Hotels in Central London: History and Luxury
Copyright 2006 S Wander
Central London is where everything is: the history, the culture, the center of the UK's government, and the night life. For about a three-mile stretch between the Tower of London and Hyde Park, you'll find most of the London you're looking for: Piccadilly Circus, Big Ben, St. Paul's, London Bridge, Westminster, Trafalgar Square. It only makes sense, therefore, to find a great hotel to stay in that area. You can do this for a reasonably-inexpensive rate, or you can splurge and be treated like the Queen.
The most important thing, though, is to reserve your spot as early as you can; rooms, especially the inexpensive rooms, go quickly. If you're arriving by midday, many places will hold your spot without a deposit. Others can be expensive if you're forced to cancel.
Bed and Breakfasts
In the streets behind Victoria Station, you'll find colonies of budget Bed and Breakfasts. It's a nice area, not at all touristy, and you can get a cheap ?50 room (expect what you pay for, of course) or a nicer ?80 room, with atmosphere and a nice British breakfast. You can possibly save a little money by arriving later in the day without a reservation and looking for a bargain.
Competition is fierce here, and you can probably strike a deal, particularly in the off-season, and particularly with a multiple night stay. In Warwick Way hotels, request a quiet back room.
Woodville House at 105 Elbury St. offers inexpensive rooms. You'll share a bathroom down the hall and you may end up next to the noisy street, but the atmosphere is great, the proprietor friendly and endlessly informative, and you can save even more money by bunking 3-5 in a room with friends.
Or you can try a more expensive place like Lime Tree Hotel, with thoughtfully decorated public areas and spacious guest rooms; the breakfast room is even attached to a nice traditional garden.
Wherever you stay, a bed and breakfast will give you a traditional taste of London.
Modern Hotels
For the cheapest rates, you can stay at one of the Travel Inn hotels. The rooms are cookie-cutter and dull and the restaurants and bars are ordinary, even somewhat tacky, but if you're planning to stay out in the city most of the time, you can't find a better deal.
They have locations near Big Ben, the British
Library, and further off at Putney Bridge.
Classy, Trendy Hotels
If you don't need to cut corners and would like to stay in an area so classy they don't allow tacky things like hotel signs on the street, you probably want to stay in South Kensington. The shops are great ? Harrods is in walking distance ? and you can find budget and nice restaurants of all descriptions lining the streets nearby.
Aster House Hotel has excellent rooms with televisions, phones, and a refrigerator.
You can have breakfast in the Orangerie, a Victorian greenhouse and lounge in the back garden; or you can walk a short distance to have your meals in town.
5 Sumner Place Hotel has been voted the best small hotel in London. Chandeliers decorate the Victorian-style conservatory, a greenhouse decorated in blues, where you'll have breakfast. The hotel is in a 150-year-old building, and each room is decorated with period furnishings.
It can be expensive, but if you're looking for atmosphere, this is where to find it.
If you don't quite have as much money to spend, you can try 16 Sumner Place up the road, or Kensington Juries Hotel. Either is popular and close to attractions, with excellent furnishings, informative and friendly management, and loads of class and comfort.
Wherever you stay in this neighborhood, you'll be certain of atmosphere, walking-distance attractions, and friendly service.
The Cheapest Place Ever
If you're a young woman or a man with a Norwegian passport, you can get a room at the Norwegian YWCA for half the price you'd spend anywhere else in London; all rooms are smoke free, and, other than singles, have their own showers; if you're willing to share a quad room with strangers, you can get a room for as little as ?18 in the off-season, breakfast included. And believe it or not, it's a really nice place to stay, with atmosphere and comfort.
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Curbing the Public Nuisance (Part 2)
Curbing the Public Nuisance (Part 2)By Yes, that pillar of society that has been with us since that slithery dude threw humanity for a curve in the Garden of Eden ? that cornerstone of society has been automated.I am speaking, of course, of the public nuisance ( I wrote about him in Part 1 at http://www.thehappyguy.com/nuisance1.html . )No longer do pests have to come around in restaurants and train stations and villages singing loudly and playing their harpsichords. We now have machines to do that for us ? machines like televisions and radios and elevator muzak and backfiring Mustangs.In the olden days, you could just throw a brick at a public nuisance, and that would usually shut him up for two minutes ? five if the brick hit its mark.But it's harder to throw a brick at a TV, because bar owners send bloodthirsty lawyers after you, something the old-fashioned public nuisances knew nothing about. And how can you throw a brick at the shadowy creature producing elevator muzak?So it was...
