today.”

Tickets have already gone on sale for the exhibition, priced at £19 for a standard adult ticket. You can find them at The Design Museum’s website where you can browse the rest of the exhibitions being hosted throughout the year.

• The best exhibitions in London this summer: From Escher to Bowie to Marilyn Monroe

A London art gallery is closing up shop this week, and we bet there’s a good chance you’ve never even set foot in it. This is the Science Gallery, part of King’s College London.

There are just a couple of days left to visit the gallery, which ends its run when the current set of exhibitions close on 31st July.

The Science Gallery’s closure was announced a while back, in April 2026.

Why? It’s all part of a rather bland-sounding “refocusing of institutional resources towards education, research and innovation priorities."

It’s perhaps no great surprise, though, given you don’t have to try too hard to hear about University funding crises.

What's on at the Science Gallery?

But, back to the point: we have just a couple of days left to visit the Science Gallery, so what’s on?

There are three exihibitions on at the gallery.

A Thread That Binds Us comprises a couple of “tapestry-based works” exploring themes of mental health in families.

The pieces are by Amber Roper and there’s a visitor interaction element here too, with the public encouraged to add threads to one of the exhibits. We’re not sure this part is still active, though, just handfuls of hours away from the place shutting up shop.

Directly linked by medium but not theme, Threads of Protest features textile works about inequality in maternity care. It merges artworks with research from Dr Gemma Mckenzie, who has looked into the issue as part of her postdoctoral work.

“Building on the historic use of thread as a form of protest in women’s art, the exhibition uses crochet as a practical and accessible creative language to communicate experiences that are often unheard,” says the Science Gallery.

The gallery’s most recent opening, from late May, is The Art of Care: Through the Eyes of Tomorrows Doctors. It features works produced by King’s College London students, following placements in GP surgeries as part of their study.

“Working in teams and supported by clinicians and artists, students responded to their experiences through a wide range of creative media — including painting, sculpture, poetry, photography, film, and interactive work,” reads the exhibition description.

It’s a kind of insider’s view of a theme, with an outsider art bent, at least assuming many of those taking part likely did not have a life-long interaction with these mediums. Fascinating stuff.

The Science Gallery is a different kind of art gallery, and we bet some of you will be passing right by it in the next couple of days. It’s part of the King’s College London campus just outside of London Bridge station. Give it a visit before it's too late.

It’s open until 6pm each day this week, with Friday 31st July the last day it’s set to open. The Science Gallery originally opened in 2018.

• The best exhibitions in London this summer: From Escher to Bowie to Marilyn Monroe

We’re entering our 112th heatwave of the summer (okay, our fourth) and 30 degree weather is scarily becoming the norm. With the incessant hot weather comes the heightened risk of wildfires across the UK. With blazes having swept across France, Scotland, and already moving further down south, Londoners are now frantically searching to see if they could be at risk.

Civic chiefs have warned that London is at extreme risk of wildfires, after fires already broke out near Walthamstow last week. London Mayor Sadiq Khan has urged Londoners to create firebreakers to protect their homes, while a new map has highlighted the areas of London most at risk from wildfire threats.

The geospatial analytics company Map Impact analysed the risks in every borough across the city, marking out Havering as the spot most in danger. It’s the only borough which stretches across the M25 at the far east of the capital. The second highest borough at risk is Hounslow, to the West of the capital.

Just over 11% of Havering’s land was analysed as being at high risk or very high risk of wildfire, with Hounslow slightly behind it at 10%. According to the research, wildfires are more likely in Outer London boroughs where there are more dry green spaces versus the city centre.

The borough with the third highest risk was Ealing, with just over 9% of the borough at high or very high risk of wildfires. Barking & Dagenham was next, at 8.69%, followed by Bexley at 8.21%, Redbridge at 7.14%, Richmond-upon-Thames with 6.28%, Hillingdon at 6.23%, Enfield with 6%, Merton with 5.81%, Harrow at 5.54%, and Brent 5.04%. At around half the wildfire risk as the boroughs with the highest dangers was Sutton and Greenwich, both on 4.84%. Some of the lowest were Westminster, Croydon, and Lambeth, which were all under 4%.

Another factor in the map of risk was how populated the areas are, including how many people visit the area, as this makes accidentally sparked blazes more likely. Which is a polite way of saying that humans are often stupid and/or irresponsible. Think barbecues, cigarettes, etcetera. Wildfires can also be caused by sunlight on a glass bottle or shard (like when you learn how to burn something using a magnifying glass in the sunshine), or sparks from machinery and vehicles.

The London Fire Brigade has issued guidance around the wildfires, including advising people to clear two to three metre strips around their garden to create firebreaks, which was echoed by Sir Sadiq Khan.

LFB Assistant Commissioner Tom Goodall said: “As these very warm and dry conditions continue, we encourage all landowners, including households, to take any precautionary measures they can to protect properties in the event of a fire.

“Residents can also help minimise damage by keeping grass cut low and cutting back trees and shrubbery, particularly around the edges.”

• The best exhibitions in London this summer: From Escher to Bowie to Marilyn Monroe

Right now you can get from London to Antwerp by train fairly easily, but it involves a stop in Brussels. That changes this December.

Eurostar’s London-to-Antwerp direct line launches this December.

From 14th December, four trains a day will run from London St. Pancras to Antwerpen-Centraal. It will take two hours 41 minutes, a pretty healthy time saver compared to the roughly 3.5 hours it takes today, thanks to that stop off and train change in Brussels.

Searching through the Eurostar booking system, you can already book these direct journeys, with the cheapest fares we found starting at £44.

There’s just one snag. You can’t also book a direct return journey. This is because there’s no border and customs outpost at the Antwerp end, which we do have in London. And this also means it’s not something likely to be remedied any time soon.

Journeys back from Antwerp typically take around 3.5 to 4 hours, with a 40 minute or so stop over at Brussels — plenty of time to change platforms.

We were able to snag a return fare for £88, although you do have to be a little loose on timings to get such a low-cost total.

You may be able to get even cheaper travel during one of Eurostar’s regular sales. These take place a few times a year, with the lowest rates typically at £35 each way.

Get in early with these £44-a-leg tickets and you’re not doing too bad already.

Antwerp joins Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and Rotterdam among Eurostar’s direct destinations, beating Cologne to the punch for a direct line.

But is Antwerp worth a visit? Its train station is one of the city’s most famous sights, so you’ll definitely catch that following your Eurostar journey out there.

The city also offers a beautiful main square, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, and it’s known for both its food and fashion.

Should you pick it over a first visit to Paris or Amsterdam? Probably not. But the upcoming direct route makes Antwerp a top pick for Londoners looking for an easy weekend away.

• Forget the airport queues, London is set to get direct trains to Cologne by 2030

There’s more train-related faff ahead for London commuters, and for once it’s not down to strikes,

London Charing Cross and Waterloo East are closed, and will remain shut until 16th August.

The closure began on Sunday 26th July, and runs for three weeks in order to accommodate major engineering work.

Trains will instead head to Victoria, London Bridge, Blackfriars or Cannon Street, depending on the route. It likely means a whole lot of trains effectively terminating early at London Bridge.

This work affects Southeastern trains, and the provider warns the schedule will change during the affected period too. You’re advised to check the timetable for more details.

The works are part of a renovation project of Hungerford Bridge, which connects Charing Cross to the other side of the Thames. £20 million is being spent on works including the replacement of around a mile of track and associated switches, letting trains more smoothly transition to the six platforms at Charing Cross station.

That station’s platforms nearer the bridge end will also be rebuilt, having suffered from subsidence, according to Network Rail.

It’s part of a wider refurb of the bridge, which was built in the 1840s. That project began in earnest in 2025 and is planned to conclude in 2028.

“The £20 million investment we are delivering will see 1990s track and platforms upgraded to make journeys safer and more reliable, and Victorian-era structures strengthened to remain fit for the future,” says South Eastern Railway’s Scott Brightwell.

This three week stint isn’t the only closure of the stations we’ll see this year either. Charing Cross and Waterloo will also be figuratively shuttered on 22nd and 23rd August, and on 10th and 11th October, as part of the same works plan.

