London starts to stir again
How to see your own city in a new light on an (almost) tourist-free jaunt around its key attractions
Sometimes it takes a pandemic to truly appreciate what’s on your doorstep. I’ve lived in London for nearly 20 years, but this is my first time on an open-top bus tour of the capital’s highlights.
On the top deck it’s me, five students and Joe, our guide on the mic. “Things are a bit different,” he says. Adding somewhat redundantly: “I’m in a mask.”
Seats are cordoned off, the bus has been sanitised and a cleaner gives the handrails a final rubdown. We’ve given our details for test and trace — although who knows what’s going on with that — and Joe goes through additional health and safety measures, “because there are not enough of those at the moment” — and off we go from Piccadilly Circus.
As a teenager I used to come up on the train for a whirl around Leicester Square (I didn’t know any better). It was exciting, busy, noisy, bright and, crucially, not suburban Kent. It is none of those first four things today, but it’s still early.
When Joe returned to work on July 4, he said London was like Danny Boyle’s post-apocalyptic horror flick 28 Days Later. I know what he means. I cycled through town in May to see Trafalgar Square without tourists, Covent Garden without street performers and Oxford Street devoid of shoppers. It was like being on an abandoned film set. Wheeling down Shaftesbury Avenue, the theatre lights still shining hopefully, was saddening yet extraordinary. It felt a privilege to see the capital asleep.
It is coming round now, though. On those first tours there were only six passengers, but by the end of mine there are 22 daring sightseers. One family has come from Nottingham so their daughter could see the capital before she starts school (they hope). They agree, now is a good time to see the city: it’s an almost-private VIP tour.
Joe, a Londoner, is full of trivia. I didn’t know that Leicester Square was once Leicester Fields and that Haymarket was where you topped up your horse with hay on your way into town. Nor that Sylvester Stallone got married at the Dorchester and Elizabeth Taylor had five of her honeymoons there. When he describes Waterloo station — normally part of my daily commute — as “the original gateway to Europe”, I think he might be stretching the point. But it was the first home of Eurostar. That grand entrance thousands of us hustled through twice a day? It’s the Victory Arch, in memory of the railway workers who died in the First and Second World Wars. Ladies’ Bridge? Otherwise known as Waterloo Bridge, built by female labourers and, according to Joe’s grandma, the only bridge on the Thames finished on time and within budget. Boom.
We pass the Royal Courts of Justice, where Johnny Depp and Amber Heard gave us a break from coronavirus news the other week, and trundle along Fleet Street, “the street of ink, the street of shame, the street of scandal”. There are a lot of pubs here, says Joe, “I don’t know if there’s a connection.” Not any more, Joe.
He points out Winston Churchill’s face in the sun on the astronomical clock on Bracken House. And we cross the Thames to what, 500 years ago, was a lawless area and is now the South Bank. “You could get drunk for a penny and dead drunk for two pennies,” Joe says.
I will never tire of crossing London’s bridges — Tower Bridge is still a thrill, and the view across the “wobbly” Millennium Bridge to Tate Modern with its “Thank you key workers” banner is wonderful. The Tates are open — you have to book — Andy Warhol has been extended at Tate Modern and Aubrey Beardsley at Tate Britain.
The National Gallery, where 65 per cent of visitors are usually international, has devised three routes through its collection. When I followed route B, which takes in a Titian exhibition as well as Rubens, Rembrandt, Turner, Monet and Van Gogh, the week it reopened, the staff were beaming behind visors. As a friend put it, the National’s works are “all killer, no filler”, and the Titians have not been seen together for centuries. Tickets must be bought ahead, but numbers are limited and the gallery is only a third full. Another private view.
A Darth Vader impersonator is back on the bridge at Westminster, cloak flapping, and traffic slows us down at Victoria — almost business as usual. Look out for the triangle of green next to the station, presided over by a statue of the French commander Ferdinand Foch, with sheds covered in shells from Normandy.
The bus can only go round the back of Buckingham Palace, past the servants’ quarters. But, cycling that morning, I’d seen more flowers — bright red geraniums in the beds — than gawpers outside its front and only two children clambering over the statue of Queen Victoria.
Deposited where I started, I check into Ham Yard, the first of Firmdale’s London hotels to reopen. Reception is behind screens, minibar contents have been removed and notices advise against cramming into the lifts. Bookings for August are better than expected, and with its beehive and hydrangea-filled roof terrace, plus outdoor restaurant, it’s no wonder. Despite being in the centre of town, right behind Piccadilly Circus, the vibrant rooms are blissfully quiet.
Apparently the hotel has had a lot of couples staying to escape the children — who can blame them? And when I stop for lunch the terrace is busy with friends loudly discussing lockdown dating. “We just didn’t have that … connection.”
Nearby, Regent Street and Oxford Street are the busiest I have seen them in weeks, but the shops are still quiet. Liberty echoes, and I’ve never seen so much of the carpet in Fortnum’s, although the doorman tells me that business is picking up. I can’t resist a packet of “The world is your oyster” chocolates to tide me over.
Soho has taken to the streets, embracing its liberation by cordoning off Old Compton Street and Frith Street with yellow gates at night so that traffic is replaced with tables, drivers with diners. It’s busy and there’s a happy hum.
The smart Berkeley hotel has opened a new pop-up terrace, the Garden, for summer in what was a driveway. Opposite St Paul’s church, amid olive trees and flaming lamps, you’ll forget you’re in construction-filled Knightsbridge. The menu features Mediterranean sharer dishes such as sizzling saganaki (£14 [$25.51]) and grilled sardines (£18.30), with pitchers including a fruity peach wine, and ice cream in cones for dessert. It’s laid-back dining (though they take your temperature on arrival) and has been so popular, they’re thinking of turning it into an apres-ski lodge for winter.
No, London is not quite the same, but I have never loved it more.
Jenny Coad was a guest of Ham Yard, which has rooms from £450, B&B (firmdalehotels.com), and the Garden at the Berkeley (the-berkeley.co.uk). Tickets for the tour from £20 (theoriginaltour.com)
THE SUNDAY TIMES
More Coverage
Invasion ‘doomsday scenario of all-out conflict’: Lebanese envoy
Lebanon’s ambassador to London, Rami Mortada, has warned his country’s armed forces would not “stand idly by and watch” if Israel were to launch a ground invasion.
Mossad’s tricks can’t light the path for Israel
Attacks on Hezbollah may avoid an invasion of Lebanon but splits around Netanyahu run deep.