Curbing the Public Nuisance (Part 2)
Televisions > Curbing the Public Nuisance (Part 2)
Plasma HDTV
Plasma televisions are based on a new technology that utilizes a unique display panel that alleviates the need for a cathode-ray picture tube. One of the major benefits of buying these televisions is that they are sized to accommodate new HDTV 16:9 aspect ratios and have a similar pixel resolution to a personal computer monitor. This provides the product the maximum picture clarity. In other words, a plasma display has an emissive flat panel display in which light is created by phosphors that are excited by a plasma discharge between two flat panels of glass. The gas discharge contains no mercury, but instead has a mixture of noble gases.
One of the basic things that the plasma screen does is illuminate the tiny colored fluorescent lights to form an image. Three fluorescent lights are red, green and blue, and constitute each pixel.
Plasma is stated to be the "Fourth State of Matter", after solid, liquid and gas. It is considered a distinct state of matter that contains...
Televisions > Plasma HDTV
StrandVision Enhances Digital Signage Player – Beefs up Server Resources
Eau Claire, Wis. (ContentDesk) February 13, 2006 -- StrandVision LLC (http://www.strandvision.com), a provider of hosted digital signage services, today announced a significant upgrade to its player that receives digital signage content at customer sites over the Internet. The player increases redundancy and local caching to enhance reliability. In the same vein, StrandVision put an additional server into service to meet the demands of its growing customer base.StrandVision takes a radical new approach to digital signage. Rather than require expensive and complex on-site installations, StrandVision hosts digital signs on its servers and delivers signage content over the Internet directly to local personal computers for showing over local computer monitor, flat screen or television displays.
In this way, single location companies or multi-branch businesses, such as offices, banks, distributorships, medical providers and...
StrandVision Enhances Digital Signage Player – Beefs up Server Resources
Televisions > StrandVision Enhances Digital Signage Player – Beefs up Server Resources
Rock Star Tours of Las Vegas Announces Partnership with Showtickets.com and Travelocity to Offer Their Products
Las Vegas, NV (ContentDesk) February 19, 2006 -- Rock Star Tours of Las Vegas announces the creation of a partnership with Showtickets.com and Travelocity, its parent company. Both Travelocity and Showtickets.com will offer Rock Star Tours of Las Vegas products on their websites, through their reservation center, and at their retail outlets located inside premier Las Vegas casino and resort properties. We are very excited and proud to partner with both Showtickets.com and Travelocity, its parent company, says Joshua Smith, CEO and Founder of Rock Star Tours of Las Vegas and Millionaire Tours. Travelocity is a leader of consumer-direct travel services for the leisure and business traveler.
Our companies share identical goals to provide our customers with premier products and concierge level customer service. Dede Grace, Vice President of Rock Star Tours of Las Vegas stated, With tens of millions of leisure and business travelers visiting Las Vegas each year, many looking...
Televisions > Rock Star Tours of Las Vegas Announces Partnership with Showtickets.com and Travelocity to Offer Their Products
DISH Network Satellite TV Receivers - Which One is Best?
DISH Network Satellite TV Receivers
A satellite TV receiver is the electronic box that decodes and sends the satellite signal to your television.
DVR (digital video reorder) satellite TV receivers can also let you record live TV shows, skip through commercials, and pause the show you're watching so you can get a snack or answer the phone.
Here's a review of DISH Network satellite TV receivers:
Free DISH Network Satellite TV Receivers
DISH Network offers two free standard receivers:
* The DISH 311 receiver has one tuner for viewing satellite TV programs on one television.
* The DISH 322 receiver has two tuners for independent TV viewing on two separate televisions.
DISH Network offers one free DVR receiver, the DVR 625, that allows you to:
* Pause and rewind live satellite TV programs
...
Televisions > DISH Network Satellite TV Receivers - Which One is Best?
The Wireless Home
It was only a few years ago that Real Estate agents and Builders were promoting the "Wired" feature as a must have when buying a new home. Wired meant that the home not only had cable running throughout it, but also Cat-5 wire. Cat-5 wire consists of four pairs of wire that are sheathed into one bundle, and is used for interconnecting multiple computers and computer peripherals throughout the home. Electricians went to great length to run Cat-5 throughout new homes, and homebuyers paid a handsome premium for it. Now the latest buzz from the Computer and Networking world is, "UnwireYour Home", as the Computer/Internet world rapidly moves to wireless interconnections.
Most of the leading Personal Computer (PC) providers are major players in this paradigm shift. They are selling new technology from leading networking equipment companies that enable homeowners to wirelessly connect their Personal Computers to their Home Entertainment centers. Through a Wireless Media Adapter, connected...
The Wireless Home
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Televisions
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