If you travel retro and have paper tickets that cover travel to these stations during the affected periods, they will apparently be accepted on Jubliee line services into Waterloo, relevant Thameslink trains, Southern services heading into Victoria and London Bridge, and a handful of buses serving the affected area.

These include the 24, 26, 148, 188, 139 and 453 routes.

Want some good news? There’s no London Underground strike action planned at the moment, although East Midlands Railway staff associated with the RMT union do plan to strike 2-7 August, 9-14 August and 16th August, which will affect some trains going out of St Pancras. And the LNR network will be affected by strike action this week on 31st July and 1st August, impacting some services running out of London Euston.

• Forget the airport queues, London is set to get direct trains to Cologne by 2030

A museum dedicated to the secret spy and intelligence operations that went on during World War Two has opened in North London.

I don’t think we can do much better than to regurgitate the museum’s own explanation of the Trent Park House of Secrets. It sounds more like the synopsis of a Netflix show than a museum intro:

“In the 1920s and 1930s, Trent Park House was Sir Philip Sassoon’s glamorous country retreat, host to prime ministers, royalty and film stars.A decade later it held a darker secret,” the museum team explains.

“POWs including captured German generals and senior officers were housed here in apparent comfort, never knowing that the Secret Listeners were monitoring their conversations and gathering intelligence that helped change the course of the war.”

We're already halfway through our popcorn.

A hidden slice of history

On the outside the Trent Park House of Secrets looks like a lush stately home, and inside it has been restored to how it would have appeared in the 1930s — also pretty stately home-like, to be honest. But behind the luxury there are the listening rooms, decked out with replicas of the sort of equipment that would have been used back in the day.

Before it took on this unlikely role, the house was owned by Sir Philip Sassoon, who was friend to both Winston Churchill and Edward VIII. But after his death in 1939 the place was requisitioned by the government.

Trent Park House of Secrets director Dr Giuseppe Albano invites us to “discover the covert intelligence operation that took place here during the Second World War.”

But the museum also apparently digs into the place’s wider context as a part of 20th century British history.

You can find out what this entails by visiting yourself. Adult tickets cost £14 a pop, those aged under five get in for free and 5-17-year-old and students pay £12.

The Trent Park House of Secrets is clearly going to be compared to Bletchley Park, the famous code-breaking country house that was a key part of the Allied war effort. And while Trent Park doesn’t quite have the gravitas or significance of that place, it sure is easier to get to for Londoners.

The Trent Park House of Secrets sits just a few hundreds metres away from the Cockfosters Underground station, on the Piccadilly line.

The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 5pm, and tickets are available for slots up to six weeks in advance. You specify an hour slot when booking, but the website suggests the staff will be lenient if you miss your slot thanks to Tube delays or similar.

• Pop, pots and prints: V&A museums' full exhibition schedule for 2027 and beyond revealed

The V&A has announced its line-up of major exhibitions for 2027, covering off a decent chunk of 2028 too.

V&A’s London South Kensington museum is getting three exhibitions next year, while the second exhibition for the new V&A East site has been announced.

Let’s take a closer look at what's in store...

V&A 2027 exhibitions

First up at the main V&A site in South Kensington is Punk to Pop. It opens on 13th March, 2027, and covers the changing face of art from 1972 to 1985.

But as the name suggests, this one will be represented through the prism of music and pop culture — which in this era were closely tied to UK politics. Acts the V&A team mentions in an early teaser include Wham!, Eurythmics, Joy Division, The Slits and The Sex Pistols.

Punk to Pop will include upwards of 300 exhibits, from photographs and music videos to costumes.

It will be a long-running exhibition, set to run until 2nd January 2028.

Sculpture in Clay opens slightly later in the year, from 29th May, and will stick on until 6th February 2028. The name tells you a lot of what you need to know here too.

The show will feature the work of British artists working from the 1980s onwards within the medium of ceramics. It’s about “how clay and ceramic have expanded the possibilities of sculpture.”

Featured artists include Antony Gormley — known in part for his series of human figures (cast in his own likeness) peppered around London’s South Bank from 2007 — Edmund de Waal and Jacqueline Poncelet.

The final V&A South Kensington exhibtiion we know about has what initially seems a slightly more opaque title: Chintz.

However, it really is about the history of Chintz fabric, a flowery pattern that emerged from South India more than 400 years ago, and has since been weighed down with all sorts of preconceptions and cultural baggage.

It “re-discovers the story of chintz” according to the V&A, which it dubs one of the “most coveted, copied and contentious fabrics in history.”

Over on the other side of London, we’ve also heard about the second major exhibition coming to V&A East, which only opened in April.

South Asia Now: Fashion. Art. Design. takes over from the current exhibition on black British music on 24th April 2027, and runs until 23rd January 2028. It will feature upwards of 200 pieces with roots in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Tickets for these four exhibitions will be “available soon.” And if they are enough to make you consider a V&A membership, those start at £86 a year via direct debit, or £60 for those aged 16-25.

• The best exhibitions in London this summer: From Escher to Bowie to Marilyn Monroe

Any fans of sausages, beer, punctuality, and stunning gothic castles, listen up. The good news – or should we say Gute Nachricht – is that you could soon be zooming over to the capital of Christmas markets, as the UK is one step closer to getting direct trains between London and Cologne.

At the end of 2025, it was announced that the trusty Eurostar was unveiling plans to launch the high-speed rail routes between London and Germany. The plans included multiple destinations including Cologne and Frankfurt rather than a focus of the country’s capital Berlin. However, Eurostar just got some competition as a UK start up is also entering the rail race, and could be bringing us a Cologne link up sooner than originally thought.

Gemini Trains has announced plans to run service to Cologne as early as 2030. This isn’t the only ambitious plan the British brand has got in the works, having announced they also want to create a journey direct to Paris which would stop at both Disneyland and Charles de Gaulle airport. Also, they have revealed plans to have routes running to Brussels, Frankfurt and Dusseldorf in the near future.

Whilst international rail travel is traditionally associated with Kings Cross, Gemini would see routes running from Stratford International, widening the current offering of spots you can head to for international travel. Trains would also stop at Ebbsfleet International and Ashford International outside of London – two stops also used by Eurostar in the past.

Gemini has confirmed it plans to use electric trains – at least eight specifically, which will accommodate around 550 passengers at maximum capacity. It also plans to start out with around 11 services running daily, although has hinted it plans to increase this significantly once they’re up and running. To give some context, Eurostar runs roughly 26 services every day.

If you find yourself trying to travel to Cologne via rail at the moment, you’d be looking at around a six hour journey with at least one change. By contrast, the Gemini offering would take around four hours, shaving a good couple of hours off the route. And whilst prices haven’t been officially released yet, Gemini has estimated that the initial one-way fares to Paris will retail at around £59.

So, if you are looking for a more sustainable way of hopping across to Europe without spending ages on the tracks, Gemini’s speedy routes might be one to keep in mind as you’re perusing AirBnBs.

• This new app shows you a map of every hidden set menu across London’s best restaurants – including Michelin starred spots for less than £30

Perhaps the most important London exhibition of the year is the Bayeux tapestry showing at the British Museum.

It opens in September, but the most important precursor milestone has just been passed: The Bayeux Tapestry itself turning up in the UK. It's in the British Museum right now.

The tapestry arrived at the tail end of last week, its transfer confirmed by the British Museum on 10th July.

It was transported using the Channel Tunnel, and was of course given a police escort for the journey.

The tapestry arrived at the British Museum at 2:48am according to the museum, where it was taken out of its transporter lorry to a crowd that included the French ambassador and museum director Nicholas Cullinan.

Priceless packing

It was of course not just shoved in the back of a lorry like removal men packing up your old living room rug. The Bayeux tapestry was stored for the journey in a folding metal contraption that arranges the artefact into an accordion-like sandwich, helping to avoid any damage from travel vibrations — which were limited to 2mm per second as part of the plan to get the tapestry to England safely.

How you do that in practice when moving the thing by lorry still remains a mystery to us.

The transport of the relic was celebrated with a tapestry graphic, projected onto the white cliffs of Dover, which of course are nearby the route of the Channel Tunnel.

It took 90 workers seven hours to pack the Bayeux Tapestry up. And the transfer process was actually attempted twice with a placeholder rug rather than the real deal beforehand.

