Accommodation Options for the London Olympics: Which style suits you?

Kick Back like the Queen

When one is in London, darling, one should procure an appropriate residence. Park your corgis on the silk scatter cushions and order a banquet of cucumber butties from your butler. Five star hotels in London may require you to martyr the contents of your wallet, but if you’re sleeping soundly in a four poster bed after a luxury spa treatment, who cares?

Buckingham Palace / Photo licensed under the Creative Commons, created by OwenXu

Hotel 41, on Buckingham Palace Road no less, is a fabulous choice. Sew some pearl buttons onto your cardie, attach a feather to your bonnet and you’ll fit right in.

Rock and Roll

Not sure you’ll get away with smashing TVs or guitars at the Pavilion Fashion Rock ‘n’ Roll Hotel (believe me, even if you only smash the remote they won’t let you back in again) but I’m sure you’ll want to lounge over velvet upholstery and play air guitar to yourself in front of an extravagant gold mirror. These things can all be done, my friend, at the Pavillion Fashion Rock ‘n’ Roll Hotel. You can also even choose your own musical theme.

Book the ‘Honky Tonk Afro’ suite, perhaps, or go all mystical in the ‘Enter the Dragon’ room.

And the best thing about all this? You’ll actually be able to afford the hotel, even on a musician’s wage, you can get a double room for £100 a night, done!

Bohemian Boat Adventure

Hipsters and bohemian lovelies across the capital will no doubt feel that the Olympics, quite frankly, is a little passé. Take your hamper of lightly salted rice cakes, almond milk, and whiskey, and head out to West London where you can get away from all the hype of the games.

Why not rent a house boat on the Thames? The Bush Houseboat, moored near Kew Gardens, is fully kitted out and essentially a floating flat. Hug trees and take bark rubbings in Kew Gardens, write some poetry about the passing swans or star gaze with your loving companion on the roof of the boat ; allow the Olympics to completely pass you by.

London canal houseboats / aaron.bihari

Miss Scarlet, in the Hostel, with the walking boot

Hostel dorms don’t need to look like something out of Escape from Alcatraz, and there are plenty of London hostels with style, class and quirk that will still save you money. Palmers Lodge in Swiss Cottage looks rather like the setting for an Agatha Christie novel:  Grand staircases, high ceilings and lots of red drapes. Time to perch on a pew to sip your martini at the chapel bar and get your free breakfast.

City Slicking, Local Style

Book yourself a Thames side apartment to live like London’s sexy city slickers for a couple of weeks. With apartments for rent on numerous websites you can have a whole place to yourself and cook exactly what you like. You’ll be able to enjoy your own Thames balcony whilst breakfasting on coffee and cigarettes and in the evening, you’ll be just a short walk from London’s trendiest clubs.

These are my picks of the day, but if you’ve got any other suggestions about styles of accommodation in London, get in touch and I’ll test them out for myself!

Sophie McGovern writes for Hotelopia, an online hotel booking system with hundreds of hotels in central London. When not writing, she can be found scouring the streets of the capital for interesting places, fabulous hotels and the best cakes.

Tags: buckingham palace, buckingham palace road, butties, cardie, darling one, dragon room, enter the dragon, five star hotels, gold mirror, hug trees, kew gardens, pavilion fashion, rice cakes, scatter cushions, velvet upholstery

Category: Travel Tips, United Kingdom