Most magical places in London? Feeling so depressed to be back. Help me find some joy and wonder!

[Bionacan]

All that in the title really…

Hampstead Ladies’ Pond is my most magical London space.

Please give me some others and stop me from feeling gutted to be back (was living abroad in my favourite country but had to return for family reasons).

Columbia Rd Flower Market on a Sunday morning. Go early, coffee from one of the independent shops or vans, lovely stalls, little shops.

Down to Spitalfields, drink in the Golden Heart in Commercial St, a proper ‘local’ featuring artwork by the artists who drank there, wander through Spitalfields or Brick Lane.

Haven't read the full thread so it may have been mentioned, but The Dalston Curve Garden is a little piece of heaven in a very unlikely setting. You can see a play at the fabulous Arcola Theatre while you're there too.

Dim Sum in Chinatown, wander round the little shops in Soho / bookshops on Charing Cross road, then the British Museum

St Pancras old church gardens to see the little stone marking where Mary Wollstonecraft was buried. Be sure to go into the stunningly beautiful tiny little church next to it. Easy walk from St Pancras or King’s Cross stations. Bunhill Fields for a tiny historical graveyard, then a wander through the beautiful Barbican estate.

There are really lovely little community gardens all over the place in London- even really centrally like in the west end- Phoenix Garden, in Angel, Culpeper Garden. Just tiny little scraps of green space but so beautiful and sustaining.

Museum of The Home https://www.museumofthehome.org.uk/
The fascinating Rooms Through Time and Gardens Through Time. Lunch in one of the many nearby Vietnamese cafes, maybe a stroll round Hoxton or Shoreditch.

Probably the Houses of Parliament.

Everybody there is completely detached from from reality and live in a protected world with subsidised housing, travel, lunches and bars.

Note: there aren't any Unicorns though, so to be fair it's not completely magical.

Get some friends together and go bowling to All Star Lanes, Holborn. Glamorous retro bowling lanes with a sort of speakeasy atmosphere. Cocktails.

Go to a show in the wonderful Wilton’s Music Hall theatre

I love Hyde Park/St James Park etc and The National Portrait Gallery

Primrose hill
Walpole park in Ealing and mooching around the shops after

The Rookery on Streatham common.

Go to the Prince of Wales in Cleaver Sq on a warm night and play petanque with randoms in the middle of a glorious Georgian Sq.

The Seven Stars pub in Carey st. A higglet liggeldy pre 1666 pub behind the law courts. Frequented by lawyers, local characters and a great cat.

The swimming lake at Beckenham Place Park - glorious in the summer.

Bradleys Spanish Bar on Hanway st - proper old Soho with a great jukebox.

Sit upstairs at the French House on Dean street in a warm evening with a glass of wine, watching Soho parade by.

Mudlarking at South Bank ctre at low tide

St Bartholomew the Great near Charterhouse Sq

Have a French fruit tart or eclair from Maisonette Bertaux while you’re in Soho!

Southbank on summer evenings - there are usually free music events as well as people just mooching around enjoying the evening.

Central London on Marathon day. Everyone ia so happy and proud, the enthusiasm is infectious.

A stroll around Borough Market and then onto the river and up to the Tate

& a mooch Portobello Road on a sunny Friday

The Jubilee Greenway is a series of walks around London starting from Buckingham Palace and takes in a lot of what has been mentioned

If you pass Paddington station, especially when it’s dark, look for the “man in the clock” just beside the Elizabeth line entrance

https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/walking/jubilee-greenway

In September, I dropped my son off to university in London with great intrepidation. We live in a small village in rural France and he is my eldest and very young. I was apprehensive. I started my day with a swim at the Ladies Pond then danced at the Hampstead Heath Tumulus which feels like a powerful place, and then admired the impressive view from Parliment hill. I met my son under the wings in Angel after picking up some essentials from Argos, where some lovely women looked after my parcels while I got a coffee and then chatted to another beautiful traveller who told me about her travels in South America. I had been browsing independent book shops and picked some paperbacks which were covered in brown paper, with descriptions on them and labeleed 'A blind date with a book'.. my son LOVED his.. Later we were standing outside a bank, where a man was playing music and getting a bit of a buzz around him, when we came out the man was cutting a homeless man's hair. Later outside a mobile phone shop, a youngish woman was talking to a middle aged woman about a homeless support shelter that would help her.

It was like the city was telling me... your son will be safe here.. this is a place of magic, of opportunity and of community where people will be taken care of.

Thats absolutely lovely ChateauMargaux

The Isabella Plantation in Richmond Park, when all the masses of azaleas are out (any time now) is utterly breathtaking.

I love walking around the city of London especially the part around Farringdon, Charterhouse, Hatton Garden and the postal museum.

When I need a quick pick me up I go to the British Library and visit the treasures.

Jane Austen’s hand written notebook, Beatles lyrics scrawled on scrap paper, Magna Carta… it never fails to delight me.