The UK Treasury insured the tapestry for £800 million, intended to cover any mishaps during its travels or while the exhibition is on. And while that is of course a fortune, some art historians reportedly criticised the cover — for the amount as well as the terms involved.

This is the first time the Bayeux Tapestry has been in England for more than a thousand years, despite having made here, as per the consensus of today’s historians.

Talks to make the upcoming Bayeux Tapestry exhibition actually happen have been happening for almost a decade now. And they have finally come to a head.

The British Museum’s exhibition opens on 10th September. And while it runs all the way until 11th July 2027, you will have to be quick off the mark to be in with a chance of seeing it.

A first wave of tickets, covering dates up until the end of 2026, sold out within 24 hours. The British Museum offers a sign-up page for those wanting updates on the next tranche. But for the earliest access you’ll need to be a member — memberships start at £82 a year.

Members’ booking restarts in October, for visit dates in January to March, while the final set of tickets for dates from April to July, go on sale in January. General sale will be some time after the members’ booking window.

Members can book up to two visits to the exhibition. And given adult tickets start at £25, or £33 during peak times, a membership may sound pretty attractive right now for the history buffs out there.

• The best exhibitions in London this summer: From Escher to Bowie to Marilyn Monroe

After years of debate, funding rows and ever-changing repair plans, Hammersmith & Fulham Council has effectively accepted that getting cars and buses back on the historic crossing isn't financially realistic, at least for now.

Instead, the council is focusing on securing government funding for a £128 million programme of essential repairs designed to keep the bridge safely open for pedestrians, cyclists and river traffic, rather than restoring it for full motor use.

The money would come from the Government's £1 billion Structures Fund, which the council had originally hoped would cover the estimated £300 million needed to fully reopen the bridge. However, hopes of securing that level of funding have faded after officials indicated the bridge's lengthy restoration wouldn't meet the fund's deadline, which requires projects to be completed by the 31st of March 2030.

Speaking at a cabinet meeting this week, council leader Stephen Cowan said the authority simply couldn't afford to fund the remaining work itself.

"We have to be honest with residents," he said. "If it was a magic money tree, we could fix it. But we don't live in a something-for-nothing society."

The 139-year-old Hammersmith Bridge has been closed to motor traffic since 2019 after engineers discovered dangerous micro-fractures in its cast iron pedestals. It reopened to pedestrians and cyclists in 2021 following emergency stabilisation works, but buses, taxis and private vehicles have never returned.

Since then, the bridge has become the centre of a long-running funding dispute between Hammersmith & Fulham Council, the Department for Transport and Transport for London. The council says it has already spent around £54 million maintaining and stabilising the structure and believes it's still owed almost £23 million under a previous agreement that split repair costs equally between the three organisations.

Richmond Council's deputy leader, Alexander Ehmann, criticised the decision to prioritise walking and cycling over reopening the bridge to public transport, arguing it would leave older and disabled residents facing longer journeys.

"If we accept that buses will never return, we're not just making an engineering decision," he said. "We're making a social choice about who benefits and who is left behind."

Opposition councillors also questioned why Labour, which currently controls Hammersmith & Fulham Council, the London mayoralty and the UK Government, had failed to secure funding for a full restoration.

For now, though, the priority is simply keeping one of London's most recognisable bridges standing. Whether cars ever return to Hammersmith Bridge will largely depend on whether the Government is willing to stump up hundreds of millions of pounds beyond the current funding programme. At the moment, that looks a long way off.

• Bringing back the Barfly: Frank Turner and the Camden venue’s new owners on the importance of London’s grassroots music scene

It feels as though London is flocked with bikes – between the die-hard lyra-donning pedal pushers to the flock of bright green lime bikes, Londoners simply love donning two wheels to get from A to B. Now, cycling around the city just got a little bit lighter on the wallet thanks to Santander bikes.

Across July, TFL will be handing out passes that will let you cycle around the city completely free. On the last day of each week in July, the Santander Cycles Day Pass will have a 100% discount, costing you nada instead of the usual £3.50.

It’s the second year the initiative has run, originally launched in 2024 as part of the Cycle Sundays scheme, which aimed to get city dwellers cycling. Now, it’s making a comeback to help encourage people to use TFL’s fleet of electric bikes.

Obviously, the free rides are exclusive only to Santander bikes, but there are over 800 docking stations across the city for said bikes, so it will be pretty easy to find a suitable two-wheeler. To get a free ride, you’ll just need to grab one of the discount codes. You can access the codes via the discounts page of the Santander Cycles app. Other than that, you’ll just follow the normal process to unlock and access a bike, just remembering to enter the promo code when you go to checkout, which will give you unlimited 60-minute rides over a 24-hour period.

The codes are valid for both normal and e-bikes, although you will need to become a member first, and membership is free.

Although most Londoners, especially seasoned ones rival an old school A-Z of the city’s roads, knowing exactly where they’re heading to and from, as part of the scheme TFL has mapped out a selection beginner friendly routes, in case you want to take time and explore the city rather than the head down pedalling you usually do when you try and shave 5 minutes off a 20 minutes route. There are more than 50 routes spanning across the capital, from scenic scenes in Hampstead Heath to the panoramic views of Primrose Hill.

The codes are:

• 5 July - CYCLEJULY5
• 12 July - CYCLEJULY12
• 19 July - CYCLEJULY19
• 26 July - CYCLEJULY26

Whether you want to find a docking station, rent a bike, or explore some of the routes, TFL’s website has all the information you need to get biking.

• This new app shows you a map of every hidden set menu across London’s best restaurants – including Michelin starred spots for less than £30

Most Tube journeys aren't exactly memorable. Delays, packed carriages and someone eating tuna at 8am tend to see to that.

One weekend later this month, you can swap the usual Metropolitan line service for something far more special, as the London Transport Museum brings its beautifully restored vintage trains back to the tracks.

Taking place on Saturday the 25th and Sunday the 26th of July, the heritage journeys depart from Amersham and give passengers the chance to travel aboard authentic London Underground trains dating back almost a century.

The headline act is the museum's meticulously restored 1938 Tube Stock, complete with Art Deco styling, red and green wool upholstery, polished wood interiors and period light fittings. These trains were a genuine milestone for the Underground when they first entered service, becoming the first fleet to house all of their electrical equipment beneath the floor, creating more space for passengers. They remained in service for almost 50 years before being retired.

If that's not enough nostalgia, there's also the chance to ride in elegant 1950s railway carriages hauled by the legendary Sarah Siddons, one of the Metropolitan Railway's iconic electric locomotives from the 1920s. Named after the celebrated Welsh actress, Sarah Siddons is one of the few surviving locomotives of its kind still in operation today, making appearances only at special heritage events.

Passengers can choose between several different routes across the Metropolitan line. Saturday's return trip runs between Amersham and Watford, while Sunday's return service travels to Harrow-on-the-Hill before heading back. Single journeys to Harrow-on-the-Hill are also available across the weekend for those after a shorter trip.

Unlike your usual Tube journey, though, you won't be tapping in with an Oyster card. Adult tickets start from £22, rising to £40 depending on the journey, with concessions available for children.

Whether you're a lifelong railway enthusiast or simply fancy seeing London from a very different seat, it's one of the capital's most unique heritage experiences, and one that only comes around a handful of times each year.

• This new app shows you a map of every hidden set menu across London’s best restaurants – including Michelin starred spots for less than £30

Office workers across London were treated to an unexpected sight on Wednesday morning when the famous Goodyear Blimp drifted over the capital for the first time in four years.

The enormous aircraft crossed the English Channel after taking off from Calais Dunkerque Airport in France before making its way over Kent and following the Thames into central London.

Flight tracking showed the blimp passing over Canterbury and Rochester before looping across the capital and continuing further north. It later appeared to begin turning back.

Despite its huge size, the Goodyear Blimp isn't exactly built for speed. The semi-rigid Zeppelin NT airship measures more than 75 metres long, stands almost 18 metres high and has a top speed of 73mph.

That didn't stop plenty of Londoners from doing a double take. Social media quickly filled with photos of the blimp.

