And so it finally happened. Since my first visit in 2004 I’ve been to London in all seasons, except summer. Thanks to Beck’s Canvas, this gap in experiencing London is no more.
This visit, somewhat strangely, also filled the gap in experiencing the Virgin train service. Or, perhaps, I should be more precise and say that the service itself was impeccable, as has always been the case of the Virgin trains, as far as my travelling with them is concerned. The timing, however, was not, although on my way there and back it was to my advantage, in the end. There is obviously nothing good about standing at the platform at either Piccadilly or Euston, in the crowd of people desperate to get on the train. As I had a small suitcase, I was observing the scores of passengers like myself, “relishing” the approaching onslaught on the luggage spaces. To my amazement, I was able to use the entire lower part of such space in my compartment just for my luggage. On the way back, because I wanted to get from South Kensington to Euston on the bus, I was slightly short for time. Yet again, the service was delayed.
My hotel which I was able to find through LastMinute.com was in Sussex Place, a walking distance from Lancaster Gate and the Hyde Park and from Paddington. It was on this trip that my long-lasting dream of living in a room with a balcony finally came true. This was handy, as the two nights in London were quite hot. At first I tried to avoid opening window on to the balcony, which was shared with the room next door, but common sense took over.
I don’t remember if I ever mentioned it last year. In my last two visits to London I was amazingly lucky to get the neighbours who were totally oblivious of the possibility of other people moving into a room nearby while they were out in the town. The neighbours I had in April 2007 would normally return to base at around 11pm, smash the door, and chat, laugh, and have a shower in the next hour. This time the neighbours came in after 4am, and the routine was more or less similar. What made the difference was, of course, the time of their return, and the fact that I couldn’t sleep well that night and had just managed to drift off.
I met yet another taxi driver who visited Moscow and St Petersburg in the Soviet times and had fond memories of going to different museums. I once again had the pleasure of talking to people I never knew – a couple at the Aberdeen Steak House in Paddington (left), a limousine driver in Kensington Gore. I also realised that I know London well enough to persuade someone who was walking towards Euston Station in search for St Pancras International that they walked in the wrong direction. Eventually I took a long walk from Euston Road through Southampton Row and Strand to Trafalgar Square, where I hopped on an old London bus (like the one on the right) that took me to Exhibition Road, from where I walked to the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Visiting London label (to catch up on older reminiscences of visiting and exploring London).