If you are planning a holiday in London then you would be wise to carefully plan your trip ahead. The most important thing to remember is that London has more visitors than most places on earth � meaning that you can sometimes come unstuck when trying to find accommodation. You obviously need to try to book ahead to make sure that you can stay where you want to stay, because it is not uncommon for entire hotels to book up completely.

The upshot of this situation of course, is that prices are somewhat expensive throughout London when it comes to accommodation. You will find that the cost of hotels is somewhat prohibitive unless you have the most relaxed of budgets. There are other options of course, and one is finding a serviced apartments. Serviced apartments give you everything you can get from a hotel, along with more space and facilities to prepare your own food, and you can get all of this for less than the price of a hotel room! You can expect to pay around thirty percent less for an equivalent apartment against a hotel room, and this is obviously a quite significant saving. Remember as well that you will be able to cook your own meals in an apartment like this, so that is another opportunity to save money as well.

You should search online for accommodation in london to find a serviced apartment in the area in which you would like to stay.

What better way to experience the opera than nestled in your own private balcony under a starry night in London? Central London’s The Courtyard at 51 Buckingham Gate is offering just that for opera lovers, or for those who want to experience the opera in uniquely intimate way.

Michelin star chef, Sriram Ayur, will prepare a special menu for the evening, complete with cocktails and after-dinner drinks. The Victorian fountain, the Shakespearian frieze on the façade of the buildings and the tended flowerbeds add elegance to the Courtyard at 51, which will be transformed into an outdoor Opera house complete with scenes from balconies of this Taj hotel. Read the rest of this entry »

For many people there are a million and one reasons to visit London, but for the uninitiated, it can be hard to decide what to do. For those of you planning your first trip to England’s capital city, here are a few ideas.

To get a good feel for London, I would recommend taking a good walk around London’s West End. This is the area in which most of the tourism is centred around. This area includes Piccadilly, Leicester Square, Soho and Covent Garden. These small areas probably have enough in them to entertain you for months, not weeks, and if it turns out that you like the area, you might choose to stay around this area and not venture much further.

In Soho you will find lots of lovely places to eat, and a fair amount of great live musical venues too. If you like a bit of jazz, then why not visit the legendary Ronnie Scotts in Soho?

For those of you who love to shop, you should take a wander past Soho to Oxford Street. This is an enormous street which caters for just about everybody who has any sort of retail shopping need. From high street chain stores to the wonderful tailors on Saville Row, just off Oxford Street, this has everything you could possibly need.

For evening entertainment try the new lion king theatre performance at one of the famous theatre’s in the West End.

Almost three years later, London’s famed hotel The Savoy will reopen in the heart of the West End theater district. The landmark hotel opened in 1889 and was shut down in 2007 to undergo a major £100 million (almost $150 million) restoration that includes a complete rebuilding of the property, including all public areas and the guest rooms. Now comes word the iconic hotel will reopen on Oct. 10, 2010.

Here’s what we know:

• All of the hotel’s 268 rooms and suites have been redecorated and redesigned with a combination of Art Deco and Edwardian. Of the guest rooms, 58 will have river views. Read the rest of this entry »