This is almost certainly not the first article you will read about London, but perhaps yet another in a long series telling you what to visit in the city, how to get around or where to stay. In reality this time I don’t want to offer you a proper mini-guide to London; rather, I want to tell you about London as it appeared to my eyes and how I still feel its absence. London is in some respects the city of “opposites” — the city where you can choose to plunge into the frenzy of people, sounds and colours right in the centre between Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square; or to take refuge in search of peace and quiet in one of its many beautiful parks.
I remember in this regard one of the most beautiful Easter holidays I have ever spent, right in London, last year. It was Easter, 25 degrees, a warm and enveloping sun, and we — together with many other Londoners — lying on the grass of St. James’s Park, dozing and dreaming. It was not in the least the London I had so often read about: chaotic or noisy. Quite the contrary! It was like being in a different London, completely unlike how it is normally described; it was a calm, pleasant London, almost like a provincial town. London is the city that gives you the possibility of spending entire days immersed in art and culture, very often without paying a single pound. Places like the Tate Modern, or the immense British Museum, or the National Gallery are all absolutely free. Incredible works of art or entire periods of history made available to everyone, which you can choose to visit for whole days at a time. I remember the first day I arrived in London for the first time, on a morning in August many years ago — the very first sensation I felt, despite not knowing the city at all, was one of “home”. I knew nothing of London, beyond the few directions I had been given to reach the place where I would be staying. But its welcoming nature, its “internationality”, never truly made me feel like a foreigner.
One of the things I love most about this city is the number of people of different nationalities you can find. Travel across the city from one end to the other on the Tube and in your carriage you can perfectly well hear 5 or 6 different languages being spoken, see sitting side by side a Chinese person, an American, a Japanese, a Spaniard and an Italian; boys and girls dressed in ways we could perhaps never even imagine, without being regarded in the slightest with condescension as we do back home. Because fundamentally, if you go around with blue hair or in short sleeves in the middle of December, they simply don’t care at all. You breathe that feeling of freedom, of doing more or less as you please, of dressing however you feel like in the morning without overthinking it, of walking around all day with earphones in and a large coffee in hand (preferably from Pret a Manger, for my taste :P) — of doing all those things that back home you probably could never do because you’d be smothered in stern looks and negative judgements. In London you can also allow yourself to relive history, to visit the marvellous Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre where during the visit you can also witness a theatrical performance of the period; where you as spectator are in direct contact with the actor on stage; where distances shrink, creating an incredible sensory experience.
Or you can relive fictional narratives, like the house of Sherlock Holmes at 221b Baker Street, step into the music shop next door that seems almost a small Beatles temple, or spend the weekend at typically colourful markets like Camden Town or Portobello. I cannot think or speak of London without feeling a sharp and powerful sense of nostalgia and longing. London is a city you either fall hopelessly in love with, as I did, or cannot stand because it is too “chaotic”. But without a shadow of a doubt it does not leave you indifferent; it does not pass unnoticed without leaving a mark.