34 km wandering around London

Being in Southern England for work, I took the chance to visit London, with a 2 hour train journey.

This trip to London wasn’t planned, so I didn’t have any map with myself and I decided not to buy one, in order to be not influenced by that in my discovering of the town. I just took one underground map and had my non-cartographic GPS. Lots of map plates around helped me a lot !

As in my previous trip to London, I never stopped for visiting museums or churches. That’s my way of visiting towns ! Just walking and taking photos. My new compact digital camera made things much easier !

Coming from Waterloo Station, I started walking westwards, in order to perform a complete west-east crossing of London town. Once I was around Royal Albert Hall, I began to move eastwards. Eventually, around British museum I decide to explore Camden Town, so I point to the North (actually North-West.. orienteering is not so easy with a schematic underground map !). Then I moved again southwards, trying to reach Piccadilly Circus, which I missed going along Oxford Street. Once there, I continued walking towards the City. There, my plan was to pass through Tower Bridge, but, when I arrived on Thames, I realized I went wrong : Tower Bridge was more eastwards, I was on London Bridge ! Don’t worry ! Evening lights were dimming, so I decided to start coming back. Finally, just to take the train I planned, I took the underground ! That was not in my intentions, I wanted to explore London “by fair means” (!) but then I realized undergrounds are a part of London architecture, so it was worth visiting them ! So, at the end, after a 10 hour walking, I was back to Waterloo Station !

After my previous visit to London I didn’t liked it so much, at least, not as much as most people do, so I decided to try to look it again with new eyes and London revealed to me as a beautiful mixture of styles – ancient monuments, churches with their severe Gothic architecture, modern and extravagant skyscrapers, multicultural and multicoloured neighbourhoods, hidden and huge parks, sequences of identical Victorian houses. That’s it !

The trip :

Waterloo Bridge – the Strand – Trafalgar Square – St. James Park – Parliament Square – Victoria Station – Knightsbridge – Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park – Oxford Street – the British Museum – Kings Cross – Camden Town – Regent Street – Piccadilly Circus – St. Paul – the City – London Bridge – Blackfriars.