London

We asked Concierge Jessica McCormack of Four Seasons Hotel Canary Wharf to gather the savviest sightseeing suggestions she could find—not just her own but also those of other local connoisseurs, including some she works with every day at the Hotel. A little over seven miles east of the West End, Canary Wharf—so named because it was once the wharf at which ships from the Canary Islands docked with their cargos of bananas and tomatoes—is a high-rise business district on the bank of the Thames.

Spend Time in Greenwich

For an afternoon’s sightseeing, hop on the Docklands Light Railway to Island Gardens, from which a Victorian foot tunnel takes you under the Thames to Greenwich, one of the greenest and most architecturally splendid parts of London. It’s home to some remarkable baroque buildings, among them the Old Royal Naval College and Queen’s House. And it is also the site of the Royal Observatory, through which the prime meridian runs.

Local Flavours

In the Canary Wharf area, Plateau has a stylishly designed dining room—Eero Saarinen Tulip tables and chairs, great views from its fourth-floor floor-to-ceiling windows—and an alluring, quite meaty Modern British menu. Try the blackface lamb or rare-breed pork.

In the Modern Style

For a dose of culture, take a Thames Clipper, the high-speed catamarans that run every 20 minutes from Canary Wharf pier, west to the South Bank, a sightseeing trip in itself. In 17 minutes, you’ll be at Bankside, the pier for Shakespeare’s Globe, the facsimile Elizabethan theatre, and Tate Modern. Don’t miss the mesmerising room of Rothkos in a former power station ingeniously converted by Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron.