How London is able to surprise a sophisticated tourist, the portal Vokrugsveta.ru Anna Shabashova, Flowwow’s junior PR manager, who spent a month in the UK capital, told us. Then the text is in the first person.
Endless golden autumn
There is an opinion that England is a country of eternal dampness, cloudy weather and fog. I lived in London from November to mid-December, and the city pleasantly surprised me: even in the cold season, many trees remain green, so there is absolutely no feeling of that dark autumn with “bare” parks and gray skies, which we are used to in Russia.
As for the rains, they do come often, but mostly at night or in the morning, and then the sun immediately looks out. In November, the daytime temperature in London does not drop below +10 °C, the air is humid (you can feel the proximity of the Gulf Stream), sometimes a strong wind starts blowing, but in general, the British autumn turned out to be very comfortable for me.
How the British dress
If you are used to focusing on the appearance of passers-by before leaving home, then this will not work in London. The British dress extremely strangely, which they themselves like to mock. On a cold morning, it is quite normal to see some passers-by walking the streets in short shorts and polo shirts, while others are wrapped in coats and wool scarves.
By the way, residents of Foggy Albion practically do not carry umbrellas with them: either they do not consider them useful, or they express their staunch British character in this way and proudly get wet in the rain.
Surprises on the roads
Theoretically, you can get from London to any region on the island very quickly and conveniently. But I recommend building routes as flexibly as possible and setting at least half an hour (or better yet more) for all sorts of surprises. First of all, because strikes are quite common here, including among transport employees. You should always be ready to either change your plans or rearrange your route.
Railways cause a lot of concern. There is no single operator in England, so some areas can work and others can go on strike. Another problem is the frequent breakdowns on the tracks. You can come to the station and find out that the departure of the train is postponed for one and a half to two hours, since the railway track is under urgent repair.
In general, punctuality is not a strong point of English transport. Trains and commuter trains rarely leave on time here: the average delay time is 10-15 minutes.
Anna Shabashova
junior PR Manager of Flowwow
Once I had to wait half an hour for the departure due to the “loss of the driver”. The passengers were told: “Sorry, we are looking for a driver. As soon as he gets back, we’ll go right away.” A sweet elderly British woman sitting next to me remarked with a smile that it seemed like we shouldn’t have been told that. But she didn’t look surprised: delays in England are normal, and the British treat them with irony.
How not to go broke on the London Underground
The world’s oldest subway is full of surprises. Firstly, there are also strikes here: one line or the entire subway may stop working for half a day. Secondly, the interval between trains is so long that sometimes it is faster, more pleasant (and more useful!) walk to the desired point.
The third surprise to be prepared for is the fare. It depends on the route and the specific area into which the city is divided. The metro as a whole is very expensive compared to the Russian one: you can spend 800 rubles for one trip. I had a subscription for all transport for a month: I used buses and the subway two or three times a day, so it turned out to be much more profitable for me than single tickets.
A life hack for a tourist
Use urban ground transportation to explore the city. Many routes of the famous red double—decker buses pass by the main attractions – beautiful views open from the top floor, and you will pay only 200-300 rubles for travel instead of a couple thousand, as for special sightseeing buses for tourists.
By taxi on the Thames
London has an excellent public transport system, including river transport. Recently, a river taxi was launched in Moscow, and it has been in London for a long time. The service is inexpensive and is used by residents precisely as a means of transportation, not a tourist attraction: many people travel along the Thames to work or to the city center.
I combined business with pleasure and used an Uber Boat to return in the evening from Greenwich, along which the zero meridian passes, to central London. It is very exciting to look at the city with night lights from the water and swim under the bridges over the Thames.
What to eat in London
Traditional British cuisine is very simple. The main ingredients are meat, potatoes and dough. By the way, there are very tasty pastries in England: these are airy scone buns, which are eaten with jam and buttercream during the famous 5 o’clock tea, and hearty meat pies with gravy, which are served in pubs. National dishes are very substantial and high in calories: what is the cost of an English breakfast alone with stewed beans, scrambled eggs, bacon and black pudding. Simple, satisfying and delicious are the three main tenets of English cooking.
