Got the love: the most romantic London landmarks

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Hannah Nathanson10 April 2012

London is the new capital of romance. An actor, philosopher, writer, heiress, editor and drummer reveal their most romantic London landmarks.

Tamara Ecclestone, 27, Blakes Hotel

I'm such a romantic. I believe in love and marriage and happily-ever-afters. I'm the girl who grew up dreaming of the big white wedding. My parents [now separated] have always said that relationships are hard work. But that's not what I want to hear.

I like chivalrous gentlemen, like my dad, who will open the door and pull out a chair. Good manners are important. I don't find it sexy any more when a guy drives a fast car: I've been around it my whole life. I'm more interested in shoes - my poor dad!

I met my boyfriend Omar [Khyami], a stockbroker, through my sister Petra and her husband James [Stunt]. They invited me to dinner at Cipriani and I was put next to Omar. They maintain that they weren't matchmaking but I think they secretly were. We've been together for nearly two years and have barely spent a day apart. I'm leaving Valentine's Day entirely up to him; he'd better not disappoint me.

It's true that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. I love cooking and make the best chocolate fudge cake ever. Chocolate is a great aphrodisiac, the cheaper the better: I go for Galaxy or Cadbury's Whole Nut. Posh chocolate is a waste of calories.

My sister's wedding last year in Rome was the best day of my life. Petra looked like a princess. I got very emotional and even my dad shed a tear when he gave her away. Omar and I definitely want to get married. 2011 was about Petra, but I think in the next few years hopefully we will tie the knot. I know Omar is the right person, it's just a matter of time. 2012 is a leap year but I would never even think of proposing. There's no way. I'm such a girl, I just couldn't.

Since modelling underwear for Ultimo I've been better at wearing matching bras and knickers. I like anything pink and black. I might sound like the worst girlfriend in the world but I sleep in Omar's giant oversized T-shirts and we let Duke, our long-haired Chihuahua, into the bed with us.

Staying in a hotel is sexy because you're out of your home environment; you feel special and you make more of an effort. Blakes is one of the most romantic hotels in London: dark and intimate. I love four-poster beds. They're over the top and luxurious. Couples who have been married for 20 years should come here for a naughty weekend.

Alain De Botton, 42, The British Museum

Museums are sexy because you're able to study people secretly while pretending to stare at the art. I discovered a website (not a porn site) called Babes at the Museum that celebrates this fact. Museums are serious places that allow non-serious thoughts to bubble up. Here at the British Museum you're supposed to be so interested in the activities of some 4th century BC Pharaoh that you couldn't possibly be thinking about anything else. But none of us are actually like that.

The British Museum is particularly good for romance. It houses many weird artefacts so there's lots of scope to rustle up a chat-up line based on the collection as you're looking at an Ancient Egyptian toenail.

I was a hopeless young lover, but I wish I had had a liaison in a museum. I did think about it a lot but it never quite happened. I find the Mummies romantic because death and decay are weirdly sensual. When we fall in love our feelings point in the opposite direction: it's all about hope and new life, so being in a sombre place spurs you on and makes you protest against the surrounding gloom.

It's amazing how little sex there is in literature considering how much time people spend thinking about it. The worst sex writing skirts the issue and the best describes it as you would anything else. Euphemism is the writer's great enemy.

My favourite philosopher to quote on matters of the heart is Proust. He was quite pessimistic and his big thing was that we love people the most who don't love us back.

One of his great ideas is the thing that will most get you going is for someone to say, 'I'm sorry but this evening I'm not going to be free.' It's rather cynical but quite fun.

I'm more of a romantic than Proust and maintain that one of the great pleasures of life is to be in love: sharing yourself, discovering things about another person and building up a conspiracy against the rest of the world, which I think is how relationships should be.
(theschooloflife.com)

Rachel Johnson, 46, The London Library

The London Library is scented with the musk of scholarship: not just the delicious smell of proper hardback books, which you inhale gladly, but of clever people engaged in research, longing for distraction. I find intelligence a very attractive quality, I'd live here if I could.

I use the library for writing my new book, Winter Games, but I find so many friends in here that I spend more time chatting in the loos and trying to spot people like Paxo and Hugh Grant. I often find myself exchanging glances with a Byronic youth who's working on his thesis or some monograph and I wonder why he's here and what's he writing. My London Library love affair is yet to happen, though.

As a student at Oxford I practically lived in the Lower Reading Room at the Bodleian Library. I remember being deeply in love with somebody who read Classics in the year above for about three years, but nothing ever came of it. Growing up, I never fancied a single one of Boris's friends and they never fancied me either. It was probably because I was his younger sister and they were too in love with him.

Last month I wore this red DvF dress to a Cambridge Union debate. I was arguing against Katie Price that the only limit to female success is female ambition. The dress was a success if nothing else was. Katie was very disarming and open but she was no 'silicon Cicero'. I liked her, though, and the whole house was on her side. There was no way we were going to win against tits and telly. One should never underestimate 'The Pricey'.

It's a very interesting commentary on our times that Katie Price is now being seen as a role model. I can't imagine a female professor of astrophysics getting such a turnout. I do worry about the overly sexualised environment that my children are growing up in. I'm very open with them about relationships and they're usually horrified. They're always covering their ears and shouting, 'TMI'. But I am worried that they've grown up on internet porn, which is not like life, and they'll one day get a rude awakening. Or, on the other hand, they might be pleasantly surprised.

