A new exhibition at the Science Museum in London originated a few years ago, when a curator discovered a crate buried in the museum’s vast archive. Inside, she found 22 photograph albums of the Russian Imperial family, taken between 1908 and 1916, and so began the journey of The Last Tsar: Blood and Revolution. Marking 100…
Shaken and Stirred – London’s Fastest Speedboat
I’d like to say this is going to be a cultural post, but in all honesty, it’s going to have some adrenaline thrown in with a dash of James Bond. Having said that, you get to see London’s most iconic sights with me, something I don’t talk about very often, as I prefer to showcase…
Londoness Loves September 2018
Pencils are sharpened, shoes are buffed, and raincoats make their re-appearance on the coat rack this month. It’s back to school, or as they call it in France, la rentrée, (the return). It’s been a quiet, heat-filled summer in London, but now it’s time for a good harvest of autumnal theatre, art, opera and music,…
Covent Garden in a day
Covent Garden is London’s living theatre, a canvas of the city’s enchanting past and its immersive present. It was once Nell Gwynn’s playground with her King, and home to the oldest theatre in London with its 500 ghosts of theatre past. Eliza Doolittle sold flowers to Mr Henry Higgins outside St Paul’s Church, the first…
The Swanky Savoy Hotel
She’s the hostess with the mostess, London’s grande dame who has partied through two world wars and slept with movie stars, politicians and royalty. Today, the Savoy Hotel in London is celebrating her 129th birthday and if her walls could talk, they would whisper about the great and the godly and the bold and the…
Prince and Patron at Buckingham Palace
It’s hard to pick a favourite at Prince and Patron, Buckingham Palace, an exhibition marking the 70th birthday of His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales. The 100 works which have been stuffed into the Palace’s Ball Supper Room were personally chosen by the Prince from the Royal Collection, the result of which is a…
Londoness Loves – July 2018
It’s a swell time of year in London isn’t it? Tennis season has kicked off, London has gone art crazy and the sun is shining! It’s a busy month ahead for Londoness with plenty of theatre and with Mark Rylance coming back to Shakespeare’s Globe, no less! And let’s not forget, this month sees the…
Victorian Afternoon Tea at the V & A Museum
The Victorian Afternoon Tea at the Victoria and Albert Museum had me at seed cake. These two words always bring my childhood back in a whoosh of nostalgia wrapped in a cocoon of Englishness. If seed cake was good enough for Bilbo Baggins and his Unexpected Party, then it’s good enough for Londoness. And thanks…
10 children’s books set in London
As a young Parisienne, I would dream of floating across the Channel to London’s rooftops in the company of a sooty Bert and his Mary Poppins. Pan and Tinker Bell would whisk me over to Big Ben in the blink of a sleepy eye, and for breakfast, I would make marmalade sandwiches with Paddington Bear….
Behind the Scenes of the new Royal Academy
The Royal Wedding isn’t the only big event in London on Saturday 19 May. The Royal Academy opens its newly buffed doors to a new two-acre campus with 70% more public spaces and a bridge linking Burlington House on Piccadilly to 6 Burlington Gardens in Mayfair. And to mark its 250 year-anniversary, there’s a…