Question about London neighborhoods
 

Hi, I am staying in London 1 night. I am flying into Gatwick and then flying out of Heathrow the next day. I will have 1/2 a day to see some sights.

Where should I stay? I have had a few great suggestions, however I may try priceline and if you are familliar with priceline they give you neighborhood options...tell me which you think I should select. Bloomsbury-Marble Arch, Hammersmith, Keinsington, London Bridge, Mayfair/Soo, Notting Hill, Regents Park, South Bank, The City/Financial District, & Westminster. Thanks!

If your arrival is late or your departure is early, then IMHO you should just stay near the airport.

We are arriving around dinner time and then we aren't flying out until about 4 or 5 the next day.

I'd get a hotel in South Kensington within close walking distance of the V&A, Natural History and Science Museums.

Realistically you'll only have a couple of hours to actually see stuff on your departure day, so don't waste time getting to and fro. You could take the Piccadilly Line to Heathrow or arrange for a mini cab from your hotel.

If you don't have much luggage stay in South Kens near a Picadilly tube station. Gloucester Rd or S Kens are good stations for proximity to a LOT of goode moderately priced hotels. If you have more luggage than you can manage on the tube then I'd stay near Paddington Station and catch the Heathrow Express the next afternoon.

Avoid the City/Financial district - it is a working area and not for tourists (it gets extraordinarily busy as well). The others are all fine.

the way Priceline groups neighborhoods seems to me to be to mix into one group a more convenient area with a less convenient one.

Bloomsbury is more convenient imo than Marble Arch, South Kensington is imo more convenient than Kensington.

If you're going to prioritize,I'd start with Westminster, then Mayfair-Soho, then Bloomsbury-MA, then Kensington.

South Kensington is good if you plan to visit the great museums there. For the historic heart of London, from the Tower via St Pauls and Trafalgar Square to Westminster I think you want to be west of there, and somewhere on the District and Circle lines. Starting with the most central area I list

Westminster, most central
The City/Financial District,
Mayfair/Soho,
London Bridge,
South Bank,
Bloomsbury-Marble Arch,
Kensington,
Regents Park,
Hammersmith,
Notting Hill, furthest out

If you had not given Priceline?s list I should have said choose Charing Cross or Victoria. You get straight there from Gatwick (including from Gatwick a change of train at plastform 6 in London Bridge), and from Embankment and Victoria you can go to Heathrow with just one change, again across the platform, at Hammersmith. Perhaps Priceline place them with Westminster and Mayfair.

Paddington is far off, on the wrong side of the park. The City and financial district are very well placed for the historic heart, in fact they are the historic heart. They are indeed busy by day, but still fine for walking or for riding on the tops of busses (proper busses, not those tourist things). They include two standard tourist visits, St Paul s and the Tower.

Realistically you have more than two hours to see places. On selected weekday evenings the National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery and British Museum are open till eight or nine, and on other evenings you might dine on a boat as she sails the Thames. Each morning the Westminster Abbey and the Tower are open from nine. If you take off at 4.30pm you check in at 3pm and leave your hotel at 2pm. I do not join the naysayers, and take it that you do not mind flying from Heathrow feeling contentedly tired out.

Welcome to London, however briefly.

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Sorry for a slip. You want to be east of South Kensington, not west.

Ben Haines