London

My journey to history’s most powerful city was my premiere choice of weekend excursions during my stay in Paris. I took the renowned Paris-London Eurostar from Gare du Nord to St. Pancras that famously chugs under 40 km of ocean. I arrived in a completely different world with its much-more-familiar language, left-side drive, and modern architecture.

Day 1:

I took a very early Eurostar, so upon my arrival (having also gone conveniently an hour back in time), I dropped my big bags off at my humble Travelodge Hotel and spent all my daylight hours walking all the big tourist sites. St. Paul’s Cathedral, The Tower of London, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, Borough Market, The Shard, The London Eye, and Westminster were all hit on a single extended 5-hour promenade. When I got hungry along the way, I had no shortage of Pret à Mangers and Greggs to stay fueled. I remember being so proud that I recognized “Pret à Manger” to mean “Ready to Eat” in French.

Afterwards, I took the Tube to Buckingham Palace where from behind the gates separating royalty and peasant, I watched a changing of the guard. Though I didn’t think much of Buckingham Palace, I was instead thoroughly impressed with the world’s first metro system! The London Underground (Tube for short) is pleasantly frequent, well-connected, and efficient. It gave me a bit of an initial shock to see how fast the doors closed (like a horizontal guillotine) and how quickly we accelerated. I guess the only problem is that the Tube shuts down too often from either technical difficulty or strike. The Tube has played a major part in shaping my mental image of London as the world’s hub of hustle-and-bustle.

I grabbed some mediocre chippy before heading back to the hotel for a much needed break on my feet. Little did I know I would be putting them through 20 minutes of hell later that night. For the evening, I signed up for a walking night-tour of the all the main London Harry Potter filming locations (I know, how very shamelessly touristy of me). However, the bus that I had planned to take me to the start of the tour just NEVER ARRIVED. So with around 20 minutes of time before the tour started, and just shy of 4 kilometers to cover, I just started running. I started running through a giant city that I had just arrived in this morning where I kept looking the wrong way first before crossing streets and while I was slinging a backpack and a camera. I’m truly astounded I arrived alive, albeit with a tad bit of sweat. The rest of the evening was lovely, we even took a boat down the Thames and I snapped some night photos of locations I had seen earlier that day.

Day 2

Day 2 was my day outside of London. I took a great tour towards the Eastern tourist sites outside of greater London: Windsor Castle, Oxford, and Stonehenge.

Going into this day, I was most looking forward to Stonehenge, as its reputation of archaeological wonder precedes it. However, I came away from the day liking Oxford the most. As opposed to Stonehenge, which offered little more than the work itself (surrounded by sheep) and a visitor center selling way-overpriced croissants, Oxford was an old and beautiful campus that exuded a classical scholastic atmosphere. My 40 minutes of free time away from the tour group brought me to a local tea shop where I sat and just people-watched as students trickled in and out, sipping earl-greys with biscuits over a book or their laptop. Windsor Castle offered the least interesting attractions to me. I honestly only went to Windsor Castle because it was included in the tour. The lady sitting in front of me on the tour bus clearly loved it though, as she seemed like a history buff, especially regarding the lineage of British Royalty. I just never really cared to learn who was in the Royal family.

Day 3

On the third day of my long weekend, needing to catch a 4 PM train back to Paris, I visited Kensington (Flushed Away fans wya?), the royal borough, which is also home to Imperial College London and the greatest natural history museum in the world. Indeed, it was an epic display of the history of life, but the Smithsonian and Paris’ Natural History Museum hold their own too. I guess Darwin being English helps with the perceived prestige of the one in London.

2025 Encore

I made a brief trip back to London on our way to Scotland with my Dad this time in 2025. Though I mainly repeated all of the sights I saw during my first visit (since it was my Dad’s first time in London), I was able to additionally visit the British Museum and the Sherlock Holmes Museum. We also watched a “The Play that goes Wrong” on West End and had Gordon Ramsey’s famous Beef Wellington.

Contrary to most people I know, I LOVE London. There is a narrative that London doesn’t know what it wants to be. It isn’t on the same scale as the other ultra-dense urban sprawls like a New York or Tokyo. It also no longer has the charm of a classic European city/architecture like a Paris or Prague. But I think London plays its role as the historical center of the world beautifully. It is cleaner and still more beautiful than New York (London still retains many of its European architectural notes and doesn’t smell like pee). It is much more cosmopolitan than Tokyo or Shanghai (you can truly find people from all cultures and backgrounds on a random London bus). And it offers a more modern flare and lifestyle than Paris (London is after all still one of the world’s major financial centers and brings a concomitant lively energy). Even if you can’t get over the mediocrity of British cuisine, you’d be hard pressed to even find classic British in London amongst its ocean of international restaurants. If only these blokes could learn to drive on the correct side of the road, this city would be brought from a 90 to 100.

There is no city that represents the world entire better than London.