I'll start this blog the way I started another, eight years ago:
We tend to wander around cities as we travel; visiting a museum or cathedral usually means a walk to it, or from it, or around its neighborhood. Rambling that way gives us a fuller picture of the city, its life, its culture and its past.
It also usually gives us a collection of pictures that are part of my image of the city, without fitting into any the blogs I write. And so, I finish my London with a gallery of the leftovers, some poignant, some quirky or surprising, and some just pleasant to remember.
In Covent Garden, where Eliza Doolittle first met Henry Higgins, a young girl follows pigeons past the Opera House. Below, a multi-part warning against 'stairmaster heroics.'
London has many plaques and monuments on walls and walks. Some honor famous people, like Princess Diana; others mark historic events we may never have considered but for the plaque, and some few honor people too obscure to Google, but important to their peers and their time.
Here's one commemorating a week's visit to London by a famous figure, and a storefront that makes a pun on the name of a famous American actor.
This one isn't a public marker: In a world of small buildings filled with Airbnbs, here's how I got the keys for mine. Never met Ellie, Peter or Thenmolle, though.
No, it's not Amsterdam, it's a branch of the Regent's Canal, not far from those 'painted ladies' near the Portobello Market. Also nearby is the Museum of Brands, with its mural on the street; it took me a while to realize the artist had played with the names.
Another artist, Chris Ofili, created this memorial work at the Tate Britain in honor of a young artist, Khadija Saye, who died in the Grenfell Tower fire of 2017, which took 72 lives. Ironically, seven years later, the fatally-flammable cladding that led to the disaster still exists on hundreds of other buildings.
The symbolism of public sculpture is sometimes unclear, sometimes a little fishy, and frequently actually alive, looking for gold.
Pubs are an important part of social life in London and of its history, and quite a few have been around for quite a long time. The Anchor, dating to the mid-1600s, was a neighbor of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, while the Trinity, near Borough Market looks even older. Surprise! It's an 1890s building that took its present name in 2020; before 2014 it was known as Hole in the Wall. Waxy's Little Sister is an Irish pub with an eye-catching name sign.
The George is another 16th century survivor; it's London's last galleried coaching inn, a stop on coach routes to and from the city. The Bunch of Grapes is on the edge of Leadenhall Market. The pub is a few centuries newer than the covered market which has existed there since 1445.
The Blackfriars pub is a landmark of Art Nouveau style, inside and out...
London's 'big buildings' aren't all tall, though there are plenty of recent examples that are. Here's the immense Harrods store on Brompton Road, a view of Buckingham Palace from St James Park and a mixed bag of buildings, good and bad, that mark London's latest skylines.
Getting around crowded London—that's Piccadilly Circus, there, and the Chinatown Arch—has so many underground options on the sign it might seem easier to take one of the many rental bikes on offer.
A few more eyecatchers: Sculptural grapes, an installation that might be art or might be artistic cover for an exhaust, and three blue figures scaling a tall building near Borough Market.
Borough Market, one of the city's oldest and busiest food markets has shifted from a purely wholesale site to a lively food fair with treats of all kinds as well as ingredients for more. Those folks on the grandstand aren't waiting for a show; the grandstand is a place to eat your treats without blocking aisles.
Nearby, a building that's literally 'gone green,' though not as a defense against climate change, and a London version of the 'Twin Towers.' In this case, a 21st century office building, The Shard, and a 17th century church.
A man waits patiently, perhaps for a phone call, at a functioning 'not-red' phone booth—or perhaps he is deciding whether or not he dares take a chance on an appointment with the barber...
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