West London City Break

This visit to west London was a city break for Deb’s birthday so had a rather different schedule than our usual visits, focusing on gardens and outdoor time and no castles! The weather was superb for April and it was nice to visit some new places as well as old favourites.

Holiday Ratings
Recommended days	3
Budget	££
Difficulty	Easy

Normally any visit I do to London revolves around the museums as it is just such a fantastically saturated area for history and culture resources. This time we did something different although I did have my eyes opened after our visit to the V&A, I had thought it was a fashion museum! The break was two nights, staying at the Doubletree in Ealing which was a good balance between price and convenience. We normally drive to London for convenience but there are other options and train and coach travel to the great city is now a realistic option, both bookable through Trainline.

Kew Gardens

I’d booked tickets for Kew expecting to be done in a few hours. I knew that Deb would want to spend longer but as it had a cafe I was happy to sit and relax while she wandered round and looked at the plants.We parked in the main car park near the river and walked through the open parkland to the first glasshouse.

Each of the glasshouses is an hour or so to properly appreciate and then the other displays and gardens plus walking between them takes a lot of time. The gardens were beautifully maintained and well signposted once inside. There were a few eating options to break up the visit and also plenty of information boards about the different areas of the garden and the history of the gardens themselves.

The glasshouses were works of art in their own right but the addition of the plant displays made them hugely impressive. I skipped out of the rain forest one as the camera misted up but the colour, presentation and variety was awesome, even as a total newb when it comes to plants.

My personal favourites were the cactus displays and the Japanese garden. We’d prebooked tickets to the Great Pagoda as part of our garden visit. The tickets were timed which made sense as it is a narrow stairway so number have to be limited.

The pagoda is a great structure and beautifully decorated so it’s worth doing a circuit of the outside before going in anyway. There is information on each floor as well as windows to take in the views. During our visit we had sunshine, rain and a hailstorm so that was all entertaining to watch. The views gave an idea of how large the gardens are though and it was a lovely building and a good experience, so glad we did it.

Definitely somewhere to return to and great value.

Syon Park and Gardens

This was one of the places on this city break that we hadn’t been to before and this visit to west London was an opportunity to redress that! The London pad of the Duke of Northumberland, Syon Park is most famous for the glasshouse but the riverside walk was also beautiful and worth a visit in itself.

I’d booked this visit through our HHA membership to follow on from our Kew Gardens visit. After going there I wondered if this would be worth it but I’m so glad we persevered. The gardens are well signposted and there is a good sized car park. On site there is a cafe, a restaurant and a large garden centre.

The main attraction is the glasshouse as this is a fantastically beautiful structure and it is easy to see how it inspired the Crystal Palace design. What a superb innovation. The riverside walk was also lovely and we spent a lot more time than expected, a really enjoyable afternoon. Next time we will have to visit the house itself.

Leila Lebanese Restaurant

We booked a table here through Google, first time I’d ever done that! The restaurant is easy to find and we were made welcome as soon as we arrived. We chose a window seat at the front and made our selections from the menu.

There was plenty of choice and as soon as the starters arrived it was apparent we had over ordered! The food was delicious, especially my spicy hummous, but the quantities were far larger than we expected so we couldn’t finish everything. We had a lovely evening though and it was great to chat to the guy from Kerala. The food was decent value too and would have been even better if we’d ordered less and eaten it all!

Kyoto Gardens, Holland Park

This is a beautiful and popular little Japanese style garden, set within Holland Park and is actually free to enter! We walked from Earl’s Court station and it was an easy route and once within the park, well signposted.

The gardens are clean and the wildlife is obviously very used to human visitors and we were able to see herons and also a squirrel that was literally eating out of someones hand. I can imagine the garden gets crowded in the summer but in April it was peaceful and there was plenty of seating. After the visit the cafe is just a few minutes walk away.

The Victoria and Albert Museum

This was my first visit to this museum, a sad admission indeed! I had always thought it was just a fashion and design museum and therefore of limited interest but how wrong I was! We spent the afternoon here and I could easily return and do the same tomorrow. And probably the next day too.

There is just so much there that I wasn’t expecting and we only covered the medieval, south asian and Islamic sections. The museum is well laid out and there is plenty of seating if you need to sit and absorb things. The information boards are also very good, both for individual items and the topic as a whole although that being said it is sometimes unclear which item the board is referring too as they aren’t numbered.

The cafe is also good and has a nice variety of lunch and snack offerings. This is now my second favourite place after the British Museum (the V&A that is, not the cafe!).

Windsor Cruise

After leaving the hotel on Sunday we headed home, pausing at Windsor for our final activity, a cruise on the Thames. This was booked through French Brothers and was a really lovely way to end the city break and was only about 30 minutes from our west London hotel.

We parked a couple of minutes walk from the river and as we had booked the 10AM sailing it was only us and one other couple there – fantastic! The cruise lasted about 45 minutes and the commentary was actually useful so I learned some new things. There look to be several other offerings of interest as well so it is somewhere else to return to later in the year. After a coffee stop across the bridge in Eton we drove home, a wonderful weekend.

West London City Break

By booking a hotel in West London and using the underground to travel in this both saved money (central London hotel prices are eye watering, as are the parking charges!) and time. All of these attractions were accessible for us after a two hour drive which was supremely convenient and added to the enjoyment and repeatability of the weekend.