A Good London Walk
 

I would appreciate a reality check on the draft walk proposal found below.

My intent was to have a long walk that provides good views of impressive buildings on a path minimally impacted by traffic. I'm guessing it is about three miles long and will take about two hours, not counting extra time to stop and visit places.

Other options would be to continue along the Thames and end the walk by crossing at Waterloo Bridge or at Blackfriars Bridge and skip Trafalgar Square.

Welcome suggestions on similar walks or modification to this draft walk. Any good pubs or other attractions along the way?

Westminster - Thames - Trafalgar Walk

Start: Westminster

Exit tube and view Big Ben (Clock Tower)and Parliament Buildings

Walk to Parliament Square and start down St. Margaret's Street

Pass (on your left) or take a quick peek inside St. Margaret's Church

Turn left beyond the corner of the Jewel Tower into Black Rod's Garden

Exit garden and cross Lambeth Bridge

Turn left when across the Thames

Pass or visit Lambeth Palace and the nearby Museum of Gardening History

Join the Thames Path National Trail and continue along Albert Embankment

Walk past St. Thomas Hospital and pass under Westminster Bridge

Continue along Queens Walk pass the London Aquarium, London Eye and Jubilee Gardens

Cross Thames at Hungerford Bridge

Walk up Norththumberland Avenue towards Nelson's Column

Enter Trafalgar Square

Visit St. Martin's in the Fields Church and café in Crypt

Visit National Gallery

Finish: Charing Cross

If you visit all the museums, you could easily spend all day on this walk, allowing for time to sit down (as you would need to), have meals and so on (are you sure there's public access to Black Rod's Garden - not something I've tried).

But if you don't stop, two hours is about right. Going on to Waterloo Bridge or Blackfriars Bridge would obviously extend the time. Whether you cross Waterloo Bridge or Hungerford Bridge, you could rest for a while in Victoria Embankment Gardens and go up to Trafalgar Square via Villiers St, which I would think more diverse (and certainly lots more possibilities to eat and drink) than Northumberland Avenue, which is mostly imposing but dull office buildings. If you cross Blackfriars Bridge you could visit St Bride's Fleet St, but this would be at the end of a very long walk, and by then I'd be inclined to get a bus back to Charing Cross/Trafalgar Square.

PatrickLondon, thanks for the input. I just drafted this from a map and have not walked it.

I'm not 100% sure about public access to Black Rod's Garden. My Blue Guide of London (17th Edition) says its open, but security concerns may have changed things.

Not wedded to Norththumberland as I just picked it since it seemed to be a straight shot. Villiers it is now.

Have you done something similiar along the Thames? Is there another section that is more scenic?

By all means visit Lambeth Palace. I'm sure the Archbishop of Canterbury will be delighted to have you visit his personal residence. Maybe he'll whip up a brunch for you and discuss the ordination of gay bishops.

So you don't get totally confused early in your perambulations, it's GARDEN History.

Will this itinerary change depending on the tide in the Thames?

Degas...laughingly (and sympathetically), I say to you that after all your research, all the threads you've begun and comments received, I think you now know so much about London - without having been there - that we can start asking YOU the questions!

You might even consider saving the airfare and staying home, having (vicariously) experienced London already.

[Please read this as gentle teasing.]

jsmith, not sure what to make of your comment about the tides. What are you getting at?

My info may be out of date, but it says the grounds and some portions of the palace were openned to the public in 2000. Has that changed?

Yes, it is Garden History, eyesight and finger control wane in the evening.

Hi Degas,

Nice walk. Just make sure to look the other way as you go past the London Eye. It is a monstrous eyesore.

TuckH, no offense taken. I do get a little carried away sometimes.

I like to learn and exchange info about great cities for a variety of reasons. It also helps when I'm on one of my periodic "TV is bad" kicks.

And a person can never learn all there is to know about London!

Degas,

I believe that Lambeth Palace was opened TEMPORARILY as part of the London "String of Pearls" celebration of the Millennium in 2000 and again for the "Golden Jubilee" Festival in 2002.

It is not generally open to the public.

Degas, the Thames is a tidal river and I wouldn't want you to do this at low tide when some unsightly river bed might be exposed.

jsmith, is there no end to required planning factors: cloud cover, temperature, humidity, wind, sunset times and now even tidal flows!

Seriously, you could start at the National Gallery in the afternoon and walk this route the other way to catch the lights and shadows in the early evening. Maybe some fog will slowily roll in and boat horns will sound on the river to put a grand finishing touch to it all!

Degas...I'm with you on this.

I like to think that half the fun of travel is the part leading up to it i.e., the planning, history-reading, research, map-reading, etc. etc.

BTW, has anyone anywhere here discussed Ken Livingston's new Town Hall, that oddly spherically-shaped structure on the Thames, opposite The Tower?

I was there when it opened a year ago and, as architecture I much prefer the British Library, as I indicated in another of your threads. This building has shock value (in that sense, not unlike Gehry's Bilbao, et al) and is quite interesting inside.

I refuse to use emoticons or those abbreviations but if any one knows how to add a laugh track, please let me know.

The Sherlock Holmes Pub is on Northumberland, not far from the river. Upstairs, it has a glassed-in room with Sherlock and his paraphernalia in a Victorian style setting. We had one quite good meal there and, on another trip, one not so good, but it's worth a stop if you need refreshment. The treacle pudding was great.

Degas, it sounds like you're having so much fun planning your own walk that you don't need a pre-packaged walk, but, just in case, I thought you might be interested in knowing that the South Bank Marketing Group has published free walking guides that cover some of the same places you're interested in. The booklets are about 30 pages long, and about 4 inches by 8 inches (easy to slip into the pocket of a bag while you're walking.) They include color photos and brief descriptions of sights you'll see along the routes covered by the guides.

I have three of the guides: Riverside London (which covers the route from the Tate Britain to the Design Museum), South Bank (London Eye to the Imperial War Museum), and Golden Jubilee Bridges (Soho and Covent Garden to the South Bank). I think there may be one or two other guides as well.

You can order the guides at http://www.southbanklondon.com/walk_this_way/index.htm. I ordered them a couple of weeks ago, and they arrived amazingly quickly. (I'm in New York, and I think they got here from London faster than mail usually gets across town.)

carolyn, I've been wanting to visit that pub. I'll have to look up the pudding - it sounds a bit strange.

Bree, thanks. I'll take all the help I can get. Making up your own walk is hard work.