In the summer time and the weather is high….

As I walk my little pooch (Rio, my little fluffy friend who I picked up during my time in Cyprus) through the glorious wonderland that is Clapham Common, I start thinking how lucky we are to be in such a wonderful green city. In fact for those of you who don’t know, London is actually one of the greenest city in Europe! With its 8 Royal parks, Garden Squares (100 in Kensington & Chelsea alone) Council Parks (including Victoria Park and Battersea Park) and lots of other green spaces, London has an abundance of open natural areas.

And so many of our lovely hotels have been blessed with wonderful locations, just a stone through away from these green oasis’, little (in some case not so little) pieces of paradise. To name but a few – Pestana Chelsea Bridge (Battersea Park), Hilton Park Lane (Green Park & Hyde Park), The Danubius (Regents Park), Thistle Kensington Gardens (Kensington Gardens…who would have guessed!).

Take a picnic, take a frisbee (I was going to say football, but I know football is a sensitive subject at the moment for some of you..oopppsss! Did I say football…never mind, moving on..)… where was i…oh yes…There are so many things to do on a lovely day such as today. Children playing, people singing, crazy people working out (in this heat!), others strolling round the wonderful trees & flowers, you can even take the opportunity to row row row a boat on the glistening lakes (watch out for the swans though…). The possibilities are endless! Why would we want to be anywhere else this magical summer time!

I shall leave you with a little song by Mungo Jerry, as we are big fans of singing in the London office (even though let’s just say, some are better than others…) ‘In the summer time and the weather is high and you can stretch right up and touch the sky, oh when the weather’s right, you got hotels you got hotels on your mind, have a drink, have a drive, go out and see what you can find……’ 

ohhh it’s the little things we like

There’s a lot of hotels in the big smoke of course, but how many of them lend you a bicycle so you can go whizzing round the royal parks at your leisure? How many hotels get their honey directly from those royal parks? and and anndddd how many of those hotels have a garden bloomin err… blooming literally right up their very building?! Well, if you didn’t answer the Athenaeum by now, you clearly need to go and have a good butchers at their fine establishment…..

This is the honeycomb which is in the restaurant (season permitting of course) for each breakfast, the atmosphere is always err.. buzzing.

Of course the rest of the breakfast is spot on too, with a gorgeous array of various reserves & specialities based on seasonality.

And if after a great breakfast you need to work it all off, grab one of their bikes and go for a great jaunt around the parks!On your return from the parks, of course you cannot help but marvel at the vertical garden cascading up the building. The hotel even provides watering cans so you can join in on the gardening….. go on, you know you want to

ok – final thing on these guys from me, one of their doorman holds an astonishing talent, he remembers your name instantly, every time I’ve been back he opens the door and says ‘Good to see you Mr Kleinman’ apparently he does this with everyone (although doesn’t call them Mr Kleinman, that would just be weird), and he just needs to learn your name the once – considering the 1000s that pass through the doors each day, it’s pretty darn impressive, but from a hotel like this – it only seems perfectly natural!