Saturday, October 17, 2009

London Shopping Vacations

By Karl Fraser

London is the capital city of England and the most popular vacation destination in the whole of the United Kingdom. Most tourists flock to the city to see the famous sights and, hopefully, catch a glimpse of the Queen or any of the other members of the British Royal Family. Many folk travel to London to indulge in shopping.

London is one of the main three cities of the world associated with serious shopping, the others being Paris and New York. Check any bottle of perfume and the city is bound to appear somewhere on the packaging and usually on the bottle itself. Virtually every company involved in the retail trade has it's UK flagship store in one of the primary shopping districts of London.

Whatever you want London will have it. Grouped together in places such as New Bond Street, Knightsbridge, Oxford Street etc., you will find all manner of designer shops, fashion shops and boutiques, department stores, bookshops, music shops, jewellery shops and virtually any type of retail outlet you can imagine.

Oxford Street And Knightsbridge

This is where you will find many of the nations flagship department stores. Oxford street has the likes of Selfridges and Knightsbridge has the famous Harrods and also Harvey Nichols. Oxford Street is said to be the busiest shopping street in Europe.

Bond Street

Armani, Gucci and virtually any luxury brand can be found on Bond Street. Associated with designer clothing, perfume; art, antiques and other items of luxury Bond Street has the biggest number of suppliers the Royal Family than anywhere else in London.

Covent Garden

If you are looking for fashion shops and boutiques but cannot afford the expensive items on sale on Bond Street then Covent Garden may be more to your liking. You will find many small independent fashion shops here as well as a fine selection of shoe shops.

Other Places In London To Go Shopping

As well as Covent Garden, Carnaby Street is also great for buying fashionable items of clothing. Savile Row and Jermyn Street are also associated with clothing but more the old fashioned tailor type outlet. If you are looking for bookshops then the Charing Cross Road (and Covent Garden) is hard to beat. Hatton Garden, near Farringdon, is where to find long established jewellers.

You could write a book on the places to go shopping in London, and I suppose there are many to choose from. If you want to go looking for more places to visit take a look at the many London markets.

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