Mapless in London
Mar. 7th, 2016 07:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyofastolatYou'd think I'd have learnt by now.
Since I'm an infrequent visitor to London, and not someone who needs to traverse it daily, I always opt to walk across it rather than descend into the abyssmal depths of the underground. I check on walkit.com to glance at a recommended route, and then... entirely fail to follow it. The trouble is, I get bored with main roads, and especially bored with returning from anywhere by the same route by which I came. Plus, main roads are big, roary things, quite overwhelming to poor provincials like me. Towering buses conceal any interesting buildings that might be lurking on the far side of the road, and there are far too many side streets, where the pedestrian crossings sternly display a red man, even as all the traffic appears to be halted and all the locals are flooding across the road. I end up hovering nervously, torn between the belief that if I step out, the roaring traffic of That London is suddenly going to descend on me from a hitherto unseen direction, and the fear that if I stand there despite the total emptiness of the road, all the locals are laughing at me for being a law-abiding provincial who Doesn't Understand How We Do Things Here.
So, before very long, I have generally plunged into an interesting-looking side street that is parallel to the main road I'm aiming for, intending to zig-zag my way merrily towards my ultimate destination, by way of loads of interesting buildings, blue plaques, squares and the like. I do this on the belief that:
A, you can't ever REALLY get lost in London. Even if you wander confused for a while, sooner or later, you'll bump into something like Oxford Street or the river, and All Will Become Clear.
B, that I have a fairly good sense of direction - when cities and buildings aren't involved, anyway. (You're beginning to see the problem, aren't you?)
I've come a cropper in the past, but I have learnt from this. These are the things I have learnt:
1. Never, ever, ever go anywhere near Seven Dials, not unless you want to get sucked into another dimension where normal spatial dimensions do not apply. You were emerge hours later to find yourself... somewhere, but where, you will not know? Very likely, another universe.
2. It is necessary to check very carefully, and to keep checking, to make sure that the "parallel road" is truly parallel, and not the kind that lulls you with its straight lines, only to start deviating away from your target like a spoke on a wheel as soon as you relax your guard.
3. Apparently I have been wrong for so many years! For as long as I remember, I have worked on the assumption that the first step on any journey into London involved walking over the foot bridge that goes from the South Bank Centre. Glancing at a map the other day, I realised that I have been so very wrong. Most of the places I go in London are better reached via the Waterloo Bridge!
I tried very hard today to put my learning into effect. Even though I kept repeating "Waterloo Bridge" to myself, the footbridge was clearly surrounded by a strong magnetic force, because I still found myself far nearer to it that I was to the Waterloo Bridge, with the Waterloo Bridge visible above me, but inaccessible. I managed to rectify this error, and set off on my planned route. Which was a main road. A main road that could only be reached by walking past loads of parallel side streets with names famed in song and story, all of them offering tempting glimpses of interesting buildings.
Learning Point 1 was heeded. Learning Point 2... Not so much. Or, rather, I became aware that I was being taken ever further away from where I wanted to go, but it was interesting! And isn't it easier just to carry on the way I'm going rather than - gasp - back track? And someone had inconsiderately placed a university or a British Museum between my wrongly-pointing road and the correct road fast disappearing to my right, so I couldn't just cut across the gap, and... and...
Well, on the plus side, I got to see very many branches of London university, a lot of squares, some theatres, some gardens, several blue plaques, and the British Museum. (I ALWAYS end up finding the British Museum, except for when I'm trying to find it, when I always end up in some strange alternative Bloomsbury where the BM apparently doesn't exist.) And it was lovely weather, and I didn't really get lost, as such, and I wasn't late for my meeting. My walk home ("this time I really WILL stick to the route") showed me a whole new and different selection of universities, theatres, squares and blue plaques, and when I emerged from the built-up area, there was Waterloo Bridge unfurled dead ahead of me like a red carpet. Which was nice, and almost entirely not unexpected.
