After Mr White has escaped in Italy, Bond is back in London to pick up the leads. M is waiting for Bond in a rainy London and they meet in the apartment of M's bodyguard Mitchel, who had turned out to be a double agent. Mi6 have the perimeter sealed off and Bond is driven to the house in a Range Rover. The building, one out of three identical, can be found in central London on Edgware road. The buildings are located in a gated development with luxury apartments called The Water Gardens.
The entrance where the Range Rover is stopping and Bond walks past the other agents from Mi6 can also be found on location. You have the best view over the entrance from Norfolk Crescent and from this side you can identify the balcony on which M is standing, namely the balcony on the 6th floor (out of 10). Notice the replaced white mosaic tiles to the left below M. If Mitchel could afford the apartment on a regular salary from Mi6 is unknown. A two bedroom apartment in Water Gardens would probably cost somewhere between £ 800.000-1.200.000 so it is likely that some of the money comes from the Quantum organisation. Of course the interior scenes of the apartment were shot in the studios.
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| M is looking out over a rainy London |
From M's balcony you get a brief glimpse over the neighborhood. Here you see some typical English houses. These can be found on the adjacent street Sussex Gardens and many of the buildings are small hotels. Sussex Gardens intersects with Edgware road and Mitchel's building is the one closest to the intersection.
Even the scene with Bond's Range Rover driving into the tunnel was filmed here. This short tunnel is located directly beneath the three buildings and leads up to the glass door where Bond is entering. It is a gated community so you can not drive into the premises unless you are a tenant. It may be worth to sneak in, in order to get in to the house and corridor where Craig is walking in the film, but like Leiter says in Dr No: The Limies can be pretty touchy about trespassing...
The Water Gardens can be found 159-169 Edgware Road. The easiest way to get there is to take the tube to Marble Arch and walk along Edgware Road. You will see the buildings emerge on the left hand side. Mitchel's apartment (or balcony) is located on the 6th floor in the building closest to Sussex Gardens.
M's Daimler is coming in from Prince's street (to the left of the Bank of England) and continues down Poultry. A police motorcycle is stopping the traffic from Queen Victoria street. Bond and M are supposed to come from the Ministry of Defense which makes it strange that the car is driving past Bank station. Both the Ministry and Mi6 are situated far from this part of the city and the only reason must be that they wanted to picture a typical "London view". Either that or create the conception that the Ministry of Defense is the building that really is the Bank of England.
"The Gherkin" is seen in the background behind the Royal Exchange building. This iconic building was completed in 2003, hence it is not visible in Tomorrow, 1997. It is a very short scene in the film and a trip to Bank station just to get the view is probably not worth the trouble. But a good idea is that you start at the Bank and walk down Queen Victoria, because eventually you will get to The College of Arms, which of course is a must see location when one is in London.
In the next scene we see Bond's plane land at the airport in Nice Côte d'Azur. That makes this view contradictory since Bond's plane would not fly over Monaco coming from London. But perhaps director Kershner wanted to picture a classic, beautiful view over the Riviera and Monte Carlo is a convenient site and definitively well recognizable. 
Monaco has changed a little since 1983 but almost all the buildings on the 'front row' are still recognizable. The biggest change of course being the expanded pier, a construction that took place in 2001 in order to accommodate lager cruise ships. 
Not much more needs to be said about this fabulous location. Monte Carlo is definitively one of the most beautiful Bond locations in the world and a personal favorite of mine...
Since this is England, you can rest assured that not much has been changed since the film was shot here almost 30 years ago. The main thing different of course being that the entrance has moved to the center of the building, with two big windows on either side. 'The Bond street kiosk' where 007 picks up a magazine has also disappeared. Most likely that was put up for the film, but a magazine shop with the same name can be found at the Bond Street underground station just a few minutes away.
Bond gives a signal to Smithers who tails Kamal to Heathrow in a London taxi. In the background the Polo Ralph Lauren shop is visible. You can still find the shop in the same building today, surrounded by other luxury shops along the street. Kamal is driven to Heathrow in a Mercedes Benz 600 Pullman, the car of choice for a true villain. Even though Kamal rides in the Pullman version, the Mercedes Benz 600 has been used by Blofeld in both Diamonds are forever and On Her Majesty's secret service. 
Just below Sotheby's, to the left on Bond street, you can find Conduit street. This was the location where the famous Bond tailors Anthony Sinclair and Cyril Caslte, who made the suits for Sean Connery and Sir Roger respectively, had their shops. When walking down on Bond street, you should turn left in to Burlington gardens and take a walk down Burlington Arcade where you can find the vintage Rolex store at 'The Vintage Watch Company'. They have an unparalleled collection of vintage Rolex watches if you want to do some window shopping for a 1962 James Bond Rolex Submariner. 
In Quantum of Solace, M and Tanner are walking out from what is supposed to be the Mi6 headquarters in the film. A little strange since the real secret intelligence hq at Vauxhall Cross had been used as Mi6 during the Brosnan era. The supposedly new Mi6 headquarters are in fact located on top of the Barbican Arts and Conference center and the house is known as the Barbican Frobisher Crescent.
Why this building was used is unknown but then again, Quantum did not deliver many rights and since Gassner was the new production designer (and a very poor one at that) there were evidently no reason to keep anything that was good from the previous films. Gassner has a chance to redeem himself in SkyFall and it seems he will do a better job this time. Furthermore, Mi6 will once again be located at Vauxhall bridge, as seen in the trailers. Just like in The World is not enough the building will once more become the victim of an attack.
Overall Quantum struggles with so many problems that it qualifies in the bottom three list but it would be a waste of time to discuss it further here. Sometimes you can forget the past... Instead we are looking forward to the SkyFall premier next month. The latest trailer reveals that we are getting back M's classic office with the padded doors, something that actually was revealed already at the exhibition. M's padded door was on display along with a desk and Mi6 props from SkyFall.
Overall the exhibition was elaborately planned and very well designed. One problem was the number of tourists in the first two exhibition halls, but everything got better once you entered into the "casino area", where a number of evening suits, jewelry, playing cards, chips and dresses were on display.
