London, The Big Smoke, April 2025
Cool Britannia
The epithet of the city of Paris is La Ville-lumière or the city of light. Rome is called the eternal city. And London?
The Big Smoke, which refers to the post-war era, when you had to cut through smoke and soot to get around Britain’s capital. Now the chimneys are gone, the air is purified, but the name remains. It is not fair. But then again, much isn’t.
One can arguably claim that London is the world’s only metropolis. It was the capital of mankind’s greatest empire, when England ruled the waves. After World War II, it underwent a metamorphosis. From Rule Britannia to Cool Britannia with London as its headquarter.
And London is just as cool as it always was, with an unmatched wealth of culture, music, fashion, design… which is reflected in the outrageous house prices.
You’ve undoubtedly visited London countless times. We had that in mind when we arranged the program.
We hereby invite you to a five-day culture party in London during Easter 2025. From 18th – 22nd April. A feast like no other.
Parnassos ApS is a member of Rejsegarantifonden ↗, the Danish equivalent of ABTA (You can have this confirmed by following this link↗). Just type our company name in the relevant field.
Rejsegarantifonden guarantees your money – independently of where you book your trip – whilst we guarantee your adventures.
We'll Stay at the 5* Hotel The Ned
For our stay, we have chosen a five-star hotel, The Ned. Partly to signal that we emphasize luxury, partly that the hotel shows, if anything, that cool is still London’s regent.
The building, where the hotel is located, was formerly Midland Bank’s headquarters and this explains the photo above.
During the purchasing process, we have added a number of photos from the hotel, which with its seven restaurants in the lobby sets completely new standards for what a luxury hotel should look like today.
All rooms are unique, all rooms as showcases for sophisticated British design.
The hotel represents challenges for us who have arranged this trip. Because we have to come up with events and happenings in the city, that can lure you out of Midland Bank. Below is what we entice.
The Member's Club - No. 1 Lombard Street
The parting shot for our official program is 7 pm. on Friday 18th April 2025.
We would recommend our guests to arrive at the hotel early in the afternoon. Then there is time for acclimatization, and for those who wish, we can go to the hippest part of the city, Hoxton, within walking distance of the hotel, and enjoy a lunch. (this is not included in the price).
Further below, we will write about everything concerning logistics, as flights are purchased separately, to give you as much flexibility as possible.
But otherwise, we are ready at 7 pm. We have rented The Member’s club, No. 1 Lombard Street for our first night.
In order to be there when the door opens, we must leave the hotel at 6.58 pm. It is just across the street from the hotel. We have the place until 11 pm. so in principle you can come and go as you like.
We have invited David Robb, aka Doctor Clarkson, from Downton Abbey, to our evening. (who also, as a very young man, debuted with a role in I, Claudius). He will talk about his life and work. He is a wonderful communicator – and the stories he can tell!
We couldn’t think of a better start to our trip.
Our Own Boat on the Thames
On Saturday morning we will go sailing on the Thames. Londinium, as the ancient Romans called the city founded by the Roman emperor Claudius in the year 43, and for 2,000 years the river was the lifeblood of London.
We have a boat to ourselves, the beautiful Princess Freda, which was built in 1926 and took part in the rescue operation of the British soldiers at Dunkirk in June 1940. Today, the old riverboat has been superbly restored, and from the mahogany bar in the salon as well as on the open top deck we sit in the first row to both historic and modern London, which we glide past on the trip up the river.
We embark at Westminster Pier and immediately see both the center of political and clerical power up close. On one side sits the House of Westminster with Big Ben. On the opposite bank rises the Archbishop of Canterbury’s seat, Lamberth Palace.
On our way, we have a clear view of both cultural, historical and industrial phenomena from the Tate Gallery, James Bond’s ‘second home’, the modernist MI6 complex to the art-deco inspired power station, Battersea Power Station, which was Europe’s largest brick building, when it was completed in 1929.
We pass the places where some of England’s most important artists lived – and live, and follow the route where the annual classic rowing competition between Oxford and Cambridge takes place in March.
