Launched today is the rather fabulous Urban Gentry London tours service, a unique and extremely style-aware way of seeing London how you want to see it. You've got to want an experience that is described by the team as 'a ruthlessly edited selective, authentic and eclectic experience' - Urban Gentry is not for the easily distracted or only mildy interested visitor. It's for those who know what they want out of London and want to know someone who knows how to get it.
You can create your own bespoke tour to cover all your whims and fancies with the UG Custom area of the site, or pick a tour off the shelf from Tours: The Collection. Art, Design, Fashion, Shopping, Interiors and Village London are one way the tours are grouped; you can also pick tours by theme. The Home Style tour intrigues us the most: a unique opportunity to see how the beautiful people decorate their homes by running amok through the capital's finest contemporary design shops, and you'll be with a specially selected tour guide who makes you belong rather than blatantly stand out as Someone Who Hasn't Got A Clue.
Specialists in their fields with inside knowledge of where to go, what to do, who to meet and how are the tour guides, the Insiders, who will cut through the tourist propaganda and take you straight to what you want to see. How much more exclusive and special do you want to feel? Well, tours are aimed at small groups of no more than four people at a time for a full day or half day, though groups of five or more can be catered for.
It's the total antithesis of a coach party of slow moving rubberneckers being herded heartlessly like cattle through Leicester Square. We also spotted the range of groups catered for - canny business travellers who want to see more than the inside of a Travelodge as they pass through the city, one-off experiences for really local things... as relatively well informed Londoners living and working in London, we want a customised tour that has only one aim: surprise us. With Urban Gentry, we think they can...
Urban Gentry, private and tailor-made tours of London for the style aware. For more information, go to the Urban Gentry website here.
Image adapted from fsjay's Flickr photostream.