Go to Chinatown for street food. The restaurants there are so popular that it seems that the British like Chinese cuisine more than their native one. This quarter is very colorful: traditional arches, red lanterns, signs with images of noodles, pork in sweet and sour sauce and steamed dumplings. If you don’t have an appetite yet, you can just take a glass of bubble tea (tea with sweet tapioca balls) and walk along the beautiful streets.
If you do not plan to eat in restaurants, but you do not like cooking, London will pleasantly surprise you: the ready-made food industry is very developed here. In supermarkets you can find whole counters with portions “for one”: salads, soups, hot dishes, vegetarian and PP dishes, cuisines of the peoples of the world. All products are of fairly high quality, so for a full dinner you will only need a microwave, and the choice is so large that your diet will definitely not be monotonous.
The Museum Capital of Europe
In London, all public museums are free: if it rains outside, you can run in to see any exhibition. You will have to pay for the ticket only if you want to see temporary exhibitions.
The obligatory program is the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Tate Gallery, the National Art Gallery, but I also advise you to look at two other lesser—known museums. The first is the Wallace Collection: a beautiful mansion in Westminster County, where you can often meet art students. There is a rich collection of French paintings, weapons, furniture, sculptures of the XVIII–XIX centuries, and you can also look at the beautiful interiors.
The second is the collection of Sir John Soane, a neoclassical architect who transferred his house and all the collected relics into the possession of the state. Every square centimeter of this three-storey house is occupied by exhibits, and truly unique ones: Egyptian sarcophagi, ancient Greek vases, fragments of ancient buildings and other antiquities, as well as precious paintings by Hogarth, Turner and other compatriots of the architect.
With a beefeater in the Tower
If you’re in London, you’ll probably buy a ticket to the Tower. Please note that the ticket price includes an excursion conducted by one of the beefeaters — the royal Guards in red uniforms living on the territory of the fortress. Every half hour, a “tour guide” picks up the group at the entrance, takes them to all the main places and tells the story of the Tower and his service to the British crown.
My guide was a Scottish beefeater: a colorful man in his fifties with a neat beard, a beer belly and a rolling bass laugh. By the way, it turned out that during the pandemic, he became famous online by posting a video about how he feeds a rescued squirrel. In his performance, the story of the Tower turned out to be bright and lively, and the gloomy facts about the prisoners of the fortress were accompanied by black English humor. Now I want to visit the Tower several more times to walk around it with different beefeaters and hear their stories.
London Parks
It is impossible to get a complete picture of London without spending at least a couple of days walking in its parks. The English Park is a well—groomed island of wildlife, in which the feeling of pristine untouched beauty is diligently maintained. The green alleys are never empty: in dry weather, picnics are held in every clearing here, cyclists ride along the paths. But there are very few stalls with ice cream, cotton candy and hot dogs. And the culture of parks in this country is completely different — you just want to lie on the grass, read a book and chat with friends about green parrots sitting on branches like pigeons.
Be sure to take a walk in St. James’s Park near Buckingham Palace. Its main attraction is the pelicans that live there all year round. Almost five hundred years ago, back under Ivan the Terrible, Russian ambassadors presented several of these birds to the English king. Since then, their important descendants have been swimming in local ponds.
In winter, I advise you to spend the whole evening visiting the Winter Wonderland amusement park in Hyde Park. This fair opens on the eve of Christmas and creates a truly festive mood: here you can ride a roller coaster, compete for prizes in a shooting range, taste Bavarian sausages, drink mulled wine with sweet tea and sing your favorite songs at the disco of the 80s.
How fans of Walter Scott will like Scotland and where to go for fans of Harry Potter books, read here.
Photos are provided by the author of the material.
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