Central London Guide
A stay in Central London gives visitors a fantastic opportunity to get to know all that this glittering city has to offer. You can find an iconic sight around almost every corner, and the museums and galleries rank among the finest in the world. Come the evening, a magnificent range of restaurants, bars and theatres come alive. Visitors with work to do will find themselves ideally placed among corporate HQs and boutique businesses, as well as the heart of government.
Popular Central London locations
London’s West End is bursting with life, as a trip to the shops of Oxford Street and Regent Street will show you. These bustling thoroughfares are the place to go for famous brands and exclusive labels. Nearby Savile Row is the London home of high end tailoring, and Carnaby Street holds on to echoes of the swinging 60s when it was synonymous with Beatles-era pop culture and glitzy style. Once notorious Soho is now home to media and creative businesses and trend-setting bars, clubs and places to eat.
The old market area of Covent Garden has been transformed into a buzzing piazza of restaurants, bars and characterful shops, and keeps its lights on until well into the night. The heart of theatre land is Leicester Square and the surrounding streets of St. Martin’s Lane, Aldwych and Drury Lane. Here’s the place to go for exceptional productions of plays and musicals.
Trafalgar Square has been home to Nelson’s Column since 1840, as well as the free to enter National Gallery and its collection of over 2,000 remarkable pieces of European paintings. Nearby Mayfair oozes luxurious living, with top end restaurants, and the exclusive shops and galleries around Bond Street. The sedate squares off Piccadilly offer a calm respite from the pace of the West End’s shopping streets, as do the tree-lined open spaces of Green Park, Hyde Park and St. James’s Park. In London, you can take the pace of life as fast or as slow as you like.
For business visitors, the areas around the main railway stations – Victoria, London Bridge,
King’s Cross, Waterloo and Paddington – are teeming with enterprises of all kinds. In Central London you are never far away from great transport links, so it is very easy to get to the commercial zones of the City of London and Canary Wharf.
Getting around
The London Underground began life in 1863 as the world’s first underground railway, and has developed into a far-reaching network of lines connecting all parts of the city and its suburbs. It is supported by an extensive bus network, as well as iconic black cabs and private hire transport. There are also options on boat travel on Thames, bikes and rickshaws too. With so much to see, it is always worth remembering that Central London is a great place to walk. Whichever way you choose, getting around is simplicity itself.
For travel further afield, London’s mainline railway stations are at the hub of a network running to all parts of the UK and to Europe too. There are also first-class connections for air travel from Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and London City airport.
Driving in Central London comes with challenges. Apart from having to pay the congestion charge, the traffic can be heavy and slow. While buses, taxis and bikes have fast track lanes to use, cars do not. Parking is limited although it can be provided at some of our apartments.
For weekends
A weekend in Central London is ideal for seeing the sights, a shopping trip, a visit for a play, musical or concert or to enjoy some of the best restaurants in the world – or a combination of some or all of these! There are also a host of major sporting events that take place throughout the year, and although the venues are a little further afield, a base in the centre of the city is perfect for making a weekend of it.
With such a wide range of serviced apartments available from The Apartment Network, booking a weekend away in a home from home makes good sense for couples, families and other groups. There’s no better way to enjoy a break in Central London.
For families
Central London is an exciting destination for family members of all ages. Top choices for youngsters include the London Aquarium on the south bank of the Thames, next to the huge London Eye, one of the world’s most impressive big wheels with views that reach far, far into the home counties. The other attraction here is the London Dungeon, but be warned, it is scary so not suitable for the under tens and the faint of heart. Less terrifyingly, a river trip never goes amiss, and a regular river bus service runs throughout Central London. You can climb aboard at the South Bank or across the river at Westminster Pier.
There is also plenty to explore for children in London’s museums. In Knightsbridge, just to the south of Hyde Park, kids can play and learn at the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum, or join in with the activities arranged daily at the Victoria and Albert Museum. There is also an interactive display at the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden that is perfectly designed for youngsters.
