#ritz london

[guy60660]

Rivoli Bar | Ritz London

[mrs-trophy-wife]

[dilaaminspo]

[ktkellart]

Good Omens London Trip 🐍💞🪽

It's my Birthday today and I treated myself to a trip to London last weekend to see my favourite actor Michael Sheen in Nye at the National Theatre. I made the most of my weekend by combining it with a Good Omens filming location self-tour and I'd love to share it with you all. So, are you ready for the tour?

Here we go!

Starting off with Soho, and the inspiration for Whickber Street, where Aziraphale's bookshop, Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death, The Small Back Room, and the Dirty Donkey are located.

It’s Berwick Street and a record shop that is very similar in shape to A.Z Fell & Co. Bonus points for spotting Duck Lane!

Next is Berkeley Square, a short walk from Soho. The first two photos are of the real Berkeley Square gardens in Mayfair, and the last two photos were taken in the filming location of Tavistock Square across the other side of central London near Kings Cross. I’m sitting on their ‘body swap’ bench in the last photo!

As you can see, the benches are turned around facing inwards now but are the other way, facing outwards in Good Omens.

Oh, and I can confirm that there were no nightingales singing in either location 😭

Heading up the road a few minutes from Tavistock Square to The Enterprise pub where I met a fellow fan who kindly took photos of me posing (I bet the staff thought we were off our rockers!). This is where Crowley drowns his sorrows in Talisker Whisky whilst waiting for the world to end after thinking he'd lost Aziraphale. Omg that poor poor demon, he was really just gonna die along with the world.

Also, one of my favourite moments of season 1 is Crolwey's line: "I heard that. It was the wiggle-on..." then shrugs. 😆 So many emotions in such short a time.

Onto the Ritz. The first two photos are of the real Ritz (a stone's throw from Berkeley Square) and the last one is inside Masala Zone in Piccadilly Circus where the ‘Quite extraordinary amounts of alcohol’ and ‘To the World’ scenes were filmed.

I ate in here alone to get the photo and was so lucky with the table I was given! Perfect discreet snap whilst eating my curry! Haha!

Next up is Battersea Park and the Bandstand. It was a bit of a faff to get there, it's an 8-minute walk from the Battersea Power Station underground and we walked the full length of the park to find the Bandstand, but it was so worth it.

Also filmed here was Gabriel and Aziraphale’s run/jog. Poor Angel is soft scene.

The trees were a little leafier with it being mid-May and the park was very busy because the weather was glorious. They also have a beautiful lake here with herons!

The Heaven & Hell staircase escalators are right over the east side of London in Broadgate Tower, Bishopsgate. I got the overground to Liverpool Street station to get there. It is in a private business building so I politely/awkwardly asked the receptionist if I could take a photo and had to explain about the scene from Good Omens… eek! But he kindly let me snap a photo anyway! (Phew)

The Windmill Theatre was three minutes away from my hotel in Piccadilly Circus, so I wandered up the road to take a photo of where Aziraphale ‘performed on the West End stage’ as Fell the Marvelous. And wasn’t he just?

The scenes weren't filmed here but it was fun to find it anyway.

St James’s Park is up next! I sat on their bench and got my friend to take photos of me posing and had fun editing the first photo. Haha! We enjoyed walking through the park, watching the ducks on the lake and had a nosey at Buckingham Palace while we were there.

The Duke of York Statue steps are at the other end of St James's Park and were fun to walk up. I smiled to myself as I thought of the scene where Crowley says ‘Well let's have lunch? Hmm,’ and Aziraphale turns around, as it was the first time I realised that these two were more than just friends.

Heaven’s top floor, the Sky Garden in Fenchurch Street near Monument is a very tall building with a botanical garden on the top floor. You can visit the sky garden for free, but you do need to book in advance so it’s best to plan ahead for this one. The views of London are breathtaking from the 35th floor and the tropical plants are fun.

My last stop for this visit was Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. I booked a tour on the morning I was due to go home. The first tour is 10 am and lasts an hour, so I dashed off as soon as the tour guide was uttering his last words about the gift shop, across London back to Kings Cross to pick up my suitcase from luggage storage and get the 11:48 am train home!

One I missed and could have easily gone to is St Margaret Street where Newton and Shadwell meet, and Shadwell fleeces Newton for a cup of tea with nine sugars and pockets the change. A bit gutted I missed it to be honest – I love Jack Whitehall (I’m back in London with the family in June so I’ll swing by and update then!)