After having sailed under 13 bridges, we disembark at Kew Gardens, approximately 10 miles west of Westminster, where we will enjoy a classic lunch at the historic pub, The Bull’s Head, on the Strand-on-the-Green.
Along the River "where angels fear to tread"
No trip with Parnassos.dk is complete without seeking out some of the city’s secrets. Strand-on-the Green is one of London’s best preserved. The short walking path lies directly next to the Thames with as many as three pubs in the low, continuous row of houses that date back to the 16th century. Here you can experience how life along the Thames materialized three or four hundred years ago, and how the water level in the Thames today can vary by 8 meters between high and low tide.
As mentioned, we have our lunch overlooking the river at The Bull’s Head pub, where the coup plotter Oliver Cromwell stayed when he conspired against King Charles I, and later beheaded for the effort in 1649.
And at The City Barge pub, one of the scenes for The Beatles’ 1965 film, Help, was filmed with John, Paul, George and Ringo.
After lunch we’ll drive the short way to Chiswick Mall, where our stroll towards the city continues along the Thames and now in slightly more luxurious surroundings. We are in old Chiswick, where King Charles II had placed his mistress, and 18th-century artists lived with a direct view of the river and inspired the poet Alexander Pope.
In recent days, the actor Vanessa Redgrave and Field Marshal Montgomery have lived here. It was at The Dove pub that King Charles II had his first meeting with his mistress, and it was here that the text of Rule Britannia was written – and Hemingway read his newspaper on a daily basis.
This stretch of the Thames is known for its many sculling clubs – rowing clubs. At the end of the tour, we meet the rowing club, which was initiated by the founder of the legendary The Oxford Dictionary, and became England’s first – and still existing – rowing club for women only.
A Night at the Royal Ballet and Opera House
The cultural highlight of the trip will take place Saturday evening at the Royal Ballet and Opera at Covent Garden.
Giacomo Puccini will provide the entertainment with his opera, Turandot. Sadly, he didn’t complete it before his death in 1924. It was finished by his compatriot, Franco Alfano in 1926.
The opera takes us to China. Prince Calef is in love with the beautiful but cold Princess Turandot. Calef must solve three puzzles to win her hand. If he gets just one of them wrong, it will cost him his life.
The opera house itself is unparalleled. If you haven’t been there before, you can look forward to the impressively large and semi-industrial foyer, where we can enjoy a drink during the break.
The opera starts at 19.30. If we want to, we can choose to have a pre- or post-dinner together. One option is to head to the nearby Theater Royal on Drury Lane before the show, with rather stunning premises. We could go there at 6 pm. This dinner is not included in the price.
Hampstead Village
A mountain village in London? Really? Yes, hard to believe. We are going to Hampstead, which is located on a hilltop overlooking London. It is only 4 miles from Leicester Square, but few people ever venture that far from central London, even though it only takes 16 minutes on the tube. And that’s a shame.
We will make up for it. The Tube station in Hampstead is the deepest in the entire London underground system – 63 meters below street level.
A lift will take us up to the irregular alleys and staircases, where artists, intellectuals and politicians have retreated from the hustle and bustle of the big city for hundreds of years.
In addition to a handful of historic pubs, one can mention names who have lived here, such as the poets Shelly and Keats, the painter John Constable, the writers Robert Louis Stevenson, H.G. Wells, D.H. Lawrence, Agatha Christie, Elias Canetti and Fay Weldon; the actors Michael Palin, Helena Bonham-Carter and Glenda Jackson as well as General Charles de Gaulle, who ruled la France libre from here during the Second World War.
We will take you around Hampstead’s picturesque and historic nooks and crannies and down to the secret village, Vale of Health, hidden deep in the vast natural area of Hampstead Heath. The tour brings us to the following historical gem, where the River Fleet emerges.
The many springs made it a sought-after health resort as early as the 18th century. Following this, it’s time for our Sunday Roast at the historic pub, The Spaniards Inn, which has stood almost untouched since its inauguration in the 17th century, and described in Charles Dickens’ novel The Pickwick Papers.
