The Barbican is an area you can explore with a library, conservatory, rotating art installations,…read moreand miscellaneous events. You should check when the events are, because it could interfere with the areas being available for a visit. There was also a beautiful outdoor area that would have been amazing to sit at the café outdoors and admire the scenery, but unfortunately it was raining at the time of our visit and it would not have been as enjoyable to sit outdoors here. Would definitely come back to explore more, and hoping the weather will be better in the future.

Very disappointing experience. I'll start with the good. The front desk staff was incredible,…read morevery friendly and very helpful. Unfortunately, the concierge was probably the worst ever. I received a package via Amazon and showed him the details from the Amazon email. He condescendingly asked me where it was on his list, where it wasn't printed, and stressed that if it wasn't there they did not get a package. I cannot put into words how condescending he was. I left for dinner worried the package was lost or misdelivered. When I returned, he was no longer there so I asked the great front desk staff if they had received a package for me. They remembered getting something and checked a few places, long story short is they found the package. Again, kudos to the front desk who went the extra mile for me, but why was the concierge so negativistic and self assured. Another positive was the fitness Centre, which had some great equipment, including a nice rower and treadmill. Unfortunately, the smell in the hallway leading to the fitness centre almost made me sick every day. A couple other challenges from the property. The room is what I would have imagined a jail cell. A small mattress just thrown into a corner. Also, the door to the bathroom slammed every time I went in, I am sure not very pleasant for my neighbors. Also the fire alarm went off at 7 am my last night, the cherry on top.

Somerset house is supposed to have a great ice skating rink and holiday d decorations right in the…read morecenter of London. If I'd known about that in advance I would have never come as I never developed skills to ice skate having lived all my life in California. Normally I would not pay money to see a museums in London as all the big government funded museums for the public are free of charge for entry. However we were walking down the embankment area next to the Thames and came across free public bathrooms something unheard of in Europe. The bathrooms were connected to a restaurant which was part of the somerset house. Wife and I feeling relieved gladly paid the money for the entry fee. Several buildings with paintings and photographs from around the world both of people and of animals in their natural setting. Looked like a series of pictures from covers of national geographic magazines. Ended up paying 30 GBP or $39 for two entries, an expensive public bathroom visit.

Funky little art gallery / museum in a historic building…read more When I was passing by I saw this strange exhibition called 'Cute'. I didn't expect to see this pop-art show here. I'm going to make this a regular stop while in London because I like the weirdness of it all.

This gallery is a diamond in the rough. I had no idea this place even existed *bows head in shame*…read more I went online to find free art galleries in London and was lead to this place. Best. Find .Ever! Hallelujah! They have free guide tours on specific times and days - It is so worth checking out. The tour guide was incredibly informative with the history and knowledge of the artist behind each paintings. There was a group of us who was shown around the gallery (it is huge!) and our heads were filled with so much incredible information about the history of London. The highlight of the gallery is the last remains of amphitheatre which is down by the basement. For someone who has a passion for history, this place blew me away. It is certainly worth checking out!

Roman ruin in the city. Very rare that the Roman amphitheater appears below London city. The…read moreamphitheater is about 2000 years old. This is the place that show the Roman has been here. Other than the amphitheater, the museum has many art collections. There is a lot painting dated 14 centuries. The art hall is not big but enough to visit. Compare to many London museums, this museum is not busy and it is free.

Moonrising has said most of it: the Barbican is a remarkable example of a large post-War housing…read moreproject that has worked well, largely because of the quality of the design and the attention to detail: the various private gardens, extensive area of public patio and the wonderful expanses of water all make it distinctive. It has also been maintained to a very high standard - which marks it out from other, less successful estates. It was built by the Corporation of London between 1965 and 1976 in an attempt to retain a viable population in the City of London, following extensive bomb damage in World War II. It now houses some 4,000 people, about half of the City's population. As well as the Barbican Centre, it includes the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, a section of the old London city wall - including the only bastion to survive, built in the 13th century - and the mediaeval church of St Giles, Cripplegate. I have several friends who live here, and the key features of the flats are the light and spacious design, flexible open-plan layouts and the generous balconies. The layout is confusing to first time visitors, although there are now excellent maps at strategic locations to help you around. Its three towers - 123m (over 400ft) high - are currently the tallest residential buildings in London, although they are to be superseded by a new development in London's Docklands.

