The West End is the name given to the central shopping and entertainment part of London, it is packed full of shops, bars, restaurants, night clubs and is busy 24 hours a day.

You can reach it by a number of different London Underground stations, Covent Garden in the east or Oxford Street or Marble Arch in the west.

Access its more central parts, such as Soho and Chinatown, by getting off the tube at Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square or Tottenham Court Road.

Each little part of the West End is famous for different things. What you want to do will decide which part of the West End you visit first. So, here is a description of each part of the West End to help you choose, have fun!

Oxford Street

Oxford Street is a world famous shopping destination attracting 200 million people each year. It’s loud, busy and full of character.

This is where you will find all the best known brands in music and fashion, along with some of London’s biggest department stores, including Selfridges, House of Fraser, DH Evans and Debenhams.

If you want to walk the whole street, take the tube to Marble Arch and you can walk east all the way along to Tottenham Court Road Station, approximately 2.5 kilometres (1.5 miles).

Alternatively, take the tube to Oxford Circus which will bring you out right in the middle of Oxford Street.

This is Europe’s busiest shopping area, and you will find that most of the 300 shops are very well known global brands - Huge HMV music stores, H&M, Zara – basically all the shops you get in every other global city, just much bigger, louder and better.

So if you love all the trappings of modern mass-consumerism then this is for you. The number of T-shirts, shoes, handbags, hats, belts, bras and knickers that get sold each year along this street is enough to cover a small country.

Shops finally close at 7 pm, except Thursdays when they close at 8 pm and Sunday when they shut at 6 pm.

Alternatively...

If you find the bright lights of Oxford Street just a bit too tacky then, about half-way down, turn off into New Bond Street.

This street runs down towards Old Bond Street and Saville Row and houses some of the finest and most exclusive shops in the world.

Armani, Gucci, Manolo Blahnik, Prada and many others all jostle for position amongst some of the finest old buildings in central London. This remains, and has always been, one of the wealthiest parts of town so it is worth a look just out of curiosity.

Saville Row, for example, is filled with tailors who still make bespoke suits in the same traditional way that they have been for hundreds of years. Walking along this street it is impossible not to get a sense of history as it remains almost frozen in time.

Amongst the beautiful buildings and shops you will also find the odd pub. Many of these still retain their old oak panelled rooms and low beamed ceilings and must be stopped in for a pint of beer.

Many also keep relics from their historical past, such as old wooden signs advertising hourly room rates, either with or without female company, or notices of public hangings due to take place at what was then known as Tyburn, near Marble Arch.

Coming out of Old Bond Street you will find yourself by Green Park tube station, opposite the Ritz Hotel and Fortnum and Masons, both are worth visiting just to soak up the ancient English atmosphere of wealth and privilege. The whole area is saturated in Britain’s mercantile history and stands as testament to the vast riches that were generated by the country’s expanding global empire.

Head straight over the road and into Green Park towards Buckingham Palace or turn left onto Piccadilly and head back towards the West End, passing The Royal Academy of Arts along the way. 

Piccadilly Circus

When you get to the end of Piccadilly you reach Piccadilly Circus, one of London’s most famous and iconic images. The area is dominated by Albert Gilbert’s Eros statue and all of those neon-light advertising boards Hollywood uses every time they want to portray London.

Piccadilly Circus is the West End’s central junction, from here you can head off in lots of different directions. Regent’s Street, Carnaby Street, Leicester Square, Shaftesbury Avenue, Soho and Chinatown are all nearby.

Regent’s Street is really beautiful to look at but there isn’t that much to do there, apart from visiting Hamleys, the famous London toyshop, which is really good fun no matter how old you are.

It also takes you towards Carnaby Street which, although not the fashionable global centre that it was back in the 1960s, is still a lovely old London street with some unique and individual boutique clothes shops.

Leicester Square

Leicester Square is accessible from Piccadilly Circus by walking up Coventry Street; it is full of tourists and expensive shops and restaurants. There are some nightclubs here too, but they are very expensive and have strict entrance policies, so if you are going out to party make sure that you are dressed well and have plenty of cash.

The best thing to see in Leicester Square is the Odeon Cinema. It is Britain’s biggest and best cinema and the scene of many famous film premieres. If you are here when one is happening you can join the thousands of movie fans waiting anxiously for a glimpse of their favourite Hollywood idol or member of the Royal Family.

But if no film premier is scheduled then just taking the time to see a film here is a very rewarding experience. The 1930s art deco interior of this cinema is one of the most luxurious and beautiful in the world, and the audio and visual quality is so high that it makes the experience of watching a good film here simply too good to miss.

Shaftesbury Avenue - Theatre land

The Lyric, Appollo, Gielgud and Queen’s, Palace and, finally, the Shaftesbury theatres are all found along this long avenue stretching from Piccadilly Circus to New Oxford Street, showing plays and musicals. There are many more located off of Shaftesbury Avenue and around Charing Cross Road.