London is an incredibly romantic city and there is no greater gesture than someone asking you to marry them. My husband Ivo proposed to me at Westminster Underground station. I was already pregnant and he was on his way back to work at the House of Commons. He got down on his knee as a Circle Line train was approaching and got out a box. I said 'yes' and then hopped on the Tube. What could be more romantic.
Winter Games will be published by Penguin in November

Tara Ferry, 22, The Round Pound, Kensington Gardens

I've never spent Valentine's Day with a girlfriend because I've either been single or abroad, but that's not to say I haven't had fun.
I like to spoil girls and usually give girlfriends lots of clothes. I find independent girls sexy and I also like girls who have a good dress sense and their own style. Playing hard to get isn't cool. There's definitely a time when being too difficult just gets boring. There's only so much game-playing that can go on until it's like, 'Screw this.'

My best chat-up line is asking if I can photograph a girl. I'll say, 'I like your look, can I photograph you?' Usually they say yes. I give them my email and hope they get in touch. I'm not being sleazy - honest. There's a very charged relationship between a model and a photographer. I feel quite powerful with a camera in my hand because it's an artistic instrument. According to the model Marie Helvin, David Bailey said, 'It's not necessary for a model to sleep with her photographer, but it helps.' I sometimes think it would be rude not to.

Usually girls are more forward than me. I admire the ones who come up and introduce themselves. It takes guts and I can sometimes be a chicken. When I was 18 I fell for a girl who was a lot older. I prefer older women because they have a better insight into life and they've been around the park so they know the deal. Old is gold.

My dad Bryan's sex appeal is inspiring; he's definitely set the bar high for us kids. I once asked his advice on how you get out of a relationship and he told me that you should just disappear. He's also always told us to have fun while we're young.

I think London is most romantic when it's cold and people are wrapped up in thick coats. The Round Pond in Kensington Gardens is very scenic. Next time I might break into the park at night with a girl and a couple of torches.
(taraferry.com; rubberkissgoodbye.com)

Fay Weldon, 80, The Statue of Boadicea

I've always found the bronze of Boadicea by Westminster Bridge romantic. When I was at a very low point in my life, sitting at the end of the bed with a broken heart staring into space, my partner Nick, who I'd met in a bookshop in Somerset, turned up and said, 'I'll take you somewhere that will cheer you up.' We arrived at Boadicea's statue and he said to me, 'You realise that this is who you're meant to be.' It so cheered me up that I married him.

The statue is terribly phallic with the horses' hooves charging forward; it's very male in that way. But Boadicea represents girl power, riding her war chariot with her two daughters behind her. For me the statue is the centre of London and going over Westminster Bridge as the sun is sinking is the most extraordinary sight.

My husband Nick might not look very romantic but he is quite. He's just written me a song as a Valentine's present, called 'Kissable You', which he's put on YouTube. It's extremely flattering but I was slightly shocked when I first heard it because it seemed a bit public. I'm not a romantic, apart from when it comes to Boadicea, but I will write Nick a Valentine's Day card.

Being a feminist hasn't helped my relationships with men. I'm not a terribly good feminist. My previous husband made me sign a statement saying: 'I am not a feminist and never have been.' I signed it because by that stage I would have signed anything for a quiet life.

My taste in men hasn't changed over the years; I like men to be men and to have testosterone, otherwise what's the point. I'm not particularly fond of nice men.

Sex now is completely divorced from procreation; it's a pleasure, just like a good dinner. I think there's less temptation because it's so much easier, why bother resisting? Women's sexual appetites have always matched men's but it wasn't what you were meant to do. You were meant to be wooed and won and irresistible; it's rather less fun these days. In the bedroom it's hard for women not to fake orgasms. Women work so hard and they're so exhausted by the time they get home that why not fake an orgasm and get it over with. It does depend on your relationship, though. If you're in a romantic situation, then that would be a foolish way to act.
(youtube.com/watch?v=hozhpXHiWwM)

Russell Tovey, 30, The Southbank

Seven years ago I had a secret, mad affair on this bench. I was 23 and we were doing a play at the National Theatre. No one knew about it at the time but we used to meet up at the bench first thing in the morning before rehearsals to catch up. He'd leave first and I'd get up ten minutes later so that we arrived separately. Before you jump to conclusions, no, I didn't have an affair with James Corden, it wasn't even one of The History Boys. Whenever I walk past now I smile to myself and remember the romance and excitement of it all. It was the first time I'd had such overpowering feelings for anyone.

I'm a pretty good date these days. I like the basics like a good meal somewhere and a chat. On Valentine's Day I'll be performing in Sex with a Stranger and then I'll probably go out afterwards and prowl the streets for love. I don't mind being single on Valentine's Day because I send my mum a card and she sends me one. I'll probably check Twitter on the day and hopefully people will be saying nice things about me. I'm not one of those lonely and desperate singletons.

Sex with a Stranger is about how average people act in relationships. It shows something on stage that everybody's experienced. That situation when you're out having fun and you think, 'Oh, I really want to go home with this person and shag them,' but when it actually comes down to it and you're waiting for a taxi home, you suddenly freeze and don't want to go through with it.

My bum comes up a lot in conversation. Nudity clauses have gone out of the window for me because I get my bits out so often, especially in the BBC's Being Human. People tend to be quite nice about it so I don't mind so much. I've never showed my knob on screen; I'm saving my 'Michael Fassbender moment' for Hollywood and I haven't seen Shame yet but I've heard it's sensational (or so says George Clooney).

Sex with a Stranger, written by Stefan Golaszewski and directed by Phillip Breen, is
at Trafalgar Studios until 25 February

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