The comparison has a historical basis. During the First World War, German Zeppelins carried out bombing raids over London. Nicknamed "silent raids" because they could approach with relatively little warning, the attacks killed 668 people and caused widespread damage across the capital. The destruction was later dwarfed by the Blitz during the Second World War, but the sight of a giant airship over London still catches plenty of people off guard.

What is the Goodyear Blimp?

Despite the name, today's Goodyear Blimp isn't technically a traditional blimp at all.

The aircraft flying over the UK is a Zeppelin NT, a semi-rigid airship with an internal framework that helps it keep its shape. Traditional blimps rely entirely on the pressure of the lifting gas to stay inflated.

Airships were once seen as the future of long-distance travel, carrying passengers across continents before advances in aeroplanes and disasters such as the Hindenburg crash in 1937 brought the era to an end. Today, they're a genuine rarity. Aviation experts estimate there are only around 25 operational blimps and airships left worldwide, making any appearance in the skies a fairly unusual event.

Goodyear has used airships for nearly a century, with the first taking to the skies in 1925. Over the decades, they have become one of the world's most recognisable corporate symbols, acting as giant floating billboards while also providing aerial TV coverage of major sporting events including motorsport, American football, golf and baseball.

While the blimp is a familiar sight in the U, UK appearances are much rarer. Before Wednesday's flyover, it was last spotted over London in 2022.

For anyone who happened to glance out of an office window today, it was a reminder that one of aviation's most unusual aircraft is still very much in business.

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

I can’t drive. I don’t hike. I ‘touch grass’ only when politely declining a drag on my high friends’ smoke. I look on in envy at my active mates’ countryside retreat reels, but appease my soul with the fact that I’m a city boy and that the pollen count anywhere beyond the M25 will probably do me in. A break in the country isn’t for me, I say.

Or at least that’s what I thought before visiting the new Mad Swans resort in the South Downs, a rural escape with enough activities to give Takeshi’s Castle a run for its money. Built around a renovated golf course, it totally defies expectations.

Reachable from London in around an hour by public transport, it feels less like a traditional golf resort and more like someone squeezed together a boutique hotel, a sports club and an indie festival. It’s like an all-ages summer camp — one minute you’re hitting a golf ball, the next you’re learning the rules of padel from an enthusiastic staff member, and before long you’re arguing over digital darts while a soundtrack of alternative bangers follows you around the clubhouse.

If you’ve ever fancied getting out of the flat, out of the city, and opening those lungs to a more lively slice of life, Mad Swans may be the break for you.

WHERE IS IT?

Mad Swans sits in the South Downs, making it an easy escape from London without the usual three-train pilgrimage that many rural resorts seem to require. The journey is surprisingly painless: roughly an hour on public transport via Waterloo and then a short transfer.

Once you arrive, the first thing you notice is that the place doesn’t look like a golf resort at all. The decor is bright, playful and modern, with bold colours, quirky artwork and a clubhouse that looks more like a designer’s lounge than a fusty members club. Which is appropriate, as Mad Swans isn’t a members club — there’s no membership fees to come and check out the resort, no dress code, and no arm-long list of rules to follow.

As for the surroundings, the South Downs scenery is still very much present — rolling hills, open skies and plenty of fresh air — but the vibe is contemporary rather than tweedy.

WHAT’S SPECIAL?

The big sell here is accessibility. Mad Swans has taken activities that can sometimes feel intimidating — particularly golf — and made them approachable for absolutely everyone.

The full-sized, 12-hole golf course is designed so beginners don’t feel like they’ve accidentally wandered into the Open Championship. There are on-site pros offering lessons, but there’s none of the stuffy etiquette that puts newcomers off. No one is glaring at your swing; they’re more likely to be offering encouragement.

That same philosophy runs through the entire resort. Never played padel? Staff will happily explain the rules. No idea what pickleball is? You’ll be taught and offered gear to rent. Fancy a competitive game of shuffleboard after dinner? Take your time perfecting that glide.

It’s a sports-focused getaway that doesn’t require you to already be sporty — which is great, as me and my partner ended up working out muscles we never even knew we had.

WHAT’S NEW?

Though built from the bones of the Blacknest Golf and Country Club, which used to sit on the site, the whole Mad Swans concept is the fresh element. As one of the UK’s newest golf and family entertainment resorts, it’s part of a growing movement to reinvent country clubs for a younger, more casual audience.

Instead of building around exclusivity, it’s built around participation. The mix of golf, padel, pickleball, digital darts, shuffleboard and modern accommodation makes it feel far more contemporary than the traditional golf-resort formula. There are even electric bikes to rent if you want to explore the surrounding countryside.

WHO SHOULD YOU BRING?

Rather than focusing solely on serious golfers, Mad Swans has been designed around groups of friends, families and younger visitors who want a countryside getaway with plenty to do. The atmosphere is lively without being rowdy, and the young, friendly staff help create a sense that everyone is welcome, whether you’ve come for a serious golf lesson or just want an excuse to spend a weekend in the countryside. There’s romance in the eco-cabins for couples, digital pub games to help entice kids away from their screens, and terraces for a sun-kissed drink for anyone just looking to relax.

WHAT ARE THE ROOMS LIKE?

Though you can stay in the clubhouse’s boutique B’n’B style rooms, the standout accommodation option is the eco cabins, where we spent our downtime.

These aren’t basic camping pods; they’re stylish, modern spaces, each with its own patches of wildflower planting and outdoor furniture to sit among. Inside, all fittings are new and fresh, with the cabins including built-in, mechanized, roll-up cinema screens that make bedtime like a visit to your own private IMAX.

It’s the kind of place where muddy trainers don’t feel out of place, but you still get the comfort of a proper hotel stay.

However, in the blazing summer heat we’ve recently had, our eco cabin did get swelteringly hot, and the provided fan, though powerful, couldn’t quite battle the elements. It’s the one area of Mad Swans that needs a rethink, or our increasingly hot summer months may not be a comfortable time to visit.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO DURING YOUR STAY?

This is where Mad Swans really earns its recommendation, and changed the way I thought about weekend breaks:

Start with pickleball or padel

Both sports are having a huge moment, and Mad Swans leans into that trend without making newcomers feel clueless. Staff are on hand to explain the rules, and within ten minutes you’ll be wondering why every local leisure centre doesn’t have pickleball courts. The Mad Swans pickleball court is particularly impressive — though outside, it’s fully covered and floodlit, with speakers blasting out tunes while you play.

It’s hard to get annoyed at a missed drop shot when Pavement’s ‘Range Life’ is floating over the PA. Don’t worry about bringing gear either — the onsite shop has all you’ll need for a game available to rent, and the same goes for golfing equipment.

Get competitive indoors

Dodging the rain? Or, perhaps more pertinently this summer, the incessant heat? Mad Swans has plenty to do indoors, too. The digital darts setup is ridiculously entertaining, with all the maths handled by computers and cameras, letting you focus on your triple 20s. The same goes for shuffleboard, fully digitised here, with both games talking players through the rules if it’s not something you’re familiar with.

Give golf a go (even if your crazy golf handicap is dire)

Even if you’ve never picked up a club before, the Mad Swans course is designed to be welcoming to everyone. A 12-hole course, it’s a fair-sight shorter than a standard course, letting you more easily fit it into a day of play — regular players will get around in under three hours.

Back tees make for a 4,030 yard course, with beginner-friendly front tees reducing that to 3,210 yards, with the course split over three par-fives, five par fours and four par 3s. It’s a well-kept and attractive course (robot lawnmowers are amusingly always going about their rounds, there are goose-filled water hazards, and the route around the course lets you easily cut back to the clubhouse if you’re not playing the full 12).

The course was busy the day we visited, but unlike traditional courses, we didn’t feel rushed or under observation. If there’s such a thing as a 10x bogey, it’s the ballpark we were playing in, but were able to enjoy the experience without scrutiny, making it a perfect place for wannabe pros to perfect their game.

We’d recommend starting with the Swing Barn driving range, whether you’re a newbie or a vet, though. Equipped with Toptracer digital tracking systems, and kitted out with speakers, sofas and bar service, it’s a really fun (and addictive) way to get used to golfing in relative privacy. On-site professionals can give beginners enough guidance to avoid launching balls into neighbouring counties, too — our session with Mad Swan’s wonderful go-to pro Paul saw us double our driving average in just a couple of hours.