Most people have heard of the Barbican Centre, but you might not realise it's part of a larger…read morehousing development with 2,018 flats, built over a large area of land where most of the old building were destroyed in the blitz. The Barbican as a whole is a remarkable example of modern architecture. From the outside it's not always easy to get in. You can easily walk past without seeing an entrance. You can even walk underneath: Beech Street passes through a great underpass underneath Barbican. The secret is that you get around within the Barbican via 'high walks', pedestrian walkways a storey up. That means to get in you have to go up! Find a stairwell or escalators and make your way in. Inside is a landscape of open courts, towers and criss-crossing high walks. In some of the gaps are surviving older buildings, such as a church or parts of London's ancient city walls. In others are gardens. It's these gardens which are the really surprising feature of Barbican, giving a great feeling of space for such a densely populated development. You'd do worse than to start off at the Barbican Centre or Library, which overlook Barbican's most stunning vista. A huge rectangular courtyard, surrounded by piled, balconied apartments, dripping with plants, overlooked by walkways. Up the middle runs a great slash of a lake. At one end a great cataract, appearing seemingly from nowhere, plunges into the lake. It's dramatic, and unexpected in the middle of London. On the lake itself there are fountains and strange almost-islands on piers where you can sit surrounded by water. Take a wander and find more of Barbican's hidden secrets, though you should be prepared to be foiled by locked doors: some areas are for residents only. It's best to visit on a bright sunny day: though at night it's still dramatic with its soaring towers, in the evening the gardens at the Barbican are dark, and the fountains and cataract are turned off.

Anyone remember the graffiti wall that used to appear at the start of the TV program Dragon's Den?…read moreWell, that was on Coronet Street, just down from Sh! Sadly it's been sandblasted clean (and looks pretty awful right now). However the graffiti artists have not been put off and there are some rather good stencils and poster art along this road: take a look while you are in the area, you'll never know what will be there. Walk along Old Street towards the tube station and you'll find more to look at. Just past Pitfield St there's a whole area of painted walls. Nothing stunning. As you get to the tube station's roundabout look up at the anonymous brick building (I believe it's something to do with the tube?). On the East side over the top of shop next door there's a beautiful painting of a girl angel holding a skull. I think it could be El Chivo, though I don't know. It's quite new right now, so I hope it lasts. Round the other side of the building you'll find a nice Space Invader. Walk North up City Road to Moorfields Eye Hospital, and you might be able to spot the Banksy rat by a disused entrance. On the South side of the road at the junction with Gt Eastern St look carefully over the Chinese Takeaway. There's an advertising hoarding up, but if you look carefully partially visible behind it is a set of Banksy happy choppers. I guess they are getting protected, shame you can't see them properly! I've done other reviews of Banksy works: if you are interested use his name as a search tag to find them. There are several more close by.

Old Street tube station basically has about 5/6 exits all around a massive busy traffic roundabout…read more The exit for old street, heading towards shoreditch is the best for seeking out street art. Pitfield Street & the little alley ways off it are known to have new things popping up all the time - that is when the council haven't gone on a recent mission of cleaning all the walls! The streets surrounding Hoxton Square are also good, then if you cross Old street again & head over to Rivington Street & the surrounding area, you'll normally spot bits n peices on the walls. Just really depends on how active the council have been in the area at removing / repainting walls as to what you'll stumble over. But there's usually a few visiting artists in London at any given time, who'll stop by this area to paste /stencil something on the walls, that make it worthwhile having a look around if you're so inclined! Faile is the most recent to have pasted up stuff locally - just in the last week - as an example.

This is London's highest public garden that has 3 restaurants,2 bars and a gift shop…read more There is no admission fee but you must get a free ticket online.Tickets are available up to 3 weeks in advance of your visit and available time slots are listed. Arrive about 15 minutes early as you have to go thru security screening. Once thru security you take the elevator to the 35th floor. The views are amazing as are the gardens. Plenty of seating is available and there are public restrooms.

We snagged sunset tickets to Sky Garden. I logged in shortly after tickets were made available…read moreonline three weeks prior and was able to book tickets for one of the nights of our trip. I would have preferred an earlier evening time slot, but they were not available. They are quite strict about going in at your designated time slot and they let people up in the elevator only when its your time. We were actually waiting in the lobby of an adjacent building where there was lots of seating, not realizing that the line formed on the *other side* of the building so beware. We lined up, went through security, went up the elevators, and then had an unlimited time up in Sky Garden. Since we already ate dinner, we didn't buy any food or drinks. The enclosed rooftop space is really quite breathtaking. There are glass walls on all four sides which makes the views just unbelievable. There is a balcony as well, but it was closed at the time of our visit (at night?) From the "front" lower side, you can see River Thames and the Tower Bridge/Tower of London. From the back, there are amazing views of The Gherkin. Up at the higher side, there is more space and some platforms to sit. However, it was really hard to be on the stairs going up and down because it was so congested. As you can imagine, the photos out the windows are amazing because the views are amazing. However, it's not an ideal place to pose for group photos because there will be tons of people around you. The whole space is just packed with tourists. I was glad to have experienced it once, but I don't ever plan on returning and would try a viewing area that is less touristy. It's worth a stop but not worth taking a huge chunk of time from your day if it doesn't slot in naturally.