It’s worth visiting some of the pubs around here, especially on the junction of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road. The Coach and Horses has traditionally been a place where the theatres’ troops of actors go for a drink between performances and usually has a pretty lively thespian atmosphere. Meanwhile over at The Spice of Life, next-door, there is a great little live music venue in its basement showcasing London’s undiscovered musical talent.

Soho

Just behind the junction of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road you will find a street (Old Compton Street) leading you into Soho, the fashionable gay quarter of London.

Historically this little clutch of streets behind Shaftesbury Avenue was known as the seedy underbelly of London, a place of prostitution and penniless poets. From the late 19th Century until the 1930s the pubs and cheap eating houses were full of intellectuals, artists and musicians. Oscar Wilde, Karl Marx and Dylan Thomas all frequented this area at different times throughout the period.

But the sex industry was always the principal part of Soho’s economy and strip clubs, sex shops and ‘massage’ parlours were the main features of life for over 200 years. A few token ones remain today.

But in 2008 modern Soho is considerably different.  At street level the area is full of fashionable bars, restaurants and cafes while in the rooms above, the entire area has been converted into offices for the UK media and film industries that have their homes here.

Many of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters are worked on in the editing suites of Soho, while all the time the streets below play host to thousands of people eating, drinking and shopping. This is quite a place to visit if you want a good night out.

Soho remains an important part of London’s gay community and there are many gay clubs and bars to be found here, along with clothes shops, book and film shops and finally some truly excellent record shops selling authentic vinyl to music junkies from around the world.

This is also the home of Ronnie Scott’s, London’s famous Jazz club. The biggest names in music have graced the stage here over the years, as documented by the 100s of black and white photographs on the surrounding walls. Music fans from all over the world head to Ronnie Scott’s when they are in London, making it one of the most iconic music venues in the world today.

Chinatown

Chinatown sits just between Soho and Leicester Square, its 100s of small restaurants acting as magnets for the millions of tourists who visit this area each year.

Having a Chinese meal here is a bit of a gamble, some restaurants are truly excellent and others less so. The trouble is, with so many different ones to choose from it’s hard to make the right choice. But Chinatown’s charm is its unpredictability, and any visit to the West End without having a look around this vibrant and fun part of London is an opportunity missed.

Head back out east onto Charing Cross Road and you will be moving in the right direction towards Covent Garden. However, before you do, musicians amongst you might like to know about a place just off of Charing Cross Road called Denmark Street.

This little street is known locally as ‘tin pan alley’ and is the home of London’s music shops. You will find the whole street full of small independent retailers selling everything from harmonicas to multi-track recording studios including hundreds of beautiful guitars.

At the far end of the street you’ll find a small alley leading up to the 12 Bar Club, a small music venue catering for earthy blues, folk and roots fans. Well worth a visit.

Covent Garden

Walking up from Leicester Square tube station is the best way to approach Covent Garden as this will take you along Long Acre and its many boutique clothes shops.

The area known as Covent Garden actually includes the surrounding areas of Neal’s Street and the Seven Dials area, but most people assume that Covent Garden is actually just the Covent Garden Piazza, what was once Covent Garden Market, Britain’s most important fruit and flower market.

Today the area is a vibrant bustling shopping and entertainment area with stalls selling novelty items and shops offering everything from handmade sweets to traditionally made wooden toys.

The pedestrianised cobbled streets are covered in tables and chairs with waiters bringing food and drinks to the many thousands of people who insist on dining al fresco whatever the weather.

In front of the piazza you will see the Covent Garden church, officially called St. Pauls but known to most Londoners as the ‘actors church’. The steps in front of the church become a stage for the areas many buskers who come to Covent Garden each day to perform to the tourists who flock the streets.

You will find these street performers to all be of a very high standard. This is because they are required to obtain a licence from Covent Garden Authority if you wish to perform as a busker in and around the Piazza. Unfortunately the days of seeing two drunken punk-rockers trying to play Sex Pistols’ songs through a broken amplifier are over, much to the bitter disappointment of most real Londoners.

Just to the east of the Covent Garden Piazza is the Royal Opera House, a fantastic building and scene of many a great performance by some of the world’s leading opera singers and home of the Royal Ballet, The Royal Opera and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House.

Across Long Acre, on the other side of the road, you can head down into the Neal’s Yard and Seven Dials area.

These narrow streets are home to many interesting and individual shops, and home of Neal’s Yard Remedies and various cheese shops.

There are also some very interesting bars and pubs in this area, the perfect time to stop for a rest and to admire the Seven Dials Sundial Pillar, in the small square where all the roads converge, once one of the most notorious and dangerous slums in London, now this is just another vibrant addition to central London's endless list of unique places.