With so many cultural gems in London, I would say that this has never been truer. For one, there is Dr Johnson’s House, which is close to Fleet Street, where so many British newspapers used to have their offices.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by One City London (@onecityldn)

If you’re booking a trip to London in 2026, here are a few ideas to learn more about famous British writers. Charles Dickens and Agatha Christie (the world’s best-selling fiction writer, with her 78 crime novels having sold an estimated 2 billion copies in 44 languages, according to guinnessworldrecords.com) will be the focus of exhibitions in 2026.

If you’re taking the Eurostar, as good a starting point as any is the British Library, which generally houses excellent exhibitions. Whilst an excellent one on ‘Secret Maps’ is about to finish, as of October you can see an exhibition about Agatha Christie, including her Remington typewriter from 1937, purported to have been used to compose And Then There Were None and other works, and personal letters from Christie to family members, including one to her second husband about her journey on the Orient Express.   It runs from 30 October 2026 to 20 July 2027. A hundred years ago, in 1926, Agathie Christie hit the headlines when she mysteriously disappeared. You can read more about that here and about her life in a very good book by historian Lucy Worsley, ‘Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman.’

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by British Library (@britishlibrary)

For families, an exhibition about Fairy Tales from 27 March to 23 August 2026 also sounds fun. “Take your family on a magical adventure in a new interactive exhibition! Explore enchanted lands, magical creatures, iconic characters, and timeless tales, brought to life through books, theatre costumes, puppets, pop-ups, artwork, and illustrations,” says the website.

A short walk south of St Pancras Station is the Charles Dickens Museum, which I visited for the first time in December. Apart from having a traditional cream tea (tea, scones, jam, and cream) in the cafeteria, this is a very good immersive audio experience. You’re taken from room to room of the house where Dickens lived, with actors’ voices putting you very much back in the time, with short explanations about the rooms. For one thing, I had no idea that Charles Dickens held full-on performances/readings to an audience, which were so demanding that they made him feel ill afterwards. If you want to learn about the female influences on Dickens, then find a date between 11 February and 6 September to see this exhibition.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Charles Dickens Museum (@dickensmuseum)

To finish your trip, I’d recommend a walk down Jermyn Street, famous for its tailors. You can also see the statue of an elegantly dressed dandy from the late 18^th century/early 19^th century, Beau Brummel. Not far away are St James’s Park and Hyde Park, as well as Fortnum & Mason department store. I still remember an elegantly dressed doorman in a top hat opening the door for me and trying ‘gin and tonic’ ice cream there!

Camden Town market, in north London, where you can find a statue of Amy Winehouse, is also well worth a visit. There’s also a beautifully decorated watch shop, an example of cross-cultural cooperation as the owner, Jerome, from Switzerland [with its well-known clockmaking traditions], has teamed up with a Brit, his wife, Anneke, to design the watches. If you’re looking for a fancy watch that’s not too expensive with, for example, Roman numerals (not always so easy to find), this is a good place to go. The motto on the crest of Camden has a nice Latin touch too: ‘Non Sibi Sed Toti’, or ‘Not For One But For All’.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Camden Market (@camdenmarket)

Another tip if you’re in the centre near the River Thames: From Waterloo station, drop down south to the River Thames and walk along the South Bank. You’ll pass the Millennium Bridge, the Golden Hind (Sir Francis Drake’s ship), cafés and pubs, the Clink (off a side street, this is a museum, with ‘clink’ meaning ‘prison’), Tower Bridge, and the Tate Modern art gallery. The Tower of London and a monument to the Great Fire of London are on the other side of the river.

L’article London exhibitions: Charles Dickens and Agatha Christie in the spotlight in 2026 est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

The Grand Rex

The Grand Rex is somewhat of a cultural institution in Paris and was registered as a historical monument in France in 1981. Housed in a beautiful Art Deco building, it dates back to 1932 and screens premieres of major films, including Babylon [a wonderful film very loosely based on the history of Hollywood cinema] and movies about Bridget Jones. Whilst it began as a cinema, it now also hosts concerts and all sorts of shows, and has a studio tour and an escape game.

The show that I saw on Friday evening was a tribute to the Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis, who made photography equipment and are well known for their Cinématographe motion picture system and for saying that “the cinema is an invention without any future”. On show were their short movies, made between 1895 and 1905, a fascinating insight into life at the time, including footage of the World Fair in Paris, children performing acrobatics, and lots more. As you can see on Grand Rex’s website, there are plenty of other events that you can go to, including concerts and comedy shows.

The next day, I went on the Rex studios tour, a behind-the-scenes glimpse at what studios used to look like. I’d describe it as a fun family-type tour, an easy-paced and immersive introduction to cinema. The atmospheric audio with lots of actors’ voice-overs is well done, with the most interesting room being the projection room. You also get to record a short soundbite from a famous film, which is merged with other visuals to create a very short “film,” somewhat clichéd for my taste but fun for the family. During the tour, you do hear key facts such as the birth year of the Grand Rex and the fact that it was requisitioned by the Germans during the Second World War (and called the “Soldatenkino,” soldiers’ cinema), but it’s much more about the glitz, glamour, and atmosphere than detailed history. For some history, this text (with images), written by the owner and designer, Jacques Haïk, is well worth a read. 

My recommendation is to read the history, consider the studio tour if you’re with the family, take a look at the building from the outside, and also immerse yourself in the beautiful décor inside if you have the time and money to watch a film or see another performance there.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Le Grand Rex Paris (@legrandrex)

“Paris 1925: l’Art déco et ses architectes“

A visit that combines well with seeing the Grand Rex is the extremely good “Paris 1925: l’Art déco et ses architectes” exhibition at the Cité de l’architecture et de patrimoine on Place du Trocadéro. Back on 28 April 1925, the then-French President, Gaston Doumergue, inaugurated the “Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes,” which attracted nearly 16 million visitors by the time it closed in November that year. 

“The International Exhibition reflects the creative ferment of a post-war society undergoing profound transformation. A true springboard for the Art Deco style, it showcased visionary figures such as Le Corbusier, Auguste Perret, Henri Sauvage, and Robert Mallet-Stevens,” writes the Cité de l’architecture et de patrimoine.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Alexis Lecomte (@histoire_de_rue)

If you’re even slightly interested in art deco, this is a must-see for an introduction to these five major architects and a short but in-depth immersion into the 1925 Paris exhibition. A major feature is a revolving 3D visual, which brings out the splendour of the eight major pavilions from the Paris exhibition. 

Reminiscent of an Art Deco clock tower near Tomberg metro in Brussels, one of my favourites is the tourism pavilion, the “Pavillon des renseignements et du tourisme” by Robert Mallet-Stevens.  Other favourites for me and of interest for journalists and media history aficionados are the “porte d’Honneur,” the gateway to the Paris 1925 exhibition, and the pavilion of the newspaper L’Intransigeant, both designed by Henry Favier. The Paris exhibition pushed both of these relatively unknown architects into the limelight. A final favourite for me is a cartoon of the exhibition from a weekly magazine called Le Rire [Laughter].

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Xavier Rouchaud (@xavierrouchaud)

There’s plenty more to see, including Art Deco garden designs, an Art Deco theatre design, and the glasswork (le vitrail). All the texts are in French, very concise and well-written.

L’article The Grand Rex cinema and some Art Deco highlights in Paris est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.