Relax with some mini-golf

Now you’re ready to challenge Rory McIlroy, the mini-golf ‘Putt Patch’ feels like a breeze by comparison. A really neat little course designed to look more like an actual golf course than a zany knockabout, you can bring a beer from the bar with you and get the kids involved. With the golf, not the boozing…

Enjoy the soundtrack

As mentioned, one of the most distinctive touches at Mad Swans is the music. Instead of generic lounge jazz, you get a steady stream of alternative and indie tracks that follow you around the clubhouse, driving range and sports areas. It makes the whole resort feel younger, more relaxed and infinitely less intimidating than a traditional golf club.

For anyone who has ever felt out of place in a country-club environment, that detail makes a surprisingly big difference.

WHERE SHOULD YOU EAT AND DRINK?

You’ve got two excellent, relatively affordable eateries at Mad Swans’ South Downs location. The Potting Shed is the main restaurant, with an à la carte menu offering British comfort classics, while The Hangout is a pizzeria with a bar that also has a snug for shuffleboard and darts.

Both are delicious and reasonably priced, with The Potting Shed menu including favourites such as roast suckling pig and crab linguine. A shoutout especially goes to Mario’s pizza’s at the Hangout — thin, crispy and light, they’re proper Italian-style slices cooked with care.

WHAT WILL YOU PAY?

There’s plenty to do at Mad Swans, so let’s break this down bit by bit.

Accommodation:
Clubhouse lodge rooms from £110 per night.
Eco cabins from £233 per night.

Food:

The Potting Shed: Mains from £16 - £23
The Hangout: Pizzas £12 - £14

Activities:

Golf: From £42 per person
Swing Barn driving range: 1 hour, £15 off peak / £20 peak
Padel: 1 hour, £33 off peak / £40 peak
Pickleball: 1 hour, £15 off peak / £30 peak
Mini golf: £12 per person
E-bikes: £33 for 8 hours
Darts: 1 hour, £20 off peak / £25 peak
Shuffleboard: 1 hour, £20 off peak / £25 peak

Given the range of activities all within a stone’s throw of each other, it proves a very affordable short break away for a weekend away — all-in, a couple can have a jam-packed itinerary and overnight stay with meals for around £250 a head.

GET ON THE GUESTLIST?

Absolutely.

Mad Swans succeeds because it understands there’s a generation of people who don’t actually want a formal golf-club experience. In fact, it’s a barrier to entry, if not downright intimidating.

The combination of beginner-friendly sport, colourful design, excellent pizza, cinema-equipped cabins and an indie soundtrack at Mad Swans gives it a personality that many countryside hotels lack.

Book an eco-cabin, bring a few competitive friends and sing-a-long to The Cure while dropping an absolutely disgusting cross-court pickleball drop shot. It’ll change the way you think about holidays forever.

Reservations can be made through the Mad Swans website, with accommodation and activities bookable in advance.

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Westminster council is reportedly blocking Soho’s restaurants from offering al fresco outdoors dining, but Sadiq Khan may have plans to overrule the nimbys out to spoil the fun.

London major Khan has announced that 13 London boroughs will get a share of a £500,000 fund intended to help bring outdoors dining and later openings to part of London. But Soho is not one of the areas on the list.

Westminster council failed to apply for the funding, powering accusations the council is overly influenced by nimby groups keen to, quite literally, keep the noise down.

Unlike other areas in London, Soho won’t be pedestrianised this summer, but in future Khan will get more say in what happens to local businesses.

A change in licensing powers means the Mayor will be able to make formal representations on licensing decisions, based on a London-wide licensing plans.

This will effectively give Khan further ability to pushback against councils who attempt to block measures intended to support local restaurants and London nightlife.

“For the first time ever, City Hall has a direct say in ow licensing decisions are made across the capital,” says Khan.

“By making it easier to extend opening hours and expand what’s on offer, I’m determined to support out hospitality and nightlife.”

Councils that have been awarded substantial grants as part of the al fresco dining initiative include Barking & Dagenham, Brent, Greenwich and Lambeth.

One area already announced to be embracing al fresco, car-free weekends this summer is Clapham’s Northcote Road, which will be closed to cars each weekend from 11^th July to 30^th August.

Soho was part-pedestrianised in 2020 during Covid, and again in 2021, but hasn’t been since. The hope is Khan’s new powers could help bring back periods of car-free areas in one of the more buzzy parts of London in 2027.

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Londoners are collectively panicking at the upcoming 37 degree plus temperatures melting the city, and collectively if frantically Googling which tube lines actually have air con. For all the jokes that a UK 35 degrees feels nothing like a Europe 35 degrees it turns out there’s actually some proof to this, which is a relief as it’s too hot for gaslighting right now.

According to a study by officials from UK Health Security Agency, Londoners could be at greater risk in heatwaves due to numerous factors like commuting, overcrowding, and the city’s wealth distribution.

Here's the breakdown of your heat-induced breakdown.

1. 'Urban Island Effect'

Temperatures are generally higher in London thanks to the “urban heat island effect” which often increases exposure due to indoor overheating risk. Basically, the ratio of concrete to green space is particularly unbalanced in cities, and whilst London does have some lovely public parks, the amount of built up areas and the density of their populations means temperatures will be higher than elsewhere in the country.

2. Cost of living

The old cossie livs crisis rears its expensive head once again, and this time it’s responsible for heatwave rises. It's not exactly breaking news that London is expensive. From rent to pints, the average price of things in the capital is often higher.

According to the survey, the heat risk can be increased by less capacity for “adaptive behaviours to reduce the overheating risk” due to socioeconomic factors “unique to the capital”. Inequality in London is far higher than the rest of the UK with over a quarter of Londoners living in poverty. Things like “security concerns or the necessity of income” can contribute to lower income Londoners heading to work during intense heat, putting Londoners at a higher risk.

3. Overcrowding

It’s not exactly news that London is a pretty packed city, and anyone who's ever tried to get on a Northern Line tube during a midweek rush hour will be all too familiar with overcrowding. Turns out that it’s having an effect on the heat and how people will cope. “Evidence suggests that, in London, more affluent areas also have more access to green space, which is also linked with cooler urban environments, potentially reducing risk,” according the study.

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London is certainly not short of parks, pubs, galleries, and pleasingly relaxing Sunday walks. Still, there are times when you want the day to feel a little more like a proper escape – ideally without spending hours on a train.

Enter the National Trust.

Within around 90 minutes of the capital, you can find grand houses, riverside gardens, deer parks, rose-filled borders, walking trails, and even Churchill’s painting studio.

Some are easy Tube-and-train trips; others work best as a low-effort drive out of the city. All of them offer a useful change of scene without demanding a full weekend away.

We’ve rounded up some of the best National Trust places near London, grouped by the kind of day out you’re after – from easy escapes inside the M25 to big historic houses and fresh-air favourites made for walkers, garden lovers, and picnic people.

Please note: A National Trust membership gives you free access to every location, and there are individual, family, joint, and lifetime options available. If you plan to visit multiple places on this list, we definitely recommend getting one.

Easy escapes inside or near London

For days when even “getting out of London” sounds like a bit much, these are the National Trust trips that keep the faff to an absolute minimum.

You still get gardens, history, tea room energy, and a proper change of scene, but without needing to plan the day like a military operation.

Osterley Park and House

• Best for: A low-effort culture fix

Osterley is one of the easiest National Trust escapes from central London, which makes it a handy choice when you want fresh air and a grand house without the full countryside schlep.

The estate sits in west London, with formal gardens, parkland, and an impressive Georgian house known for its Robert Adam interiors.

It is a good all-rounder: relaxed enough for a picnic, interesting enough for a history-minded wander, and convenient enough to squeeze into a half-day if you start early.

The gardens bring the colour in summer, while the house gives the visit a bit more substance than a standard park walk.

Getting there: Take the Piccadilly line to Osterley, then walk from the station. It is one of the simplest options on this list by public transport.