Central London also boasts a plethora of family-friendly restaurants including big chain names and lesser known ones to discover. The city centre also features a lot of pedestrian only areas where there is no need to worry about avoiding the traffic. We can help you find great apartments which the whole family will enjoy, and which will have Central London’s family attractions right on their door step.
Tips for moving to Central London
For all its attractions, there is little point in moving to Central London unless you are sure that it is the right thing to do for yourself, your partner and all members of the family. The questions are much the same as for any relocation, but city centre living can come with surprises. Are there enough facilities nearby such as a gym, spa, pool, or outside space? Is the area good for walking or cycling? Is the area safe? Is it too noisy, especially at night? Can you shop for everyday essentials easily? Is it close enough to your place of work?
Moving solo is relatively easy, as long as you are sure you want a city centre life style. The plus points are very self-apparent – plenty of entertainment, culture and food, and a location that makes getting anywhere in London a breeze. But it is worth thinking through how you feel about living in the heart of a busy city where it is difficult to get away from the crowds. However, there are quiet spots near the city centre, in a Mayfair mews, for example, or in the sedate squares of Belgravia. Bear in mind though that prices for apartments in these exclusive areas can be right at the top end.
Couples need to be sure that Central London works for both parties. If only one person is working how will the other spend their time? Do you both like being on top of all the distractions and liveliness of the city centre? Will you both manage being away from wide open spaces?
For families, there are still more questions to ask. Healthcare, schools and places to play are front of mind for all parents. In the case of education, London offers a range of high-achieving schools and nurseries, but they tend be a little further away from the centre in areas such as Fulham and Primrose Hill. If you hanker after walking your children to and from school, Central London may not be your best choice of places to live. And it is unlikely you little ones will be able to ride a bike on the pavement outside your front door! With cars being so impractical in the city centre, the whole family will also have to get used to hopping onto public transport or into a cab, as will visitors to your Central London home.
Places of interest
Few cities can rival London for brilliantly interesting things to do. There really is plenty for everyone, regardless of age.
Living in an apartment in Central London means you are never far from a truly impressive choice of world-class museums, from internationally renowned institutions like the British Museum to lesser known attractions like the Churchill War Rooms in Westminster. Art galleries on your doorstep range from the centuries of painting on show at Tate Britain on Millbank, to the more intimate space of the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park. You can catch a show in historic venues such as the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane or in the modernist National Theatre on the South Bank. There are no shortage of cinemas, too, from state-of-the-art multiplexes to intimate cinemas devoted to art films.
Visitors can enjoy walking in the shadow of a thrilling range of iconic buildings and monuments, from the Houses of Parliament to Buckingham Palace, and from St Paul’s Cathedral to the world-famous city highlights such as the Lloyds Building, the Gherkin and the Shard. A good walk in Central London will also take you to one or more of the city’s green spaces such as Hyde Park or Regent’s Park.
Restaurants, events and entertainment
Central London is a food lover’s paradise and you can find places to eat offering fare from virtually everywhere in the world. From Michelin-starred luxury to easy-on-the-pocket street food, whatever your taste and budget, you can find exactly what you want.
There’s also always something happening – keep your eyes peeled for a calendar of events including film festivals, art fairs, the Lord’ Mayor’s Show, ice skating, Christmas festivities, the spectacular New Year’s Eve fireworks, London Fashion Week and plenty more throughout the year.
London has a world-wide reputation as an entertainment capital. Alongside excellent, high profile theatres, top flight music venues are to be found in Covent Garden for opera, the South Bank for orchestral and chamber music, and Sadler’s Wells for ballet. The city will also bring you music from stadium rock and chart-topping pop at the O2 to a host of club-sized places such as Ronnie Scott’s for jazz. Dig a little deeper and you will find folk, r’n’b and umpteen different music styles in the city’s clubs, pubs and bars.
