Central London's busy Charing Cross station boasts a swish hotel, as STAN CULLIMORE discovered recently

DON’T know about you, dear reader, but I'm a big fan of the city break. Got to love a few days away somewhere fresh and exciting. Gives a short, sharp, sweet boost to the soul, in my humble experience. Maximum smiles for minimum effort.

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Luckily, we are blessed with a bountiful supply of superb cities in this gorgeous green isle of ours. Lots of lovely conurbations out there just waiting to tickle your fancy, ease your mind and maybe even grant you some awesome adventures anew.

Of course, the daddy of them all, the big banana, the Victoria sponge cake of UK cities, is London. Must admit, any excuse is enough to get me scampering that way. In this case, there was something on at the Royal Academy that I just had to have a look at.

Next up on the menu was to find somewhere to stay. Hmm. There are so many topnotch, swish hotels it’s hard to know where to start looking, but thankfully a friend had told me about an excellent establishment right in the heart of the action, at Charing Cross. So that’s where we went.

Train, plane, car or coach, doesn’t matter how you travel, it’s a glorious adventure getting there. We ended up taking the Uber Boat down the Thames, getting off at Embankment Pier. Which left us with a gentle three-minute stroll to our hotel.