Enjoying the quieter side of the Big Smoke

without battling the crowds,

GARY LAWRENCE discovers a gentler way to experience all our capital has to offer

ONE of the things that puts a lot of people off staying in London for a weekend is its size and overbearing impersonality.

If you go anywhere near the summer months you are likely to spend a great deal of your time cheek to telephoto lens with hordes of tourists vying for space on pavements and tube trains.

But there is another way to enjoy London and its many and varied attractions. As Dr Johnson didn't actually say: "When a man is tired of London he just needs somewhere for a nice sit down and a cup of tea."

When I took my daughter Kate up for a theatre, museum and bonding weekend I wanted somewhere that felt like it pulsed with the city's life force but didn't entail hacking through a forest of selfie sticks every time we ventured outside.

I chose to go back to a part of the city I knew well but hadn't really spent much time in for 30 years.

In the early eighties while working at a bar in the Great Eastern Hotel, I lived in South Kensington. Home was a bedsit in a grand old house in Onslow Gardens overlooking a leafy square. Back then the house was like many of the old ladies who lived in it, all crumbling fixtures and faded glory.

Nowadays the porches and pillars outside each house gleam white and reek of the wealth living within. I doubt my £40 a week rent from 1982 would even cover today's fresh flower bill in each of the elegant hallways.

The hotels there are a little too grand so we stayed just a short tube ride away in Earls Court, a favourite place to drink and eat in the eighties when it was known as Kangaroo Valley because of the number of Australians and New Zealanders living there.

The Nadler is a lovely boutique hotel tucked away in Courtfield Gardens, a five minute walk from Earls Court tube, and opposite lovely old St Jude's Church.

It nestles amid similar sized hotels and private homes on a quiet street. It feels homely and personal and has just 65 rooms. It is unusual because each one has its own mini kitchen which means that guests can, if they want, eat in and make use of the free WiFi. It also means the rooms are better value too.

We had a beautifully appointed twin that was immediately lost on my 12-year-old to the competing charms of YouTube and Minecraft. At least she appreciated the WiFi.

The hotel doesn't have a restaurant but it does have partnerships with a range of bars and restaurants nearby where production of your room card will earn you up to 20 per cent discount.

The great thing about Earls Court is that it is sits on the District and Piccadilly Lines. That means the West End is just a few stops away if you want to go sightseeing or see a show.

But it is also just a short stroll from the Science and Natural History museums. Hyde Park and the Albert Hall are just around the corner and, if you are even slightly more energetic, Notting Hill and Holland Park are north of you or Fulham and the riverside are south. (So is Chelsea but I'm not mentioning that lot.)

It is a lovely area to wander around. You might even bump into Gary Barlow, who has a home there. Or John Barrowman. Despite that it is still charming and has a familiar feel to it.

That might be because of the area has been used as a backdrop in America Werewolf in London (Jenny Agutter's flat was in nearby Redcliffe Square), Notting Hill, Love Actually and About Time (yes, Richard Curtis also once lived nearby, as did Alfred Hitchcock and Roman Polanski).

Mind you persuading a 12-year-old to walk upstairs to retrieve a dirty cup is difficult enough, let alone trudging a few miles around London.

However in exchange for the promise of ice cream she was prepared to jump on a tube and get off at Piccadilly Circus, from where we wandered down to Trafalgar Square and then the River Thames.

Despite its size London is actually quite compact. Most of the major landmarks are concentrated within a mile or so and it it perfectly possible to wander around them all within an couple of hours if you have the energy and force of will to battle through the crowds.

You can see so much more on foot – the lovely buildings, the quirky pubs and shops, the street performers. A more expensive alternative is to take one of the many open-topped sightseeing buses but you will spend an awful lot of time stuck in traffic.

London's main railway stations are gradually being transformed into destinations in their own right, not just a means of going somewhere else.

St Pancras, Waterloo and Liverpool Street all have great places to eat and a variety of shops. London Bridge is well on the way and so is Kings Cross, where we went to watch the excellent Railway Children, featuring a real steam train, at the Platform Theatre around the back of the station.

It has been a long while since I've been to Kings Cross station and I was amazed at the amount of work going on around it. Granary Square has shops, offices and smart flats that back on to the Regent's Canal and dreary stretches that once houses sidings and crumbling rail sheds are becoming shops and restaurants. It is fast becoming a fantastic place to spend time.

The day after we had a much shorter walk down to the fabulous Natural History Museum. I hadn't been for 15 years but it was every bit as marvellous as I remembered.

By far the most popular exhibition is the one dedicated to dinosaurs and enduring the 25-minute queue pays Brontosaurus-sized dividends.

The last section features a full-sized animatronic T-Rex that lurches towards unsuspecting passers-by with such vicious speed I'm surprised there isn't a St John's volunteer on permanent stand-by.

So London doesn't have to be a monster, there are plenty of human-sized bits to stay in and enjoy. Our capital teems with life, culture, history and innovation. With just a little planning and a sense of adventure it is easy to soak it up.

l Gary Lawrence stayed at The Nadler at 25 Courtfield Gardens, South Kensington, London, SW5 0PG.

Room prices vary from £138 for a standard single to £236 for a superior double. For more information or booking, visit thenadler.com/kensington.shtml or call 020 72442255.