Ham House and Garden

• Best for: Riverside walkers and history buffs

Ham House has the rare advantage of feeling tucked away while still being firmly within London’s orbit. Set near the Thames in Richmond, it combines a handsome 17th-century house with formal gardens and one of the capital’s best riverside strolls.

Inside, the house leans into the drama of the Stuart era, with richly decorated rooms and a strong sense of old-world intrigue. Outside, the gardens and nearby river path make it an easy pick for anyone who wants a gentle day out with a pub or café stop folded in.

Getting there: Travel to Richmond, then walk along the Thames or take a short bus/taxi connection.

Red House

• Best for: Design lovers

Red House is a smaller, more specific trip than some of the big estate days on this list, but that is exactly the appeal. Built for William Morris, it is one of the key Arts and Crafts houses, with a strong design story and a quieter feel than the headline National Trust properties.

This is the one to choose if you would rather spend a couple of thoughtful hours with architecture, interiors, and creative history than roam around hundreds of acres of shrubbery.

It’s worth noting that visits are more structured than at many National Trust places, so it suits people who enjoy a guided, detail-rich experience.

Getting there: Head for Bexleyheath by train, then continue by local bus, taxi, or on foot depending on your route.

Big houses, bigger stories

Some National Trust places are best approached as a gentle wander. These are more like stepping into someone else’s extremely dramatic life.

Expect political history, old money, grand rooms, sweeping parkland, and the sort of views that make you briefly consider buying a linen suit.

Chartwell

• Best for: History lovers

Chartwell is the obvious choice for anyone with even a passing interest in Winston Churchill, and it’s more personal than a standard “great man lived here” historic house.

This was his family home from the 1920s, and the rooms still carry the feeling of a private retreat rather than a formal memorial.

There is plenty to see outside the house too, from gardens and lakes to the studio where Churchill painted. The wider estate gives the visit a softer edge, so it works just as well for a summer wander as it does for a deep dive into political history.

Getting there: Chartwell is easiest by car. By public transport, take a train to Sevenoaks, Oxted, or Edenbridge, then continue by taxi or local bus, depending on the day.

Knole

• Best for: Deer spotters and grand-house wanderers

Knole has scale on its side. Set in a huge deer park in Sevenoaks, it combines open parkland with one of England’s great historic houses, making it a strong pick if you want a day that can be as relaxed or as culture-heavy as you like.

You can keep things simple with a walk through the park, watch the deer from a respectful distance, or head inside for ornate rooms, portraits, tapestries, and centuries of aristocratic history.

Getting there: Take the train to Sevenoaks, then walk uphill through the town and park. The walk is part of the experience, but it is worth factoring in comfortable shoes.

Polesden Lacey

• Best for: Rose gardens, picnics, and Edwardian fanciness

Polesden Lacey is the sort of place that seems built for a lazy summer afternoon. The former country retreat of Margaret Greville mixes elegant interiors with gardens, lawns, and long views across the Surrey Hills.

The estate has a pleasingly sociable feel, helped by the fact Greville was known for entertaining royalty, politicians, and society figures.

Today, the appeal is a little more low-key: bring a picnic, wander through the gardens, let children loose in the play areas, and soak up the grand-house atmosphere without making the day feel too formal.

Getting there: Polesden Lacey is simplest by car. By train, head to Box Hill & Westhumble or Dorking, then continue by taxi.

Cliveden

• Best for: Riverside glamour

Cliveden does not do subtle. Set high above the Thames, it brings together formal gardens, woodland, river views, a maze, and one of the most storied country house settings near London.

The house itself is now a hotel, but the estate has more than enough to fill a day.

Come for the gardens and views, stay for the whiff of scandal, politics, and old-school glamour. Families get plenty of space to roam, while anyone after a more indulgent visit can look at boat hire or seasonal river trips.

Getting there: Cliveden is easiest by car. For public transport, take the train towards Taplow, Burnham, or Maidenhead, then use a taxi for the final stretch.

Gardens, views, and proper fresh air

If your ideal National Trust day involves fewer corridors and more colour, these are the destinations to aim for.

These places still come with history, but the main event is outside: gardens, trails, viewpoints, rivers, meadows, and the useful reminder that London is not the whole world.

Sissinghurst Castle Garden

• Best for: Serious gardeners

Sissinghurst is one of those gardens that even non-garden people have vaguely heard of, and for good reason.

Created by writer Vita Sackville-West and diplomat Harold Nicolson, it is famous for its series of garden rooms, each with its own mood, structure, and planting style.

The White Garden is the headline act, but Sissinghurst is at its best when you let yourself drift through it slowly. Climb the tower for views over the estate, wander the wider grounds, or simply enjoy the rare pleasure of a place where every corner feels deliberately composed.

Getting there: The nearest mainline station is Staplehurst, around five miles away, so you will usually need a taxi for the final leg.

Mottisfont

• Best for: Rose lovers and gentle summer wandering

Mottisfont earns its place on this list in early summer, when its walled garden becomes one of the National Trust’s great rose-season draws.

It is a soft, pretty, unhurried sort of place, with lawns, river walks, and the remains of a medieval priory folded into a later country house.

The roses are the obvious reason to go, but they are not the only ones. A chalk stream runs through the grounds, there are meadow walks beyond the formal gardens, and the whole estate has a slower pace that suits a long picnic and a lazy afternoon.

Getting there: Take the train to Mottisfont & Dunbridge, then walk just over a mile to the estate. Mottisfont sits at the outer edge of this article’s 90-minute rule, so check journey times before committing.

Box Hill

• Best for: Walkers, cyclists, and big-view hunters

Box Hill is the one to choose when you want a National Trust day with a bit more puffing involved, swapping grand interiors for chalk downland, woodland, stepping stones, and sweeping views across the Surrey Hills.

You can keep it gentle with a short viewpoint walk, or make more of a day of it with one of the longer circular routes.

Cyclists know it from the 2012 Olympic road race, families come for fresh air and picnic spots, and Londoners come because it feels like a proper countryside reset without needing to go very far.

Getting there: Take the train to Box Hill & Westhumble or Dorking, then continue on foot.

• One of London’s tiniest and most mysterious islands is opening up to the public

Eel Pie Island is firmly up there in London history – and not just because it has one of the oddest, quasi historic names in the city, sharing the podium with Elephant & Castle, and Cockfosters Isle of Dogs. It’s also steeped in more Rock n Roll history than one of Jimmy Hendrix’s guitars, and for a few days next month, the usually private island is opening up to the public.

Whilst London is home to many quirky spots and hidden historic gems, none of them quite have a history like this private island in South-West London. Currently, it’s home to a selection of artist’s studios which open to the public for a couple of weekends a year, which are the only occasions average joes can actually visit the island. Dubbed a hedonistic hideaway, Eel Pie Island is basically the urban island equivalent of dungarees – mainly used by artists with a slightly bohemian vibe.

As well as the artist studios, there are also some locals too, with around 120 people living on Eel Pie Island. The island is only 8.9 acres in total, in the River Thames just off Twickenham. Otherwise it’s pretty much off limits. Luckily one of the coveted weekends where it opens up is coming our way, welcoming in new, curious faces in July

It will give you a chance to revel in some true musical history, sharing pathways which have been trodden by famous artists including Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, and The Who – even The Rolling Stones were known to play at the Island’s hotel every week in 1963. Towards the end of the sixties, the hotel was forced to close, and the island was inhabited by the kind of hippie communities you think exist solely as a side-joke in sitcoms and your Auntie Pam’s Christmas anecdotes that only come out after three glasses of sherry.

The island will be throwing open its doors, or rather, opening up its footbridge across two weekends in July, the 4th and 5th, and 11th and 12th, from 11am-5pm each day. The best part is that it’s free to grab a ticket, although what would you expect from a group of hippies? The tickets give each visitor a 2-hour time slot to explore the island. You won’t be able to visit without one, even though they’re free, as the Open Studios have pointed out tickets are in place to create a safe and enjoyable weekend for visitors and neighbours alike across the island. Visitors will be allowed to wander around the island, exploring the unusual landscapes and gardens, look at the artists’ workshops, and even commission them to do a specific piece for yourself if you’re feeling inspired / flushed with cash.

