London has been named the world’s best destination, thanks to the opinions and reviews of visitors to the capital city.

London came top in the World, European and UK award categories at TripAdvisor’s 2012 Traveller’s Choice Destination Awards.

The award results were determined by a combination of traveller reviews, “favourited” destinations and most highly-rated places on TripAdvisor.

TripAdvisor spokesperson Emma Shaw commented:

“To be crowned the world’s best destination in the Olympic year by millions of travellers is a tremendous honour for London. It’s fantastic to see the capital recognised and rewarded by those that have really experienced the city – travellers themselves”.

TripAdvisor is the world’s largest travel site and is used by 50 million users each month.

Congratulations to Kensington Palace. Their latest exhibition, the multi-sensory and super-cool Enchanted Palace won a top travel award last week.

Enchanted Palace took a special Editor’s Award for Innovation in Tourism at the 2010 Group Travel Awards dinner on Friday 11 June.

The exhibition is a pretty unique collaboration between Historic Royal Palaces, a theatre company called WILDWORKS and top fashion designers. Happily, this successful enchantment is to continue until January 2012, so you’ve got plenty of time to fall under its spell.

Alexandra Kim, who has the fantastic job of being the Historic Royal Palaces Curator responsible for Enchanted Palace said, “I’m absolutely delighted that Enchanted Palace has been honoured with this special award for Innovation in Tourism.

“It is a great achievement for this hugely ambitious project, which aims to offer an intriguing and captivating visitor experience at Kensington Palace whilst the historic royal residence undergoes its major £12 million renovation.”

Other London attractions to scoop top prizes at last week’s awards include:

• Buckingham Palace (best attraction for groups on short visits)
• Oliver! (best live stage / theatrical performance)
• City Cruises (best inland canal / riverboat operator)

Congratulations to all the winners and runners up.

Read more about London’s Historic Royal Palaces

Congratulations to the British Library in London, which won a prestigious award at the “Oscars of the museum world” this week.

The library won the Innovation Award for Timelines: Sources from History at the 2010 Museums & Heritage Awards.

These awards recognise and celebrate achievements within the world of museums, galleries and heritage visitor attractions.  The Innovation Award is given for the best use of technology in a museum, gallery or attraction.

The British Library’s Timelines: Sources from History is a rich-media interactive technology that allows you to explore the British Library collection chronologically for the first time.

Timelines: Sources from History brings together material from the library’s vast collections and uses Flash technology to allow you to discover historical connections in an exciting new way. As museumpublicity.com explains:

“Users can visually travel through time, finding sources, viewing transcripts, adding items to favourites, and switching timelines – all at the click of a button. Scanning through centuries of images, audio-visual and printed material, users can explore various themed timelines, such as ‘everyday life’, ‘music and literature’ and ‘politics, power and rebellion’.”

Roger Walshe, the British Library’s Head of Learning, says:

“The British Library’s virtual history timeline saw off some impressive competition from the National Gallery’s Love Art iPhone app and the Natural History Museum’s Attenborough Studio to win this award.

“Finding innovative ways of engaging with the past is increasingly crucial… – this timeline demonstrates how we can mesh traditional historical sources with new technologies to support future teaching methods, allowing users to engagingly pursue their own research.”

Find out more at www.bl.uk/timeline

The Laurance Olivier Awards last night celebrated London’s thriving theatre scene in a ceremony held at the Grosvenor House Hotel.

You probably know who the winners are by now, but do you agree?

It was no surprise that Mark Rylance continued his run of award success by picking up Best Actor for his portrayal of Johnny “Rooster” Byron in Jerusalem.

Rachel Weisz beat off strong competition from Gillian Anderson, Imelda Staunton and Juliet Stevenson to take the Best Actress award for her portrayal of Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire.

Katori Hall became the first black female playwright to win Best New Play for The Mountaintop (proving that the spirit of International Women’s Day lives on.)

Spring Awakening, despite closing early due to low ticket sales, received the Best New Musical Award.

And congratulations to Rupert Goold who won Best Director for Enron (which we rather liked too.)

Have you seen any of the award-winners? Did the Oliviers get it right, or is there a theatrical gem they missed? We’d love to hear your views.

Romola Garai, who was so fantastic in the BBC’s recent adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, is appearing at the Lyric Hammersmith from January next year. She’ll be playing Masha in a new production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, alongside an exciting-sounding cast including Jim Bywater, Nigel Cooke and Clare Dunne.

If, like me, you’re currently enjoying the BBC’s adaptation of Small Island, you can see the gorgeous Ashley Walters (who plays David in the show) at the Royal Court next year. Walters, who used to be in So Solid Crew, is appearing in Off The Endz, Bola Agbaje’s new play about three 20-somethings growing up on a London estate.

And Toby Stephens, who’s played many memorable characters on TV (Mr Rochester in the 2006 Jane Eyre for one!) is headed to the Old Vic from April next year. Stephens is appearing in a new production of Tom Stoppard’s 1982 play, The Real Thing.

Lastly, one other TV star heading for the London stage is Griff Rhys Jones, who takes over from Omid Djalili as Fagin in Oliver! from Monday night. Break a leg, Griff!

That’s not Oliver’s! only cast change: I’m excited to hear Kerry Ellis is taking over from Jodie Prenger as Nancy next March. Ellis is best known for playing Elphaba in Wicked, for which she won the 2008 Whatsonstage.com Award for Best Takeover in a Role. I think she’s rather ace.

And talking of the Whatsonstage.com Theatregoers’ Choice Awards – have you voted yet? Make sure you have your say before the winners are announced on 14 February next year.

Excited about seeing any of these stars? Do you know about something I’ve missed?! Add your thoughts to the comments below…

London was once again voted the favourite UK city in Condé Nast Traveller’s Readers’ Travel Awards last night.

It’s the second year running that London has scooped the award.

London came top of the list of UK cities, beating Edinburgh, Liverpool, Bath and Oxford.

Our fair capital achieved high-performance scores for food and restaurants; nightlife and entertainment; and a range of accommodation.

London also boasted eight of the top 10 UK Business Hotels celebrated at the award ceremony, the No 1 spot being taken by Claridge’s.

The full list of top 10 award-winners for UK Business Hotels are as follows:

1. Claridge’s, London
2. The Soho Hotel, London
3. The Dorchester, London
4. InterContinental London Park Lane
5. Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, London
6. The Gleneagles Hotel, Perthshire
7. Jumeirah Carlton Tower, London
8. Four Seasons Hotel Canary Wharf, London
9. The Balmoral,  Edinburgh
10. Andaz Liverpool Street, London

And congratulations to The Spa, Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, which won the top spot in the UK Hotel Spas category at the awards.

Sarah Miller, Editor of Condé Nast Traveller says, “London has come top of our readers’ choice of favourite cities anywhere in the UK thanks to its glorious buildings and architecture, fabulous range of restaurants and cuisines, amazing choices of entertainment, world-class culture and its incredible selection of first-rate hotels – no fewer than 14 are shortlisted in this year’s awards.

“And this year many more of our overseas readers, particularly American and European, voted it their favourite city, adding that, thanks to the exchange rate, they found it better value for money than last year!  It’s a tribute to all the teams promoting London – from the Mayor’s office to Visit London – that they have succeeded in impressing our discerning readers for the second year in a row.”