There are also some other locations a little further afield that I might try to visit on a later date, such as Shadwell's and Madam Tracy's flat down Hornsey Road in Islington, Crowley's Flat exterior in Eastfields Avenue, Best Cafe on Garratt Lane where Crowley meets Shadwell, Crystal Palace Dinosaur Park where the ineffable husbands watch Warlock defacing a dinosaur sign and Antonella's Cafe and Bistro where Crowley and Aziraphale are thinking of ideas to track down the antichrist whist Aziraphale eats cake.

Okay, I’m gonna finish up with the man himself. The very kind, very charming, and VERY patient Michael Sheen The reason for my London visit in the first place. Nye was spectacular OBviOUsLy, but he was super generous with his time at stage door for us all. I got a hug and asked him to pass it on to Aziraphale (that angel really needs a hug) and it made him laugh, which made my night!

Check out my reblog for extra locations when I visited London again a month later, and for a hilarious bonus photo of.... Gabriel??!

Here’s the wonderful map I used -

from this website:

[davidtennantgenderenvy]

th

Thanks for giving me one of the most delicious and romantic nights I could ever have hoped for darling 💜✨🥂🥮🫖 to the world!!!

[brooklynbadboys]

posted on my ig first <3

[aaliyahroyle]

[orth82]

Just a few highlights from yesterday's fabulous Good Omens shooting locations tour, including the famous ineffable husbands' bench (now covered in GO quotes and little gifts for and by fellow fans 💜)

Here's Kirsty's info for anyone interested in booking one of her tours:

[ingravinoveritas]

Sharing some more thoughts and memories from my trip to London last month. One of my favorite experiences was having Afternoon Tea at the Ritz, which turned out to be within walking distance of my hotel.

Because it was my first time to the UK, I knew I wanted to have Afternoon Tea at some point, and after watching Good Omens, there seemed to be no better (or more apropos) destination than the Ritz. I somehow managed to secure a reservation at the last minute and soon found myself sitting at a delightfully appointed table for one, watching and immersed in the atmosphere of the Palm Court.

All I could think of is how it is truly the perfect place to be in love, or to fall in love. The sumptuous food, the way the tables are set so that two people dining together are so cozily sitting next to each other, the piano music wafting through the air...all so charming, so affecting. It's as if the space envelops you entirely, and everything and everyone outside fades away, even just briefly.

It seems only too fitting for one particular angel and one particular demon, and in that moment, I felt as though I suddenly understood why Aziraphale enjoys it so much, and why Crowley enjoys watching Aziraphale enjoy it. The mood soon shifted from sweet to surreal when "House of the Rising Sun" started playing on the piano and I imagined the Husbands clinking glasses to the soulful strains of a song about a brothel. (Where is Mrs. Sandwich when you need her...)

The thing that I think meant the most to me is what I alluded to in a previous post, which is that even driving past the Ritz on my way in from Heathrow, I felt unexpectedly emotional. It was the idea of a place being special even though I'd never been there before, because it is special to these two characters who have meant so much to me over the last five years. And as I sat there sipping a glass of Champagne, I could feel them there with me--Aziraphale's animated indulgence, Crowley's affectionate smirk--and see them amongst the other couples having a romantic, resplendent, magical evening.

I couldn't help but smile as the music changed to "Part Of Your World" from The Little Mermaid, and how, for a brief moment at the Ritz, I was a part of Aziraphale and Crowley's world. To our world... (Pictures taken on 10/10/2024.)

[freddiemercurylegendabovelegends]

March 24th, 1987💫💫

👉 Hotel Ritz, Barcelona, Spain - Freddie Mercury met Montserrat Caballé

“I walked into the room.

Freddie’s hands were so cold, and I was very cold too. So I thought, he is nervous too, that is good, because when people are nervous that means they are expecting something from the other one. So, later we stand up from the table and went to the corner of the room to the piano, and he was playing, and I was beginning to see his ideas. We could have gone on for hours and hours and hours. When we finished, we look at each other, and I knew it; that he has conquered me!”

- Montserrat Caballé talking about their first meeting at the Ritz Hotel in Barcelona on March 24, 1987

Pic (not from this day): 1987 - Montserrat Caballé (1933-2018) with Freddie Mercury

📸 Photo taken by ©David M. Benett

[twixnmix]

Spandau Ballet photographed by Virginia Turbett at the Ritz Hotel in London, 1980.

[radioactive-killjoy]

Yes, I *did* just look up the Ritz's sample menu to come up with a meal for Aziraphale in my fanfic...

[mrs-trophy-wife]

[graysonsthings]

Went to good omens locations in London and got an angel wing ring @neil-gaiman

[albertsbootayyy]

Sometimes I have a bad day then I remember that newsies uk gave us girls as brooklyn newsies

[myfavoritepeterotoole]

Peter O'Toole at the Ritz Hotel in London, England on January 24, 1989 / photo by David Levenson