An Afternoon in London
After the Sunday Roast, it’s time to explore the city on your own. There are no doubt many of you who would want to go down “memory lane” or perhaps you just want to take in the city at your own pace.
One suggestion we could make is to walk along the south side of The Thames, from Westminster Bridge to Tower Bridge and on towards the exclusive Shad Thames district, where, among others, Sir Terrance Conran lived.
Here you will also come across the newest entrant, The Shard, Western Europe’s tallest building, or tallest vertical city, as it prefers to be referred to. The Shard is located in London’s Southwark district south of the Thames, and was built over a ten-year period before the official opening in July 2012.
The contractor, Irvine Sellar, who financed the building with his own money, had a vision of a building where “people should be able to work, live, visit and enjoy themselves”. He got the Italian architect Renzo Piano (known for, among other things, the Pompidou Center in Paris) to design the tower, which ended up being Western Europe’s tallest building at 310 meters and with viewing platforms 244 meters up.
During clear weather, you’ll have a view that extends 35 miles. The building contains offices, residences, a hotel, restaurants and bars.
Eight slanted facades with 11,000 glass panels, reminiscent of shards, form the tower’s characteristic shape and provide special light reflections throughout the day. Fortunately, there are lifts to the floors, no less than 36, and they run at a speed of 6 meters per second, which corresponds to more than 130 miles per hour.
Guest Speaker and Gala Dinner
After we have had our afternoon to ourselves, it’s time to further explore the city. We have found just the right restaurant for our signature dinner – which is always an important ingredient for any of our trips.
It will be revealed during the trip. The dinner is included as well as the first drink. Wines hereafter are between you and the waiter.
Jesper Steinmetz, journalist and foreign correspondent for the Danish Television TV2 (A Danish equivalent to the British ITV) and resident in London, will drop by for our dinner on Sunday evening, where he will be our guest speaker.
A speech with emphasis on English political and social conditions. With the proviso that his profession may send him to one of the world’s hotspots.
The Interpretation of Dreams
When the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, fled, like many other Jewish intellectuals, to London, where Freud lived and resumed his practice.
Today, his house in North London is a museum with his original divan, which he had received from a patient as early as 1890 and brought with him from Vienna to London together with his other belongings. Here we will experience both his workroom and treatment room as they stood while he was alive.
Parnassos.dk has exclusive access to the museum Monday, so we undisturbed can explore Sigmund’s universe, lie on a faithful copy of the divan where the patients lay during psychoanalysis.
During our visit, we will get an hour’s introduction to Freud’s dream interpretations, given by one of the museum’s Freud experts. A speech by an expert should always be followed by wine and canapés. A table downstairs awaits us.
In the Company of Dracula and Karl Marx
The descriptions of occult rituals, grave desecration, Satanism and illegally exhumed corpses are countless when it comes to Highgate Cemetery. No wonder the cemetery inspired Bram Stoker for his cult novel Dracula.
Today, it is known for being Karl Marx’s final resting place with the gigantic bust of the author of Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto.
With its multitude of Gothic monuments, exotic catacombs and pockets of wild nature, we are back in the London of Queen Victoria and Sherlock Holmes.
Parnassos.dk has arranged a special guided tour of one of the world’s best-known and most atmospheric cemeteries. It’s mystery and history is on the top shelf – and if we come across a couple of proper ghosts, there’s no reason to be alarmed. They are a completely natural phenomena, deeply embedded in the English folk soul.
After the cemetery visit, we will enjoy our lunch at The Flask pub in the middle of the historic Highgate Village, where both the violin virtuoso Yehudi Menuhin and the old poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who coined the words bisexual, dynamic and soulmate, were regulars.
It was also here that the first illegal autopsies, according to tradition, were carried out on corpses dug up in the nearby cemetery. (This, insists the owner, has now ceased).
In the exclusive, old row of houses directly opposite lived Coleridge, whose missing coffin was found a few years ago in an old wine cellar under the local church. His house was later taken over by the supermodel Kate Moss.
