The settlement of Londinium was established in the mid-first century; today the city of London has a population of about 8.7 million people. It is a big city, and I'm trying to wrap my brain around what to say about it.
Well, first I should say that I/we really enjoy being in London. Other than the fact that they drive on the wrong side of the road and there are no drivers on the upper level of the buses, it is a very likable place, the native language is usually easy to understand, and there are many, many things to see and do.
We were in London twice on this trip; before and after visiting St. Ives, Cornwall. Our kids (the FriedFish) stayed at CitizenM Hotel, so we decided to give it a try. (I'm going to post a review of the CitizenM because it is an interesting concept and a fun place to stay.) The hotel is in Bankside, on the south side of the River Thames (see map, below); a terrific location for us. The neighborhood is business, residential and commercial, including many hotels and restaurants. The attraction for us was the proximity to the Tate Modern Museum, the Shakespeare Globe Theatre, and the River Thames. We spent a lot of time walking along the river and simply enjoying the views of the city skyline (see previous post), the very busy river traffic, the crowds of people, and the overall big-city urbaness (not really a word) of it.
London can be expensive. We used the black London taxis when something was too far to walk, and I didn't want to navigate the tube because of my back pain. We thoroughly enjoyed the taxi drivers, all of whom were great conversationalists and interesting people. (We decided not to use Uber in London because we wanted to support the professional career taxi drivers.) Keep in mind that in the UK you use British funny-money, not Euros, and this can be somewhat maddening and confusing until you get used to it. (As of this writing, 1 GBP = 1.3 USD; whereas 1 EUR = 1.12 USD). Because of traffic, a taxi ride could easily cost $20-$25; but hey, it's vacation.
Because we have been in London several times, we did not feel a need to see all the important sites - been there done that - and so we settled into being in London, rather than always doing. We typically did one major thing each day; a museum, theatre, exhibit, etc. The rest of the time, we enjoyed being in the city, meeting people, finding good restaurants, and hanging out in the "living room" of our hotel.
Below are some of the highlights of our London stay. And I am including a map, for those who are cartographically oriented as I am. The map has symbols for places we were.
And, of course, a photo album is at this link: https://flickr.com/photos/95157126@N03/sets/72157672871643161
We took a taxi from the hotel to the British Library, specifically to see historic items in the permanent collection, including the Magna Carta, works by Shakespeare and other great writers in their own handwriting, as well as early print editions, religious items (bibles, etc.), letters and other documents of historic significance. One display case contained an annotated timeline of political essays and novels that included: Sir Thomas More's Utopia, 1516; New Atlantis, 1627 by Sir Francis Bacon; The Neessity of Atheism, 1811, and The Mask of Anarchy, 1819 by Percy Bysche Shelley; H. G. Wells' 1905 A Modern Utopia; Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, 1932; and, of course, Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell, 1949 (see Theatre, below). I just might have to read all of these items in chronological order!
THEATRE - Oh yes, London has it's share of theatres. We saw two productions while we were there.
946 The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips at the Shakeseare's Globe. This was an experience! The play is a musical drama, set in the small community of Slapton, in Devon, England during WWII. A little girl, her cat, her mother and grandfather, her father off to the war, the Black American soldiers who become part of their lives. This is a compelling story of wartime, friendship, pain, and feelings of abandonment. It tells a small piece of history with music, dance and puppetry. It touches on racism, as the Black G.I.s experience for the first time in their lives what it feels like to be accepted as regular people by a white British farm family. It tells the true story of how the American military evacuated everyone from the area so they could use the Slapton Sands beach and surrounding countryside to practice landings for the D-Day invasion. A miscommunication betwen the British and American navies left the landing fleet unprotected and vulnerable, resulting in the loss of 946 American lives when German naval patrols discovered the fleet and bombed it. The US and British governments covered-up this tragic event for 40 years!
(A side note: towards the end of our time in London, we walked to a classic boat exhibit that was part of the Totally Thames celebration. One of the boats is the Portwey, the last coal-fired, twin-screw tug in the UK (click the link for the photo album). Reading the placard for the exhibit, I discovered that the Portwey had been used by the American navy during WWII, and during the Slapton Sands exercise, had rescued numerous Americans when the Germans bombed the unprotected fleet. This was an exciting moment for us, as we understood the relationship between the play and the ship.)
1984 at the Playhouse Theatre. We went into this new theatrical adaptation of the classic book knowing full well that it would not be a comedy. It wasn't! The adaptation focused on the Appendix to the novel for inspiration, and the action goes back and forth between a book group reading and discussing the novel, and the in-the-moment life of Winston Smith, the main character. The bottom line is words, language, text - what is it, and who defines it? The torture scene near the end is chilling and very graphic - we wanted to close our eyes and cover our ears, but could not because the production was so compelling. We walked out needing a drink (is that wrong?).
The play is so very timely. Big Brother (big government) is watching everyone all the time (sound familiar?). Language is being retooled so that it becomes Newspeak. War/Is/Peace. Ignorance/Is/Strength. 2/+/2/=/5. Freedom/Is/Slavery. We have always been at war with Eurasia/We have never been at war with Eurasia. Lies and truth are indistinguishable; we have to believe whatever we are told in the moment. Our ensuing discussion included the terms NSA, Trump, media, data mining, internet....you understand.
WALKING IN THE CITY - We walked a lot, mostly along the Thames, but also through neighborhoods. We crossed 5 bridges, some more than once (see the turquiose hikers symbol on the map, above). The Thames is a major walking corridor, with wide walkways along both sides, except in some places where buildings come down to the seawall and the walkway goes inland around them. The streets in the central part of the city are crowded with people and lined with an amazing architectural variety of buildings, old and new. It is a very lively city by day and at night; the pub/club scene in the evening is amazing. London is crowded with people, and the diversity is amazing. In our hotel and every restaurant, the staff is young people from many different countries in Europe, Africa, South America and elsewhere. We had a lot of fun learning about people and why they moved to London.
London has an extensive public transit system of buses and underground and above-ground trains. Add the huge fleet of taxis, and now Uber and other similar services, and I would be reluctant to use an automobile if I lived there. The use of bicycles in London is growing rapidly, and being encouraged by city leaders; however, from what we saw, it is a scary scene. There are some, but not many bike lanes, and most cyclists we saw were mixed in with the dense traffic on the busy, narrow and winding London streets. Our taxi drivers confirmed that it is a problem, there are many injuries (most cyclists we saw were not wearing helmets), and that a lot of cyclists ignore the rules of the road (sounds familiar). We did see a lot of public bicycles and stations were they can be rented. Integrating bicycle traffic into a developed city like London seems like a difficult challenge.
We left London with a twinge of sadness (and big hugs from some of the staff at the CitizenM Hotel). It is a big, noisy, busy and wonderful city that everyone should visit.
---
