A speed run at London

Well, my previous post on London gets at some of my more broad-strokes impressions of London on this latest visit, so this one will be a bit more of a detailed "what I did on my slightly-over-48-hours-in-London stop en route to Paris" tale. I can't wait to get a little more time to explore this city on a less-crunched schedule. After the jump: blurry exhaustion and fun!

If memory serves, this is where... the queen's... horse... guards... practice? (I actually am not entirely sure this is a joke, somebody's horses had a job to do here, but who can say what this job was?)

First, the video - minus the last day of footage, alas, lost due to pure dopery on my part - cut to music by a fantastic band from Cambridge that I first heard about on this trip. (This week I've found a favorite band and a favorite tailor in Cambridge. Timing is everything!) It doesn't quite capture the magical moments of blue-skied sun, but something about its tone felt right for London (even though the lyrics keep referring to Chicago)...

Stray thoughts on London:

Finally got to eat at one of Fergus Henderson's restaurants! His surprisingly affordable St. John's Bread & Wine does top-notch simple breakfasts, the perfect place to pause after a 6:30 AM arrival on the cusp of a twelve-hour walk around the city.

Boy oh boy if I lived here would I ever be getting my bread from this place on a weekly basis. The sub-theme of this spring break's trip? BAKERIES ARE GOOD.

The Victoria and Albert Museum (the V&A) is delightful. Dedicated to art and design, it functions as a kind of repository for cultural/functional arts, anything from furniture to decorative elements to artifacts of daily life to (yessssss) theatre, having acquired the Theatre Museum's holdings when that space closed a number of years back. They have amazing theatre archives, though half of their permanent display area was closed in preparation for an exhibit starting the following week; for a Sunday stroll, it was nice to get to see a wide range of their holdings, particularly their rotating displays of artifacts of contemporary culture.

The display case next to this had a pamphlet reading "Help protect your local hospital" from the Brexit campaign. 

 I wandered Hyde Park a good bit too - lovely space, with a great crowd out enjoying the sun and warmth. Poked past Speaker's Corner, and made my way around paths before zipping off to do some neighborhood exploring. I swung by Westminster Abbey for evensong, which was lovely, but I was falling asleep on my feet. (Literally. When standing for a prayer I almost fell over as I started to pass out.) Taking the hint, I headed back to the hotel, stopping along the way for some amazing Burmese food, and passed out involuntarily at 8.

Marble Arch, Hyde Park!

I found this newsstand (and a couple others like it) tremendously charming. Throwback vintage charm! TIMEFORM RACING PUBLICATIONS! Lots of awful Rupert Murdoch newspapers! Neato benito.

This lil hero was the champion of Hyde Park, and he did not drop his branch for pretty much the duration of the 15-20 minutes that his owners and I strolled the paths.

Took a one-on-one walking tour of Saville Row, the city's legendary bespoke tailoring district, with a guide who was thoroughly well-informed and also excited to talk about the history of menswear (as opposed to some of her tours, which focus more on shopping or the technical details of stitching and padding and etc.). It was tremendously informative, and I dawdled afterwards to poke my head into a few shops, more to learn about good quality and to daydream than anything else, but found the shopkeeps incredibly kind, generous, friendly, and not at all snobby. (This might have been luck of the draw)

Beau Brummel, who more or less invented men's fashion as it came to be in England. (Edward VII helped, and the Duke of Windsor too, but it started with Beau.) In the background: a shaving company, and one of the best ready-to-wear shoe companies in... the world, I guess? Jermyn Street! You fancy!

Rarrrrrrrrrr (Overcome with happiness to be surrounded by so many flowers edition)

Favorite meal? Probably Regency Cafe, a total throwback formica-tables-and-counter-service restaurant near Westminster serving an incredibly cheap but impeccably-cooked breakfast, helmed by a guy (Marco) who is a master at juggling orders, slinging tea, managing a consistent line of local workers and occasional tourists, remembering everybody's name and generally keeping things smooth and friendly. Loved it.

Marco at the far left, pouring tea. During my visit he teased one of the workmen in the cafe for having stolen his tea - because what self-respecting cafe owner wouldn't be working his own cuppa while managing the flow of customers?

The south bank was cool - definitely an area I want to explore more when I revisit in August this year, as I only had a split second to poke around on my way to the Tate Modern and Shakespeare's Globe before meeting my friend Emily for dinner and drinks.

Not pictured: the Tate Modern, whose exterior is kinda bleh, but who serendipitously had a Bob Rauschenberg retrospective while I was there! Sometimes lucky things happen to dopey fellas. 

Finally: ah transit! My last morning, I was in Chelsea doing some thrift shopping (found some excellent prizes) when I realized I was running late to get back to my hotel and up to St. Pancras for the Eurostar to Paris. Pulling up Google Maps on my phone, things looked dire: With about an hour to go til my train, it predicted a 45-minute drive back to the hotel, and an equally slow mass-transit trip, both of which would definitely make me miss my train. I jumped the next bus heading in the right direction, but something pinged the back of my head and I pulled up the Underground map, realizing that there was an option Google hadn't presented, linking a few different Tube lines that might get me there quicker. I sprinted from stop to stop, making the trip to the hotel in a clean 20 minutes, and one more quick stop had me in the security line at St. Pancras. Just in the nick of time.

My souvenir from this trip: an umbrella from this shop, with a handle made of a single piece of elmwood. It is beautiful and I'mma lose it faster than you can ever imagine.

All of which is to say, there's real magic in a city whose transit system can beat the cars, and it feels really good, in just over 48 hours, to start having my own intuitive sense of how to link things together and make connections. Like I said last week, London is incredibly good at orienting you within its transit system... it's just nice to be a part of it all.

Up next, probably this weekend: Paris! My third visit, second as an adult, after it served as my first solo international destination over eight years ago. Spoiler alert: it was excessively lovely. More on that... soon!

The friendly skies over my favorite neighborhood in Paris. Plus commercial advertisement! Who could ask for anything more etc