
Marylebone, Regent’s Park and Baker Street
Marylebone is an upmarket, mainly residential area, with a village-like feel. It's very centrally located, just a few blocks from Oxford street and Selfridges, so great for shopping as well as sightseeing.
Regent’s Park is just to the north, the perfect place for a picnic or a stroll around the rose garden on a summer day.
Culture
Art lovers should visit the Wallace Collection, housed in an historic London townhouse. The works of art on display were amassed over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by the Hertford family and Sir Richard Wallace and bequeathed to the nation in 1897.
It’s not as busy as the more well-known museums, but the collection is a wonderfully eclectic mix of paintings, armour, ceramics, furniture and sculpture and entry is free, though you can make a donation.
If you get peckish, there's a restaurant in the courtyard which does a traditional afternoon tea.
What to do and see
Marylebone High Street, with its high-end shops and expensive restaurants and cafés, caters to the affluent local clientele, which counts celebrities including Madonna, who has a house in the area.
Talking of celebrities, if you want to pose with one for a selfie, head to Madame Tussaud’s on Marylebone street. Queues here can be daunting and fast-track tickets are very pricey so, if you really want to visit, don’t go at peak times unless you’re prepared to wait around for quite a while.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle fans will probably want to make a beeline for the Sherlock Holmes Museum next, just around the corner at 221b Baker Street in the home of the famous fictional detective.
From there, hop on the 139 or the 189 bus to Abbey Road and walk across the famous zebra crossing to the Abbey Road Studios, made famous by the Beatles. You can’t miss the building as the walls are covered in murals and tributes to the Fab Four.
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Image credits: © Willy Barton / Shutterstock.com; © Willy Barton / Shutterstock.com