I come across this quirky little gallery on my lunch break one day when I used to work nearby…read more Places like this certainly makes life a little more interesting. The main gallery space is quite compact with prints sprawled everywhere and a workshop out the back. Downstairs which you 'enter at your own risk', as the sign says on the wall has a warehouse feel to it with whitewashed brick walls, concrete floors and blinding fluorescent blue and purple light art pieces on the walls. The art work here is mainly graffiti, prints, drawings and paintings. Well worth a look.

This gallery is definitely tiny - but it's worth a look if you're into graffiti and street art…read more I went here for the preview of the ROBBO show, which wasn't amazing but which was memorable because of the place's interesting, musty basement. Walking down a creaky, narrow stairwell, we encountered piled-up doors (yes... doors) in the corner - all painted robin's egg blue - mossy brick walls, dirt floors and a solarium-style ceiling. It was all the perfect setting to display edgy street art pieces in. Most intriguingly, the room was inhabited by a group of musicians in suits playing folksy-sounding, Beirut-reminiscent music apparently at random. Another gallery-viewer came up and presented a tiny mandolin, which one of the musicians immediately picked up and started playing with. It was all very charmingly memorable in a bizarre sort of way. I'd definitely be interested to see what other quirky bits of randomness this gallery has to offer in the future.

Date: August 29, 2026…read more Experience: We were able to check this place out with our tour group. The cathedral is Anglican and I was impressed by the architecture and took as much time as I could to immerse myself with the artwork and installations as our local tour guide gave us tidbits about the cathedral. It's always interesting to visit and compare non-Catholic cathedrals from the Catholic ones I've visited over the years. There was a wedding party taking pictures outside and services still go on within the building itself. We had the opportunity to visit the crypt area as well and they had a gift shop down there as well. I was most impressed with the art on the dome ceiling as well as various dedications and representations dedicated to the USA. Definitely their cathedrals and churches seem to be dedications to resilience and the lives that were lost in wars and battles fought.

I visited St. Paul's Cathedral during Evensong, which allowed me to experience the cathedral…read morewithout paying the standard sightseeing admission. The architecture alone makes this place worth visiting. There are so many details throughout the building to look at, and the history of the space adds a lot to the experience. Pictures and videos were not allowed once Evensong started. I did notice several people taking out their phones to record at different points. From my perspective, enforcement seemed uneven, with staff focusing more heavily on a few specific visitors. Even with that part of the experience, the cathedral itself is definitely worth seeing if you are interested in history or architecture. I personally would not pay extra for the sightseeing tour, but I can understand why others might, especially if they want access to the views from higher up in the cathedral.

I was ambling down curtain road with a friend with the intent on visiting the white cube, when we…read moresaw a man in sportswear and white trainers, covered in paint daubing a wall next to a bar I once frequented. Stopping to wonder whether it was a commissioned piece he was doing, I discovered that he was actually a painter, rather than a graffiti artist and furthermore, that he had a show exhibiting in a gallery right next to us. The signal gallery is a tiny, single-roomed space with exposed brickwork that looks more like one of the local fashion showrooms than an art gallery. It therefore gives work that exhibits a there an edgier feel than they might have had if they were in your usual pristine white box. Not to say that the work I saw there wasn't edgy enough. It was a shown called echoes and exorcisms, by Dale Grimshaw (the name of the man I learnt was painting outside). It was a series of unintentionally autobiographical works (hence why all of the paintings looked faintly like him) mainly in black and white, with decidedly eerie-looking reflections, aggressive paint splashes and deep contrasting shadows. The story was one of a lot of pain and internal turmoil, and his next show, Heart in Darkness promises to carry on that theme.

I can't fault them for trying to get more into the street art side of things. I mean who isn't…read moretrying to get into that these days, but what always drives me barmy, is, as with the gang over at the Pure Evil Gallery, they charge West London prices for these things, when you can get better value in the area elsewhere. They have interesting shows and it's definitely worth being on the mailing list and going to previews, but as with the aforementioned galleries, I look forward to breaking that mold and making my first purchase.

This review is for the Shepherds Bush location. It is a 5/5 on every level! Customer service is on…read morepoint. The basement room is fantastic and underrated. The place is modern meets vintage decor. I loved it! If you're looking for great sleep, great ambiance that's close to the trains with many dining options, check it out! You will not be disappointed. Enjoy!

We stayed here while in London (during the heat wave!). Our room was nice and cool and it was a…read moreconvenient location to everything we needed. Loved the free water boxes as well. We had dinner at the Bambini Club one night and really enjoyed it. The green bean pistachio salad was so good! Would not expect cold green beans to be as delicious as they were! The pesto pistachio pasta was delicious as well. One of my favorite pasta dishes ive had! Don't forget the lemon sorbet for dessert! Service was friendly and they always were happy to fill up my water bottle every morning!