Packed with a plethora of attractions that deliver a perfect day out for the right visitor, London is nothing if not famous for its diverse appeal.
Yet, it’s also famous for those crowd-pleasing, landmark venues that are all about the appealing to millions and millions of people each year – when combined, no doubt, with a day out that’s also spent enjoying a delicious meal at restaurants near the Arch. What sort of places are we talking here, then? Well, these four capital attractions must be top of the list…
Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament
With the scaffolding now removed from the Elizabeth Tower, it’s possible to see the Houses of Parliament’s globally-recognised clockface once more – and in its fully restored glory, too. Suffice to say, the clockface’s details are now picked out in a perfect sunshine-reflecting Prussian blue (their original colour in Victorian times, apparently), which – along with the spruced-up gilding around it – affords the clockface an all-new freshness and dynamism.
Extensive conservation work on the insides of the building (including some of the bells that accompany the iconic Big Ben bell in the clocktower) is ongoing but, with the touching-up of the clockface and the scaffolding on the tower gone, 2022’s the year to book that stay at a spa hotel London and see ‘Big Ben’, all right.
The View from The Shard
The tallest building in the UK, the sky-piercing-shaped Shard, whose floors are filled with business office clients, was designed specifically, too, to offer visitors sensational views of the city below.
Indeed, a visit to the building’s highest viewing platform is often sought by bookers of London’s most luxury hotel rooms because it offers perfect open-air panoramic views. Needless to say, this part of the ‘skyscraper’ is also home to restaurants and bars that deliver the requisite laid-back, stylish environment you’d expect of such an experience.
St Paul’s Cathedral
Centuries ago, this grand building served not just as a place of worship but arguably the social and cultural hub of London itself. Since then, the city has grown in size (and, indeed, it’s grown more secular), ensuring the centres around which its populace and visitors seem to orbit have changed over and again; that said, being such a magnificent and historically resonant place, St Paul’s remains a hugely admired and greatly visited destination – and for very good reason.
With its famed domed-roof design, courtesy of Restoration architect extraordinaire Sir Christopher Wren, the cathedral’s baroque architecture is (inside and out) utterly sublime, while its Whispering Gallery, up in the dome, is a must-visit (its acoustics are extraordinary), as is its enormous crypt, which is the resting place of oh-so many of the great and the good of Britain’s past. All told, St Paul’s is the sort of marvel that, simply put, Marble Arch By Montcalm bookers come to the capital to see.
The British Museum
Blessed with maybe the most extraordinarily vast collection of antiquities of any museum on Planet Earth, the Bloomsbury-located British Museum only ever has a fraction of this huge collection on display at any one time – yet, you wouldn’t at all believe that, were you to take a day (and it’d take a full day out) to walk around the extensively filled place.
Covering every era of history and practically every corner of the world, its artefacts are displayed in many different sections, naturally, and to get the most out of a visit, you’re advised to focus on the sections you suspect will interest you the most – such, as for instance, the Enlightenment Room with its inventions and curiosities from the 19th Century when the UK boasted so many scientific and technological breakthroughs. Have fun – and happy browsing!
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