London Beds 

The Dorchester

After a multi-million pound refit, the Park Lane dowager isn't her blousy old self any more (some of the 248 rooms were getting a bit droopy-as tends to be the case with anyone born in 1931). Now all is freshly English-countrified with Colefax & Fowler and Zoffany fabrics and papers, custom-made fruitwood and mahogany furniture alongside the antiques...

Miller's Residence

Not really a hotel at all, it's the kind of place where Notting Hill bohos between homes-or marriages-move in for a month or more. For a non-hotel, it's got plenty of services-laundry, breakfast, theater-booking, and free ADSL-though no a/c, only basic TV stations and no restaurant...

Wake Up! London

This backpacker's concept from Sydney arrived in London spring 2004, and its popularity is bound to spread beyond the tightknit web of Eurowanderers from Oz-at least as far as American postgrads. Here, bargain hunters get clean, safe, central -Paddington's quite the up-and-coming hotspot-accommodations for rock bottom rates and with more of a sense of style than your average hostel...

London, city of towers. 

As seen by Flickr users

Big Ben

Tower Bridge from behind Town Hall

Tower of London

London Eats 

The Greenhouse

If you want to dazzle someone with your understated good taste, book here. After several incarnations and changes of hands, this Mayfair local now has in Marlon Abela an owner whose vision, utopian standards, youth, drive, and deep pockets have combined to make the Greenhouse one of the finest gastronomic experiences in town. The mood is sober and refined: tobacco leather chairs, cream linens, glazed-off private room, dark wood floor, and gliding staff...

La Trompette

This scores as one of the most consistently brilliant restaurants in London. It may be located a little out of the way in Chiswick, but think of it as a wonderful pit stop when traveling to or from Heathrow. La Trompette delivers West End quality food, service, wine, decor, lighting, and acoustics at Chiswick prices, and the cooking gets more confident by the year...

Inn the Park

The playful bucolic setting-it overlooks the lake of St. James's Park-accounts for at least half the appeal of this sweeping wooden gourmet café. Inside, designer Tom Dixon has created a vista of smooth curves and clean lines, but the main event is the post-6 p.m. menu...

Tower of London 

The Tower of London
Tower Hill
Tel: 870 756 6060

How can you not see the Bloody Tower? Founded by William the Conqueror in 1066, this huge fortified palace-slash-jail-slash-treasury-slash-arsenal is the source of some of the most famous touristique photo ops in all of England. View the Crown Jewels—so costly they're officially beyond price and therefore uninsured—the Tudor prisoners' graffiti in the Beauchamp Tower, and the site of Royal Beheadings. And go ahead and gawk at the fashion-forward Yeoman Warders, or Beefeaters, in their black-and-scarlet 14th-century livery and the ravens, without whose continuous presence, so Charles II was told, the Tower and the Kingdom would crumble.

Mar—Oct: Tues—Sat 9 a.m.—6:00 p.m., Sun—Mon 10 a.m.—6 p.m.
Nov—Feb: Tues—Sat 9 a.m.—5 p.m., Sun—Mon 10 a.m.—5 p.m.
Admission $25; students $16.50

Things to see 

...and things to do

Buckingham Palace

The queen's London pied-a-terre is not the most beautiful of palaces, but it's big. All you can do most of the year is peer through the iron railings at the guards in the busbies - those silly two-foot-tall black fur hats-and check the flagpole to see whether Brenda, as Private Eye calls her, is around - the standard flies when she's in residence. But during August and early September, even commoners can enter those gates...

Going to the Dogs

For a singular insight into a very particular London subculture, attend a greyhound race at Walthamstow Stadium - voted the "Race Course of the Millennium" (whatever that means). You can get into the stands for a quid (£1 or $1.80) or, far better, reserve a table at the Paddock Grill restaurant. The place is terraced with a giant window wall so all seats at all tables overlook the track and there's tote betting service...

Covent Garden

The area where the old fruit and vegetable wholesale market once stood - and where Eliza Dolittle met Henry Higgins - is now one of the most touristy parts of London. The Piazza and adjacent Jubilee Market are not unpleasant at all though with their array of the better class of high street stores and their market stalls now selling crafts and clothes instead of cabbages and roses...

St. Paul's 

St. Paul's Cathedral
St. Paul's Churchyard
Tel: 20 8340 9591

Sir Christopher Wren's number one work is this, the cathedral church of the diocese of London. With its green dome, it's one of the city's most recognizable landmarks. Nowadays a visit to the church, taking in the Crypt and Ambulatory and - everyone's favorite - the Whispering Gallery, is easily combined with a trip to one of London's newer essential sights, the Tate Modern. Exit St. Paul's tube station, cross the redeveloped Paternoster Square next door, drop in on the cathedral (St. Dunstan's Chapel on the north side is always open for praying, and free of charge), then head on to the south bank across the Millennium Bridge - not well posted with signs, but very near nevertheless.

Mon—Sat 8:30 a.m.—4 p.m.
Admission: $14; students/seniors: $12; children under 16: $6

Conde Nast Traveler 

Conde Nast Traveler (1-year)

Amazon Price: $12.00 (as of 09/08/2008)