It doesn’t get much better than this.
Very British Manners According to William Hanson
The English must suffer a whole lot from us bloody foreigners. Their language is abused on a daily basis – something we probably can’t quite fathom. They have to constantly suffer from reading and listening to their language in all levels of use and abuse. Poor souls.
And then there is English etiquette, this subtle phenomenon, which means that we don’t even know when we are embarrassing ourselves. We intend to make up for that.
To avoid wandering around like another Borat, we’ve invited England’s leading etiquette expert, William Hanson, to give us a lecture on how to behave in the company of English people, at least the posh type.
William Hanson, which you with great pleasure can follow on Instagram, is frequently used by the city’s many embassies, so their employees know what the protocol is in fine English bourgeois society.
He is entertaining and charming and afterwards we all know how to conduct ourselves when in the company of the British Establishment.
The Eastenders
Originally, the City of London or the Square Mile was the center of the English capital. This is where the Romans founded their Londinium 2000 years ago.
For the past several hundred years it has been the center of the British banking and financial world, and this is where we will be staying during our London trip.
Just outside the city walls, you’ll find London’s East End district of Spitalfields, which was originally a training ground for Henry VIII’s artillery and has since been known as a hard-core working-class district.
Today, the East End is particularly known for its markets and mixed population groups. We will visit the area Tuesday morning. For centuries Spitalfields in particular has been an area where people fleeing to London from political and religious persecution in continental Europe first settled. In other words, an immigrant quarter. In the 17th century, the first French Huguenots, protestants banned in France, settled here and founded their churches.
In the 19th century came a new wave of immigration consisting of Jewish immigrants fleeing pogroms and persecution.
By that time our French Protestants had moved up the social ladder and moved to other and more affluent quarters of the city. Instead of building from scratch, the Jewish population took over the protestant churches and transformed them into synagogues. Around year 1900 there were about 200 synagogues in East End, and one of the largest congregations were in the narrow alley, Sandy’s Row, where the church had already become a synagogue in 1854.
Today, only a few synagogues remain in the East End. Many of them have been taken over by a new wave of immigration, particularly Bengalis from the former East Pakistan, who came to London and the East End in the 1960s and 70s.
But Sandy’s Row Synagogue still exists and the imprint of Jewish immigrants on Spitalfields and the East End is still evident. For example, there are two 24/7 bagel shops in the middle of the many Bengali curry houses in the legendary Brick Lane, the oldest dates back to 1855.
On Tuesday morning, Parnasso’s guests have been invited inside the historic Sandys Row Synagogue, followed by a promenade with a local guide around the Jewish East End, where the immigrant groups and their localities mix peacefully with hipsters and smart business types from the City.
Poul Arnedal
The journalist, Poul Arnedal ↗ has a very long career behind him. He is a portrait editor of the Danish media outlet POV and a writer.
We have known each other for several decades. We are as different as the sun and the moon. It has proven to be a constellation that can create terrific cultural celebrations.
And the trip to London is one we have particularly looked forward to. I have lived in London most of my adult life and Poul, by virtue of his professions has done countless interviews in the city. I asked him if he could make a list of his “victims”. I really had to cut deep to settle for the list below:
Inspector Morse, (John Thaw), Vivienne Westwood, (designer) Samantha Bond (Aunt in ‘Downton Abbey’), David Suchet (Hercule Poirot), John Galliano (Designer), Michael Palin in his home and Bianca Jagger.
Gordon Kaye, starring in ‘Allo ‘Allo! and a long interview with author Fay Weldon. Plus backstage conversations with Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista during London Fashion Week.
Just before the publication of this article, Poul wrote, and then I remember that I did an interview with Helen Mirren in a café on King’s Road.
The above is jealousy-inducing. In addition to the interview itself, there is always small talk – Inspector Morse in particular was in no hurry – and this way you get a rare good understanding of the city’s soul.
Anecdotes follow on our guided tours, I promise!
The Tube - and the Flight Tickets
The Londoners have the following expression, you take a taxi if you’ve got the time and the money.
