London walks
 

I'm going to London in January and thinking about taking the following Original London Walks:<BR>Old Westminster<BR>Spies and Spycatchers<BR>Legal and Illegal London<BR>I'd appreciate any info on these ones

Haven't been on those specific walks, but I've been on a few other of the London Walks, and they're terrific. The guides are informative, and I love the variety LW offers. You'll enjoy all of them....

I took Legal London Walk (I'm not sure it included the Illegal but I assume it was the same tour) in march and it was great. The guide (can't remember his name) was excellent. He was extremely knowledgeable and the tour was very interesting. I am a lawyer so I liked the legal stuff but the sights were beautiful and a lot of the sights (the inns of court and other buildings) we wouldn't have found walking around on our own. We were able to go into a couple private buildings as well. I went on a pub walk the next day with the OLW and the tour wasn't nearly as good.

I was interested in taking a couple of these tours on our trip in May, probably the Jack-the-Ripper tour and the pub tour. However, after reading on this forum that around 200 people showed up for the Jack-the-Ripper tour one evening made me wonder if I should. I can't imagine wandering through the streets of London with a group of 200 people!

I took a ghost tour and there was only about 12-14 people there during the month of June. The walk was a lot of fun.

Athough the situation might be different in January, last April I planned to take several of the London Walks only to find great numbers of people at the appointed meeting place and time. Original London Walks is heavily promoted and they're too successful for my taste.<BR><BR>I did take the one to the Southwark/Globe Theatre and was additionally disappointed that we didn't get inside any of the buildings. I suppose I should have known that in the time frame given, a lot of territory had to be covered, but the following day, I took the entire day to retrace the walk at my own pace.

There is more than one Jack the ripper tour. We had about 15 to 20 people in our group and it was in the spring.

Hi Eva, we did the Old Westminster tour, and I liked it very much. But, my husband thought that there were too many people on the tour. I didn't mind it as much as he did. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and I really liked the tour guide.<BR>FYI, Judy

Tahnks everybody for the info

Along this same thread, we are planning to take the OLW Jack the Ripper walk the<BR>last week of December. Wondering if a Friday or a Sunday is better for fewer people in the group. Don't care if we don't get Donald, have heard the other guides are good, too. Anyone have an opinion? Thanks. Sonya

Eva,<BR>Is there an address, website, phone number for London Walks? Would love to see their offerings and book one.<BR><BR>Thanks in advance,<BR>M.

http://london.walks.com/<BR>

I'm one of the few who did not enjoy the Jack the Ripper Tour. There were at least 200 show up that night. Although they divided the group into 3 or 4 groups, I'd say we still had over 50 in our group. Our guide was slow, boring, and repeated the same story over and over. People started drifting away. By the time we got to the pub at the end (which was far too jammed to enter as the other groups had already arrived)I think our group was down to maybe 20, so clearly we weren't the only ones who did not enjoy it. The famous guide that everybody said to get wasn't there that night and we must have had a brand new trainee.

Eva, The Spies & Spycatchers walk is led by Alan, who is the resident Oscar Wilde expert of OLW. A charming, debonaire interesting man. I remember the Wilde walk being more interesting than the Spies, but Spies was ok. I took these walks morning and afternoon on one of those rare London days when it was pissing down rain, so perhaps my view was coloured by being cold and wet.

HIGHLY IMPORTANT MESSAGE!!!<BR><BR>Prior to taking any walks in London you MUST check in with the Ministry of Silly Walks and obtain the required Authority to Walk placard, which is to be worn around your neck and in plain sight at all times. Failure to obtain and display said placard may result in arrest by the Walk Police and fines can be severe and immediate!

John Muffty leads wonderful walks with smaller groups but same price as London Walks. He has a yellow brochure but it's hard to find around London - maybe the competition takes them?<BR>2 year old e-mail address is [email protected]/