If you can’t make the July dates it’s worth keeping an eye out for future open days across Autumn and Winter, and even into 2027. And if you can’t wait, there’s always the Eel Pie Museum in Twickenham to tide you over.

You can find out more and book tickets here.

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London City Airport is renowned among Londoners for being quick to get to, and quick to get through. But from 2027 you may want to spend a bunch more pre-flight time there.

The airport is opening its first airport lounge in 2027, coinciding with London City Airport’s 40th anniversary, having first opened in 1987.

Its lounge will be called Aspire Pre‑Flight Hospitality, and Aspire is of course already responsible for a whole heap of lounges, including Club Aspire at London Gatwick, Aspire Lounge Birmingham and another at Manchester’s Terminal 3.

London City Airport’s Aspire lounge will have an entrance designed to mimic the vibes of a 5-star hotel, while just like London’s other airport lounges, it’s going to be packed with comestibles.

There will be a cocktail bar at the heart of the space, a coffee station and a food buffet.

The Aspire lounge will be open to all travellers, for a fee that is yet to be announced. But for a reference, the Club Aspire lounge at Gatwick South typically costs £36.

One of the first questions that may come to mind for frequent London City Airport travellers: where are they going to put it? One of the rendered images suggests its entrance will sit down a flight of stairs, perhaps leading off the main departures area.

Another rendered preview shows off the art deco inspired look of the space, including a classic staffed bar with high stools. It’s all looking pretty swish.

“The introduction of this exclusive experience is answering a clear demand from passengers and will elevate our unrivalled customer offer and reputation as London’s most loved airport,” says Andy Cliffe, London City Airport CEO.

“We’re delighted to be partnering with Aspire Pre-Flight Hospitality on this project, who have a proven track record of designing and operating luxury lounges in airports around the world.”

We don’t yet have a specific opening date for the airport lounge, but are assured the plan is to open up its doors “by early 2027” and that its construction is “well underway.”

• London's Underground is getting closer to full mobile coverage

In what felt like a very Black Mirror, 1984-esque move, the Met Police announced the roll-out of live facial recognition software being used across several transport hubs. The devices have previously been trialled across London Bridge station and Brixton. Now, they’re heading for central.

The devices attach to street furniture and allow the Met to monitor crowds remotely. The Soho and West End devices are set to be in place by the end of 2026. The extension follows a six month pilot in Croydon which wrapped in May 2026, and led to 173 arrests, including one woman sought for over two decades.

According to the Chief Super, the cameras work by scanning faces and comparing them to a watchlist of offenders wanted for serious offences. If there’s a match – very Tinderesque – then the system generates an alert (again, not dissimilar from a dating app). Then, an officer will review it and carry out further checks to determine if the person is a suspect and if further action is needed. This scanning and comparison system has already been used by the police on London streets, with the Metropolitan Police confirming thousands of arrests have been made since the technology was introduced.

LFR (live facial recognition) has an exceptionally low false alert rate too, with current statistics showing false alerts occurring in 0.0003% of cases out of three million facial scans. According to the Met Police, the technology has proven to be both effective and accurate.

Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said: “Facial recognition is one of the most revolutionary technology advances in policing in recent years.

“Public confidence in this is clear – around 80 per cent of Londoners support its use. That backing reflects a simple truth: it works.

“We have already seen the impact in Croydon, where a six-month pilot delivered over 170 arrests, a reduction in crime and a significant fall in violence against women and girls.” He added that “The technology supports officers to target wanted criminals and registered sex offenders. Crucially it is supporting officers – not replacing them.”

So long as there are no major disasters, it wouldn't be surprising if the software will be rolled out across more of London on a permanent basis in the future.

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London’s Madame Tussauds will offer a new attraction next month for those visiting during school holidays: a 4D Jumanji experience.

Only a handful of the most important Tussauds venues across the world are getting this one, including Hollywood, Las Vegas, London, New York, and Singapore.

But what is it exactly? The Jumanji: Safari Tours 4D Expedition is a seven minute experience in which a cinema-like presentation is given some extra oomph with 3D, seat motion and “wind, water and more” effects — that’s the fourth of your dimensions for this one.

It arrives ahead of a third Jumanji film in the rebooted Jack Black lineage, Jumanji: Open World, which lands in cinemas on 25th December, 2026. But exactly when it will open in the London Madame Tussauds is still to be confirmed.

“From July” is the wording for the roll-out of Jumanji: Safari Tours 4D Expedition globally, while the Singapore location will get it in “mid-August” for example. Madame Tussauds London is yet to confirm its date.

Welcome to the jungle

Jumanji: Safari Tours 4D Expedition features Jumanji actor Rhys Darby — because who can afford the Rock’s or Jack Black’s rates? — as he takes you on a wildlife tour that includes scenes with ostriches, anacondas and rhinos.

“Visitors will embark on an immersive jungle tour that quickly spirals into humorous chaos that can only be found in the universe of Jumanji,” reads the experience’s description.

“At Merlin, bringing iconic entertainment franchises to life is central to what we do. With this new Jumanji 4D cinematic experience, we’re bringing families together through play by taking them deeper into the jungle action than ever before,” says Paul Moreton, Chief Development Officer at Merlin Entertainments, which runs Madame Tussauds.

The Jumanji attraction will be offered as part of a standard Madame Tussauds ticket. Book online and these will cost you £32.38 per adult or £29.31 for kids in July — although prices vary slightly based on date and time.

Alternatively, Merlin annual passes start at £139 per person, and offer access to other sites including Alton Towers and Chessington World of Adventures too. There’s currently a summer sale on for the more expensive tiers of passes too, which provide less restricted access to Merlin’s locations.

• A historic ship is coming to London, and you can visit it this July

For generations of Londoners, hopping on the Tube has meant temporarily vanishing from society.

One minute you're replying to messages, checking football scores and pretending to listen to a voice note. Next, you're trapped in a signal-free metal tube beneath the city, blissfully unaware of whatever fresh chaos has unfolded online.

That increasingly rare moment of peace is rapidly disappearing. Transport for London has announced that more sections of the London Underground now have 4G and 5G coverage, bringing the network another step closer to full connectivity by the end of the year.

The latest rollout covers sections of the Bakerloo, Circle, District and Metropolitan lines, while stations including Vauxhall, Gloucester Road, Temple and Nine Elms have also gone live.

Major transport hubs, including King's Cross St Pancras, Victoria and Paddington, are now beginning to receive coverage too, although TfL says these stations will be connected in phases because of their size and complexity.

The new additions mean around 60 per cent of stations classified as underground now have mobile coverage.

Among the newly connected stretches are:

• Bakerloo line between Queen's Park and Edgware Road
• Metropolitan line between Euston Square and King's Cross St Pancras
• Metropolitan line between Barbican and Moorgate
• Circle and District lines between Cannon Street and Monument
• Circle and District lines between Sloane Square and Victoria
• Circle line between Bayswater and Paddington

It's all part of TfL's long-running mission to eliminate one of London's most persistent blackspots.

Hundreds of engineers have been working overnight to install the infrastructure, squeezing the project into the few hours available when trains stop running. TfL says most of the Northern, Bakerloo and Metropolitan lines will have tunnel coverage by the end of the summer, with the entire Underground network expected to be connected before the end of 2026.

The rollout involves all four major UK mobile operators: EE, Vodafone, Three and Virgin Media O2.

And while uninterrupted Instagram scrolling might be the most obvious benefit, TfL is keen to stress there's a more serious side to the project. The network will also support the Emergency Services Network, allowing first responders to access critical data and communications underground during emergencies.

Still, for most Londoners, the biggest impact may simply be that familiar panic when a message won't send becoming a thing of the past.

Whether that's progress or the final death of the last socially acceptable excuse for ignoring emails on your commute is another question entirely.

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Returning on Sunday, the 14th of June, the World Naked Bike Ride event will once again see cyclists shed their clothes and take to the capital's streets in one of London's most unusual, eye-catching and surprisingly wholesome traditions.

What started as a protest has become something of a summer institution, drawing riders from across the city and plenty of confused tourists wondering whether they've accidentally walked into the wrong version of London.

Despite the sea of bare flesh, there is actually a serious point behind it all. The ride aims to highlight the world's dependence on oil, challenge car culture, campaign for safer conditions for cyclists and promote body freedom. It's essentially a political demonstration. It just happens to be one where everyone's forgotten their trousers.

