Recently in London Category

For an explosion of music, dance, pageantry, and so much more, start making your way to West London. That's where, from August 29-30, 2010, the annual Notting Hill Carnival takes place, filling the streets with 20 miles of vibrant, colorful costumes in the celebration of all things Caribbean. The festival goes back to 1966, when Notting Hill residents of West Indian ancestry organized a small gathering to share their cultural traditions with their neighbors. It has grown exponentially over the ensuing decades, and today is the largest street festival in Europe, welcoming more than a million revelers from all walks of life. This year's festival promises to be one of the biggest ever, and if you plan on checking it out, you'd better bring your appetite. With hundreds of Caribbean food stalls, you'll eat your fill of jerk chicken and conch fritters before you know it. But you'll need the fuel to shake your stuff along with a sea of costumed dancers, whose intricate headdresses, jewelry, and body painting signify traditions from Trinidad, Tobago, and all across the West Indies. Music is at the heart of the festival, and you'll groove to calypso, soca, steel pan, samba, reggae, jazz, hip-hop, and more. Before long, you'll be infused with the island spirit that pervades this little patch of the Caribbean in England. Starwood has hotels throughout London, including the Sheraton Park Tower, London.

Grace Kelly epitomized 1950s glamour. As one of Hollywood's most legendary silver screen sirens and one of Europe's most beloved princesses, she had one heck of a wardrobe - a fact most of us know from the movies she's starred in and the numerous magazine covers she's graced. To see those ravishing frocks up close in person would surely be a fashion lovers dream come true. Here's the chance we've all been waiting for. "Grace Kelly: Style Icon" features the outfits she wore as both a "Hitchcock blonde" and in her post-movie star days as Princess Grace of Monaco.

The exhibition, which runs through September 26, 2010 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, traces the evolution of Grace Kelly's style from Hollywood icon to European royalty. A quick walk down fashionable Brompton Road from the Sheraton Park Tower, London, the exhibition includes the dresses she wore in classic films like High Society and Rear Window, the lacy suit she donned for the civil ceremony of her marriage to Prince Rainier, and the gown Edith Head designed for her to wear to the 1955 Academy Awards (she won the Oscar for best actress in The Country Girl). Get lost in the swirl of Balenciaga, Dior, Givenchy, and Yves St Laurent gowns she wore in the 1960s and 1970s as one of Europe's most beloved princesses. And be sure to take a look at Hermes' original Kelly bag.

The green grass courts of the All England Lawn Tennis Club will provide a dramatic stage for the world's best players this summer as the 2010 Wimbledon Championships get underway. The tournament - one of four annual Grand Slam events - is widely considered the most prestigious tennis event of the year, drawing hordes of enthusiastic fans who don their finest outfits for the matches and related parties. There's been no shortage of drama in the 133-year history of the games, from Spencer Gore's initial victory in 1877 to Bjorn Borg's five consecutive wins in the 1970's to the current reign of Roger Federer and Venus and Serena Williams, whose aggressive style and pinpoint accuracy have electrified spectators around the world. This year's tournament begins on the summer solstice, June 21, with 128 players battling in the singles events, 64 pairs in the doubles events, and 48 pairs in the mixed doubles matches. The ranks are winnowed down over the following two weeks, leading up to the final championships on July 4, 2010. And while you're likely to see familiar faces battling in center court, there's always the chance for a major upset, as the tournament has seen more than a few relative unknowns emerge from obscurity to earn their moment of tennis glory. Wimbledon is just 30 minutes from central London, home of Le Méridien Piccadilly and five other Starwood properties.