WEST LONDON

Bayswater

Residential area lining the north side of Hyde Park, with a damp two or three star hotel on every block. Visitors typically go here to sleep on the cheap, eat on the cheap in one of the many ethnic restaurants, or both.

Notting Hill

Putting the blue door and bookshop of Hugh Grant’s eponymous rom-com aside, Notting Hill is perhaps best known for its riotous annual get-drunk-and-rowdy carnival, and as the location for one of London’s best loved markets – Portobello Road. It’s a well-off area, evidenced in huge Victorian townhouses and boho-chic celebrity residents, who like to shop around Westbourne Grove and Ledbury Road before a spot of brunch at The Electric.

Holland Park

The priciest postcode in the UK, this residential area started life as the extensive grounds of the now derelict Holland House – and boasts Simon Cowell as one of its modern residents. House prices graze the 10 million pound sterling mark, though what remains of the original parkland is open to all, and includes an Orangery, Japanese Garden, playgrounds and sports fields, an open air theatre, and rather impressively, peacocks. At dusk another sort of peacocks come out to strut their stuff in the park’s cruising grounds.

Shepherds Bush

Next to the affluent Holland Park, but noticeably less well off, Shepherds Bush became the focus of big news when Europe’s largest shopping centre – Westfield – opened here in 2008.

Hammersmith

The proximity to Heathrow turns this western enclave into trolley dolly country. Go home with Manuel from Iberia, Bernard from Air France, or Luke from Qantas, and you’re likely to get better acquainted with the hood.