Face it. London’s an expensive city so wouldn’t it behoove you to save on accommodations so you can shop heartily at the fabulous stores and dine in style? While traveling, we spend so little time in our hotel rooms, anyway, so why not opt for a budget hotel in the most amazing city in England? Now, budget hotel doesn’t have to equate nasty, dirty dumps swarming with vermin and sleazy characters. Thank God! This is where St. David’s Hotel comes in.
The St. David’s is a family run budget bed and breakfast hotel in Paddington, reputed for its cleanliness, hospitality and for serving what has been called by many of its guests, the “best English cooked breakfast in town.
In the heart of Central London, you’ll have easy access to Oxford Street (for shopping!), Hyde Park, not to mention being a stone’s throw from the Paddington tube station, giving you free reign of the public transportation system taking you to where ever you’d like in the city.
St. David’s Hotel
16-20 Norfolk Square
Paddington, London W2 1RS, England
Tube Station: Paddington
Telephone: 020 7723 3856
Rates: £40 – £120 ($61 – 183 reflecting the exchange rate of the date of this blog post.)
I’ve got three words for you: zany, zantastic and zuberrific! Ok, ok, I made the last two up. You have to admit those words sure did catch you’re eye, right? Do you ever wonder how much time and consideration goes into thinking up a name for your new establishment? Well, for The Zetter Hotel renovators, it was pretty simple; named after the old business, The Zetter Football Pool Company. They purchased this old Victorian warehouse in the middle of the Clerkenwell neighborhood. Today, Clerkenwell is one known as the fashionable residential area of London. It is also one of the oldest cities in London and used to be known for it’s beautiful spas and tea gardens.
Vintage modern are the perfect words to describe this hotel. Incorporated throughout the entire hotel are bright retro floral patterns; all rooms have a different print and color scheme. The bedding and wall colors are all very neutral which works perfectly with the old Victorian chairs that have been reupholstered. There are 59 rooms in this boutique hotel, each room comes with a variety of Penguin paperback books, 4000 free music tracks you can enjoy, self-controlled air conditioning and even pink mood lighting if you’re feeling really vintage. Also included are an in-room safe, TV and free wifi. Talk about perks, and that’s just to name a few.
Not only is The Zetter cool on the outside, it’s super cool on the inside as well. It takes a lot of energy and materials to convert, renovate and design a warehouse into a hotel. Restauranteurs Michael Benyan and Mark Sainsbury wanted an “eco-friendly hotel”. The Zetter states, “Sustainability and environmental awareness were at the heart of the decision-making process when building The Zetter. As a result, it has been designed to be an energy efficient hotel, using sustainably sourced and environmentally sensitive building materials and controlled by an intelligent building management system.
Some eco friendly features include:
- A borehole [a narrow shaft drilled underground typically used for extracting water] underneath the building to provide each guest fresh spring water. It is also used to flush toilets and cool bedrooms.
- An energy loop system: a bit technical, but basically it means we swap energy around – so as you heat your room, it helps us cool our fridges.
- Natural light and ventilation: this is provided by The Zetter’s central semi-elliptical atrium.
- Occupancy detection systems in the bedrooms: so that when you aren’t there, minimal energy is burned.
- Also, when a bedroom window is opened the air conditioning has been designed to cut out – just like that!
- All the timber used in the building’s construction was bought from sustainable sources, and all the paints used in our interiors are environmentally-friendly.
- We recycle all glass and paper used by the hotel and its guests.”
The Zetter
St John’s Square
86-88 Clerkenwell Road
London
EC1M 5RJ
T: +44 (0)20 7324 4444
F: +44 (0)20 7324 4445
E: info@thezetter.com
Forget that the British do NOT even celebrate Thanksgiving. Who cares? Revel in the fact that you can spend Thanksgiving in of one the UK’s most iconic cities, specifically, England’s capital: London. What am I talking about? I was just about to tell you so don’t get your knickers in a twist. Virgin Vacations is offering a remarkable travel package from the U.S. to London during Thanksgiving. The travel deal starts at $749 (rountrip) and includes the following:
* Round trip air on available carrier
* 6 nights hotel accommodations in London
* Continental breakfast daily
* Hotel taxes and service charges
* Mandated Fuel Surcharges
A Note: Package price excludes airport taxes and fees
Of course, space is extremely limited and your specific travel dates may not be available if you wait too long, so book early.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? Imagine yourself wandering happily around one of my very favorite cities on earth. There’s so much to see and do, that I don’t think I have enough time or space to list them all, but here are some examples. 1) Go to Neal’s Yard especially the cheese shop there and other shopping; 2) London Bridge (of course!!! well, they call it Tower Bridge but anyway); Big Ben; 3) The Strand; 4) Theatre District; 5) Covent Garden; 6) Hyde Park; 7) Kensington Palace; 8. Kew Gardens; 9) Trafalgar Square; 10) Herods; 11) Liberty’s; 12) St. Paul’s Cathedral; 13) Piccadilly Circus; 14) Leicester Square; 15) Oxford Street; 16) Notting Hill; 17) London Eye …
Oh, I still have gobs of other suggestions for sights in London I could list but you get my point, right? By the way, London is home to four World Heritage Sites: the Tower of London; the historic settlement of Greenwich; the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; and the site comprising the Palace of Westminster, Westminster Abbey and St. Margaret’s Church. Phew!
I didn’t even mention the pubs!
To find out more about the travel deal click here.