Allow me to reluctantly admit something: there is no better place than London during the summer.

As someone who grew up in the Oxfordshire countryside, where warm days were spent dipping into rivers and laying out in fields, I never really got why Londoners were so obsessed with surrounding themselves with concrete, high rises and sweating crowds when the temperatures started to climb.

If anything, even the suggestion of a heatwave made me want to run to the nearest open green space and set up camp there until it passed. But when I moved here in 2019 and experienced a first glorious summer in the city for myself, I finally understood.

When the weather changes, the streets hum with energy. People walk with their faces turned up towards the sunshine, buzzing on the pavements and squeezing onto street corners with drinks in hand.

As sceptical as I was at first, I now wouldn’t trade setting my picnic blanket up on Primrose Hill and people-watching the day away for anything. Yes, some might be overwhelmed by the pace (and hey, I won’t pretend that the Central Line is the best place to be when it’s 30 degrees outside) but if you can’t beat them, you have no choice but to join them.

And as someone who has well and truly joined in, I’ve spent the last five years perfecting the ultimate summer in the city routine. From a slow morning to the best way to end a balmy evening across this whirlwind of a city I’m now proud to call home, here’s where I’d head for a dream day in the sun that celebrates a London summer in all its glory.

This is how to spend the perfect summer’s day in London