With a taxi, and also a bus, we risk not getting anywhere, and certainly not during Easter. So, we have chosen not to spend any of our budget on something that will waste our time. The way forward, without good counter-arguments really, is The Tube. We are two guides who can coordinate everything from A to B. This way, we will move seamlessly from place to place in no time.
It is an expense that is not included in the price, as it will be far too difficult to manage accounts-wise.
You simply use your credit card, and the card is never charged more than around £ 8 a day – regardless of how much we use the London Underground.
And then we arrive at the last point. As usual, we do not offer flight tickets. You choose your flight and airport so it fits your plans. Some prefer to fly early in the morning, others want to extend their stay and so on.
A few suggestions: If arriving at Stansted Airport you can go directly to Liverpool Street Station, which is within walking distance of the hotel. Gatwick airport is the second-best option, while Heathrow is at the far end of our hotel.
Please call or write if you have any doubts or questions about this. And, of course, we are happy to meet you at Liverpool Street Station, if that is something you would appreciate.
And if you want to extend your stay?
About half of our guests want to extend their stay beyond the official program. Since you’re in the city anyway, why not stay a little longer?
Via the purchasing process, you can extend your stay with one night at our hotel. Hotel The Ned has promised to give those of you, who want to stay the night between April 22nd – 23rd at the same price as we pay for the other days. The price for a double room is DKK 2,400 (£ 275) for the extra night. Any other night will be at the ordinary rate, which is at least 50% more expensive.
Is breakfast included? Both yes and no. Via us you can buy additional food vouchers for £15/voucher per day, which can be converted to a £26 daily spend for breakfast in any of the hotel’s seven restaurants.
Unfortunately, you have to choose between buying coupons for all days or none of them. But the coupon is good value for money. Your choice.
Erik and Poul's After Party
It’s has become a bit of a tradition for us to offer an after party for those of our guests who choose to stay an extra night after the official program.
We have opened the door to The Shoreditch Art Club, and their wonderfully hip restaurant, on Tuesday 22nd April.
You are welcome to add this additional dinner during the purchase process.
The price is set at DKK 600/person and goes 100% to the dishes on the menu. The wine list is something we leave safely to you and the waiter.
Of course, you can also simply choose to enjoy London on your own.
We hope that these events have tempted you and that we will see you among our group of approximately 40 guests.
London’s Calling.
Best regards,
Erik Bach Christophersen
And our Purpose is?
We want to create exclusive experiences – without excluding anyone.
Granted, our tours are not among the cheapest, but they are still accessible to most of those who walk in the footsteps of Hans Christian Andersen, the Danish poet who once said, ‘to travel is to live’.
The ‘trick’ is to be larger than small groups. We’re talking about around 40 people. Being many has its own dynamic. And a larger budget allows us to offer truly unique adventures, that surely will be beyond most of us if we acted on our own.
Our purpose is to tear us away from our day to day lives, to ensure that when you are back home again, you will ask yourself, ‘did I really experience what I think I experienced’?
What Exactly do you get for your 13,000 dkk? (aprox € 1,750)
- Four nights at the 5* Hotel the Ned.
- Canapées and welcome drinks Friday night.
- Pub lunch Saturday.
- Concert ticket Saturday night. Sunday Roast.
- Signature Dinner Sunday night.
- Pub lunch Monday .
- Canapées and wine at Sigmund Freud’s House.
- Canapées and drinks at the William Hansons event.
- Entrance to Highgate Hill, ferry on the Thames and guided tours are all included.
- Breakfast: You can purchase 4 coupons of £ 15, that gives you £ 4 * 26 to spend in any of The Ned’s seven restaurants.
- Wines etc at restaurants we leave to you and the waiter.
Please Note:
The amount only covers the stay and experiences in London and does not include the flight.
This is, as mentioned, to give you the greatest possible flexibility, such as when you fly during the day and from where. Maybe you also want to extend your stay.
If the trip is canceled – regardless of the reason – we will compensate your flight ticket of up to £ 150/person.