Last year's ride attracted more than 1,200 participants, and organisers are hoping for another strong turnout in 2026. The event has been running in London since 2004 and remains completely free to join. There's no registration process, no ticketing system and no complicated sign-up forms. You simply turn up with a bike and decide exactly how much clothing you're comfortable wearing.

Despite the name, complete nudity isn't mandatory. The official rule is "as bare as you dare", meaning some riders go fully nude while others opt for costumes, body paint, strategically placed accessories or just enough to avoid upsetting your nan.

Where does the ride start?

There are nine starting points spread across London, allowing riders from different parts of the city to gradually merge into one giant rolling mass of cyclists before heading through central London together.

The 2026 starting points are:

• Clapham Junction – Grant Road, SW11 2NU (arrive 2pm, depart 2.15pm)
• Croydon – 233 Shirley Church Road, CR0 5AB (arrive 10.45am, depart 12.45pm)
• Deptford – Piehouse Co-op, Edward Street, SE8 5HD (arrive 12pm, depart 1.30pm)
• Hackney Wick – Thingy Cafe, 1 Trowbridge Road, E9 5LD (arrive 9am, depart 1.15pm)
• Kew Bridge – North end of Kew Bridge, near W4 3NQ (arrive 12.45pm, depart 1pm)
• Regent's Park – Outer Circle, near NW1 4NA (arrive 2.05pm, depart 2.20pm)
• Tower Hill – Trinity Square Gardens, EC3N 4DJ (arrive 1.15pm, depart 2.15pm)
• Wellington Arch – Hyde Park Corner, W1J 7JZ (arrive 1.45pm, depart 2.15pm)
• Accessible route – SE1 7GQ (arrive 3pm, depart 3.15pm)

Several locations, including Croydon, Deptford and Hackney Wick, will also have body-painting stations before departure.

The ride itself is expected to finish around 5.30pm/6pm before participants head to the official afterparty at The Steel Yard near Cannon Street. There'll be food, drinks, entertainment and life-drawing sessions.

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Bright summer evenings are a basically nature’s antidepressant, and The National Gallery will soon sync up better with them to let you make greater use of the season.

At the moment, The National Gallery closes up at 6pm, bar Fridays. But from 3rd July to 31st August we’ll get an extra hour of art browsing. It will stay open until 7pm Saturday through to Thursday, while the usual 9pm late opening on Friday will remain.

This window, a nod for those without kids, covers almost the entire school Summer holiday period. So if you’d rather avoid those family crowds, think about attending earlier in July ahead of that season.

Last entry is typically 15 minutes before closing, but to even make a dent in the permanent collection without running through its halls you’ll need at least an hour. And as ever, entry to the National Gallery is free.

The National Gallery’s current lone paid exhibition features works from Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbarán — his first major exhibition in the UK, despite having died well over 350 years ago.

“From the rind of a lemon to the timeless gaze of a saint, he finds an intensity in the ordinary. Strong light and deep shadow bring real faces, soft fabrics, fresh fruit and flowers to life. His paintings unite stillness, focus and faith,” reads the description. This exhibition is on show until 23rd August.

Alongside the permanent collection, which offers a tour through hundreds of years of art and painting history, The National Gallery is also displaying Take One Picture.

This is a freebie exhibit of works by children from 35 UK primary schools. Their brief: make something inspired by Canaletto’s A Regatta on the Grand Canal, an absolutely detail-packed painting that depicts an annual Venice regatta, a painting that is itself part of the gallery’s permanent collection.

The National Gallery memberships that grant you access to as many exhibition visits as you like start at £68 a year.

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Robotaxis have been one of those "coming soon" technologies for what feels like forever, but Londoners are now one step closer to actually hailing one.

Uber has opened an interest list for its upcoming partnership with autonomous driving company Wayve, giving users in the capital the chance to register ahead of the public launch of self-driving rides in London.

From the 8th of June (today), users can opt into Uber's autonomous vehicle preference through the app, increasing their chances of being matched with a Wayve-powered vehicle once the service launches. The rollout marks a major milestone not just for Uber, but for the UK tech sector too, with Wayve's self-driving technology having been developed and trained on British roads.

Unlike many autonomous vehicle companies that rely heavily on pre-mapped routes and tightly controlled operating areas, Wayve has taken a different approach. The "AV2.0" system uses AI that learns from real-world driving experience in a way that more closely resembles human drivers, allowing it to adapt to unfamiliar roads, changing weather conditions and new environments without relying on detailed HD maps.

That flexibility has already seen the technology tested across more than 500 cities worldwide, but London remains its spiritual home. The company has been navigating the capital's famously chaotic streets since 2018, arguably one of the toughest environments on the planet for autonomous driving technology. If a self-driving car can survive a busy afternoon around Soho or negotiate a delivery van parked across half a lane in Camden, it can probably handle most things.

At launch, riders will be transported in all-electric Ford Mustang Mach-E vehicles fitted with an array of cameras and radar systems that provide full 360-degree awareness of the world around them. The experience inside the vehicle has been designed specifically for autonomous journeys, with interactive displays allowing passengers to view routes, manage their ride and access support if needed.

Importantly, despite the autonomous technology, the first phase of the rollout won't be fully driverless. A licensed operator will remain behind the wheel — even if they're not touching it — while the service is introduced, with totally driver-free operations expected further down the line as regulations and public confidence continue to develop.

The move is part of a much bigger plan. Uber first invested in Wayve back in 2024, with ambitions to deploy self-driving vehicles across multiple global markets. Since then, the partnership has expanded significantly, including a recent collaboration with Nissan and plans to launch autonomous services in more than ten cities worldwide.

For London, though, it feels like another sign that autonomous vehicles are edging out of the realm of tech demos and sci-fi clicks into everyday life. Whether you're excited about the future or simply curious to see what a driverless Uber feels like, the opportunity to find out may not be far away.

To join the interest list, users simply need to update the Uber app and head to Account > Settings > Ride Preferences > Autonomous Vehicles. Once live, autonomous rides will be offered at the same price as standard UberX, Uber Comfort and Uber Electric journeys, with passengers free to opt out if they'd prefer a human driver.

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If you've ever thought a standard London sightseeing tour could do with more toys, flags and general Hamleys-style joy, then good news: the famous Regent Street toy shop has launched its very own open-top bus experience.

Starting this month, Hamleys is taking its particular brand of magic beyond the walls of its flagship store with the launch of the Hamleys London Sightseeing Bus Tour, a new year-round attraction that promises to put a family-friendly spin on seeing the capital's biggest landmarks.

The 90-minute tour departs from Embankment and winds its way through central London, passing some of the city's most famous sights along the way. Highlights include St Paul's Cathedral, the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and Piccadilly Circus before eventually arriving at what is arguably the capital's most famous destination for children: Hamleys itself.

Unlike your average sightseeing bus, this one leans heavily into the retailer's playful reputation. Guests are greeted with a Hamleys flag before boarding, while a live host provides entertainment and storytelling throughout the journey. It's designed to feel less like a history lesson and more like an extension of the store experience, bringing some of that famous Hamleys energy onto the streets of London.

The idea grew out of the retailer's festive Christmas lights bus tours, which proved hugely popular last winter. Following the response to those seasonal trips, Hamleys has decided to make the concept a permanent fixture, giving tourists and London families another way to experience the city.

As a neat nod to the store's remarkable history, Hamleys is also giving away 266 family tickets, one for every year it has been open. The competition will run through the retailer's Instagram account later this month, with families able to enter by following the account and keeping an eye out for further details.

It's a fitting expansion for a brand that has become as much a London attraction as a toy shop. Founded in 1760, Hamleys predates most of the landmarks featured on the tour and has welcomed generations of visitors through its doors. For many tourists, particularly those travelling with young children, a trip to Regent Street is already an essential part of a London itinerary.

For those who miss out on the ticket giveaway, prices start from £25, with tours departing from Stop 40B at Embankment Station. In a city already packed with sightseeing buses, this one at least offers something a little different: a tour designed with families firmly in mind, complete with a toy-shop finale waiting at the end.

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