london in December - parks and gardens
 

We will be in London for the second week in December. My first unforgetable trip to London was in spring and the gardens were fantastic. Would it be worth going to Kew in December? Are there any other gardens worth visiting in December? Are there any Christmas decorations that are don't-miss attractions?
Thanks

Naturally, the gardens won't be in bloom, but you can see the structure of the Kew Gardens.

Also, there are Henry Moore sculptures on exhibit at Kew until March 2008.

Have a look at http://www.kew.org/seasons/
There will be some winter colour in the gardens and you can thaw out in the greenhouses.
There are lots of parakeets flying around the gardens.
It's easier to see them when the leaves are off the trees.

Poo, I added something which seems to have got lost.

If you look around the Kew website, you'll see there's a regular feature on what's currently worth seeing. There's a winter garden, and three big sets of greenhouses, the Palm House, the Temperate House and the Princess of Wales Conservatory. You could also visit Kew Palace, which is not quite as grand as the title suggests.

We don't do big public Christmas decorations that well, in my view. What's going up on Oxford Street at the moment looks distinctly underwhelming, but you never know what you might come across: last year the little streets around Seven Dials seemed more striking to me. Harvey Nichols's windows are always worth a look, but not a special journey.

It's not just the structure of Kew. Kew's never a particularly pretty garden: that's not its point. It's a serious scientific research institute, charged with holding just about the world's largest collection of plant types.

Not much of its collection is really geared to the English seasons. The water lilies, evergreens and all the exotica bloom on whatever the weather's like. If you can stand Henry Moore, the sculptures look amazing against the trees - with or without leaves. If you can't, it's an almost unique opportunity to see a huge proportion of his oeuvre and challenge your prejudice (though in my case, the prejudice comfortably survived the challenge, but it was an interesting experiment)

The queues to get in this Sunday were immense, and once the icerink gets installed in December, the place will be crowded at weekends again. You might want to time your visit for midweek.


Offhand, I'd struggle to think of any gardens that are visually amazing in midwinter. If you're interested in landscaping, the usual out of town warhorses (like Blenheim)were all designed to be interesting all year round. But very little blooms outside.

London's mainstream Christmas decorations - in Oxford St, Regent St, Knightsbridge, Trafalgar Sq etc - are always underwhelming, and we usually all agree they get worse every year. But the window dressing in Selfridges and Harvey Nicks is getting edgier all the time, Fortnum's is in the process of relaunching its food hall and its windows are less unimaginative than they used to be, and a couple of the arcades and side streets (like Burlington Arcade, the one whose name I always forget on the other side of Piccadilly and St Christopher's Place) have a kind of Ye Olde London charm.

Anyone who wants to see something special and Christmas-themed in London in December MUST pay a visit to the Geffrye Museum which, every December, showcases four centuries of English Christmas traditions. Includes all kinds of special workshops, candelight concerts, and so on.

http://www.geffrye-museum.org.uk/wha...mas-past-2007/

I would add to the above post that if you go to the Geffrye, try to arrange to go on a day when the almshouse rooms are open. I think they're open one day a month, and the tours book up fast.

It's only a couple of rooms, but it has the advantage of being actual rooms, not the stage-set mockups, like the rest of the museum. You get more of a sense of what it would have been like to live there.

I'd recommend a lovely walk in Greenwich Park! They even have deer and if it's a clear day you get amazing views over London. Do a google search for more info.

You could also go ice-skating in Greenwich at the very picturesque setting of the Naval College, go to the market, take a boat ride etc.