When you’re traveling alone you need to be prepared. You also need to be unafraid of asking questions of perfect strangers. My first day in London I would give myself a C+ on the former and an A+ on the latter. More on this later in the post.
My flight arrived at London’s Heathrow airport at 6:25am Saturday morning. I was able to get some sleep on the plane and was feeling tired but alert. I had already bought round trip tickets on the Heathrow Express – an over-the-ground train that goes directly from Heathrow to Paddington Station. At the airport I also bought a Tube one day pass from a kiosk.
When I got to Paddington Station I knew I had to find a way to get to the Northern Line – the only line that lets off at Hampstead station, which was about a quarter mile from our hotel. So what did I do? I consulted a map of the Tube on the wall. On first glance, the map of the Tube looks like so much colorful spaghetti, but it’s actually a marvel of design. It’s a stylized map, originally created in 1931 by a man named Harry Beck. It’s really more a diagram than an actual map, as the location of the stops on the map are not strictly geographically correct. The design has been tweaked over the years (an interesting history of the map can be found here), but the spirit of the original map remains the same as it did in the early 1930’s.
So, there I was in Paddington station, looking at the map. I could see that if I took the Circle Line going East I could hook up with the Northern Line at King’s Cross St. Pancras station (not to be confused with King’s Cross station, where students from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry board the Hogwarts Express – actually, I’m still confused – I think King’s Cross St. Pancras is the name of the Tube station and King’s Cross is the actual above-ground train station – please correct me if I’m wrong, London readers, but I digress…Ahem. Once I found out my route from the map, the rest was easy peasy. The SIGNAGE, you see, in the London Tube is amazingly user-friendly (hear that, JFK Airport?). There are clear, easy to read, color-coded signs showing you exactly how to get where you need to go. I especially love the “Way Out” signs – they just make me smile. Although synonymous with “Exit”, “Way Out” just seems so much more friendly, don’t you think? Also, as the train reaches each new station, a voice announces the station and the connections at that station – at the same time that an LED banner sign on both sides of each car streams the same information.
And the beauty of it all? Even if you screw up and go in the wrong direction, or get off at the wrong stop, you can just get back on going in the opposite direction and get back on the right track (pun intended).
So, I got off at Hampstead, checked in at our hotel, took a shower, changed clothes, and got right back out there. I knew that if I hung around the room too long I would be in danger of getting sleepy and taking a nap. So off I went! First stop, Covid test. I had made an appointment for 1:00, but stopped by at about 10:30 and asked if I could take the test early. Yep! Next, something to eat. I stopped at a cafe with outdoor seating because the sign outside advertising their crepes caught my eye (because what do you have for your first meal in London, but crepes – lol). Next I found my way to Hampstead Heath and started walking. And sitting on benches just absorbing nature. The weather was beautiful – cloudy and cool but not cold. The trails were a bit muddy in places, but not too bad. I just kind of took one path after another, wandering to my heart’s content, taking photos of birds and trees. I really wished that I had brought my “real” camera, because so many of the birds were completely foreign to me (Eurasian Coot; Ringed Neck Parakeet, which is non-native and so surprising to see – photo from elsewhere on the internet here; and the Eurasian magpie, among others). It being early Saturday afternoon, there were many people walking the paths, but I still found places that felt remote. If you’d like to learn more about Hampstead Heath, here is the official website, and here is a fan site – which I enjoy so much more than the official site. I also love that a park has a fan site.
Rambling along, I suddenly remembered that I had arranged to meet Chris at Abbey Road Studios at 3:30. He had a break around that time and would be able to come get me in reception and bring me back to Studio One, where he was working. Around that time I looked at my cell phone and realized that it was dead. I had packed a charging brick, and I had put it in my handbag, but did I also put the charging cord in there? Of course not. Hence my C+ in planning. So, I wasn’t quite sure what time it was – I could have been wandering one hour or two and a half hours; I had completely lost track of time. I knew I had to make my way back to the hotel so that I could charge my phone and then head down to Abbey Road. After a couple of minutes I saw a path ending at a city street, so I took it – but it was not the same path upon which I had entered. So, I looked for a place to ask for help. A dry cleaners! Perfect! I went in and asked the woman behind the counter how I might make my way back to Hampstead. Turns out I had completely cut across the Heath and was now on the opposite side – I could either try to navigate my way back across the park, or if I walked 10 minutes down the street I would be at a Tube station on the Northern Line. If I had all the time in the world I would have rambled on back across Hampstead Heath, but time being of the essence I walked to the station.
Next post – Abbey Road!
Michelle xoxo
PS – In case you’re wondering what kind of crepe I had – ham and cheese 🙂