Next time I'll stick to the recommended route.
Maybe.
Since I'm an infrequent visitor to London, and not someone who needs to traverse it daily, I always opt to walk across it rather than descend into the abyssmal depths of the underground. I check on walkit.com to glance at a recommended route, and then... entirely fail to follow it. The trouble is, I get bored with main roads, and especially bored with returning from anywhere by the same route by which I came. Plus, main roads are big, roary things, quite overwhelming to poor provincials like me. Towering buses conceal any interesting buildings that might be lurking on the far side of the road, and there are far too many side streets, where the pedestrian crossings sternly display a red man, even as all the traffic appears to be halted and all the locals are flooding across the road. I end up hovering nervously, torn between the belief that if I step out, the roaring traffic of That London is suddenly going to descend on me from a hitherto unseen direction, and the fear that if I stand there despite the total emptiness of the road, all the locals are laughing at me for being a law-abiding provincial who Doesn't Understand How We Do Things Here.
So, before very long, I have generally plunged into an interesting-looking side street that is parallel to the main road I'm aiming for, intending to zig-zag my way merrily towards my ultimate destination, by way of loads of interesting buildings, blue plaques, squares and the like. I do this on the belief that:
A, you can't ever REALLY get lost in London. Even if you wander confused for a while, sooner or later, you'll bump into something like Oxford Street or the river, and All Will Become Clear.
B, that I have a fairly good sense of direction - when cities and buildings aren't involved, anyway. (You're beginning to see the problem, aren't you?)
I've come a cropper in the past, but I have learnt from this. These are the things I have learnt:
1. Never, ever, ever go anywhere near Seven Dials, not unless you want to get sucked into another dimension where normal spatial dimensions do not apply. You were emerge hours later to find yourself... somewhere, but where, you will not know? Very likely, another universe.
2. It is necessary to check very carefully, and to keep checking, to make sure that the "parallel road" is truly parallel, and not the kind that lulls you with its straight lines, only to start deviating away from your target like a spoke on a wheel as soon as you relax your guard.
3. Apparently I have been wrong for so many years! For as long as I remember, I have worked on the assumption that the first step on any journey into London involved walking over the foot bridge that goes from the South Bank Centre. Glancing at a map the other day, I realised that I have been so very wrong. Most of the places I go in London are better reached via the Waterloo Bridge!
I tried very hard today to put my learning into effect. Even though I kept repeating "Waterloo Bridge" to myself, the footbridge was clearly surrounded by a strong magnetic force, because I still found myself far nearer to it that I was to the Waterloo Bridge, with the Waterloo Bridge visible above me, but inaccessible. I managed to rectify this error, and set off on my planned route. Which was a main road. A main road that could only be reached by walking past loads of parallel side streets with names famed in song and story, all of them offering tempting glimpses of interesting buildings.
Learning Point 1 was heeded. Learning Point 2... Not so much. Or, rather, I became aware that I was being taken ever further away from where I wanted to go, but it was interesting! And isn't it easier just to carry on the way I'm going rather than - gasp - back track? And someone had inconsiderately placed a university or a British Museum between my wrongly-pointing road and the correct road fast disappearing to my right, so I couldn't just cut across the gap, and... and...
Well, on the plus side, I got to see very many branches of London university, a lot of squares, some theatres, some gardens, several blue plaques, and the British Museum. (I ALWAYS end up finding the British Museum, except for when I'm trying to find it, when I always end up in some strange alternative Bloomsbury where the BM apparently doesn't exist.) And it was lovely weather, and I didn't really get lost, as such, and I wasn't late for my meeting. My walk home ("this time I really WILL stick to the route") showed me a whole new and different selection of universities, theatres, squares and blue plaques, and when I emerged from the built-up area, there was Waterloo Bridge unfurled dead ahead of me like a red carpet. Which was nice, and almost entirely not unexpected.
Next time I'll stick to the recommended route.
Maybe.
