Fleet Street and St. Paul's

February 17, 2011

Laura: This walk I went out with Maddy and Geoff. I have decided that it is a lot easier to go out and do the walks in smaller groups. You don’t have to constantly be worried about other people and you can go into all of the places that you want. I thought it was pretty cool seeing the area in London where the last hanging took place. I never really think of those types of things but I always think they are interesting when I hear about them. Even though we didn’t go into St. Paul’s we walked around the entire thing and went in the little courtyard area. It was really pretty and there were some interesting statues. I am really excited for when we go in as a group!

Maddy: This walk started with a trip to Chipotle for burritos. I think this might have been the only reason Geoff decided to come with us. Anyways, I loved seeing St. Paul's cathedral. It seemed to just rise up out of the city and I was surprised when we turned a corner and saw it towering over everything. Like Laura, I'm excited for when we go as a group to see the view of the city from the top. The walk led us through Fleet Street, an especially interesting place for communications majors like myself. Also, Fleet Street was the neighborhood of Sweeney Todd, one of the first serial killers, an especially interesting place for those that love tragedy and blood, like Geoff.

Central Parks

February 4, 2011

Laura: I went and did the Central Parks walk with Maddy and Lyse and then Part of it with Geoff another day. I think this was my favorite walk. It was the most relaxing walk, just wandering through the park and strolling along at our own pace. We did the walk backwards since we live close to the end. It was fun and easy to follow. We took a lot of detours and walked around extra things we saw in the park. My favorite was walking around the little water fountain area near Lancaster gate. We sat there for a while and ate lunch. I also really liked the statue of Peter Pan; he is such a fun character. I liked in the book how it told us that J.M. Barrie had the statue erected overnight so that children would think the fairies had brought it. That is just so cute.

Maddy: I LOVE PARKS! What I liked best about this walk was how leisurely we decided to take it. We weren't in a hurry, we weren't stressed because certain members of our group felt the need to run everywhere, and we weren't wet because the sun was out! We grabbed some lunch to go from Tesco and ate lunch along the way. We enjoyed walking by the ponds and finally understanding how MASSIVE the park is. In between reading from the book and learning about the landmarks, Lyse, Laura and I discussed our high school loves (Laura just warned this might be too much information for our blog post). Sadly, Geoff was not there for this discussion. Mostly, I enjoyed the walk because it got us outside and allowed us to explore an area so close to home.

Westbourne Park Station to Notting Hill

January 27th, 2011

Maddy: I had heard some discouraging words about this walk, so I was a bit surprised when I really enjoyed it. I loved exploring our neighborhood and seeing a less familiar end of it. In all honesty, I really loved all the shopping options. We completed this walk in two separate segments, one of which was during the Saturday market, and the shopping and energy of the neighborhood was so fun and exciting. The walk was more lively than others because there was so much going on. We ended up stopping at the Hummingbird Bakery for cupcakes, a vintage vender for earrings, and scouting out future real estate options among the pastel-colored houses.

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Laura: This walk ended up being a lot longer than I thought it was going to be. There was a lot of walking through residential areas that wasn’t my favorite. I spent a lot of time walking along Portobello Road and looking in the little shops and spent a lot of my time wandering that street. My favorite part was the Hummingbird Bakery that we found. They have some really good cupcakes. I really liked towards the beginning of Portobello Road all of the houses that you see that are all of the different pastel colors. It is so unique and really pretty.

Regent's Park

January 24, 2011

Maddy: This walk took us to an entirely new part of town. Making it to the top of the park was a bit of a hike, but once we got there it was an incredible view of the city. The walk took us to two different parks, one of which was beautifully landscaped with fountains and elaborate shrubs. It was especially nice to finish off the walk with this park, it was peaceful and relaxing and especially soothing because everyone seemed to be in a bit of a bad mood. Something about this walk that brought me some disappointment was the London Zoo. I was expecting something grand and exciting, but the zoo seemed a little dreary and out of place.

Lesson Learned on this walk: Stopping to take pictures of squirrels might put other members of the group in a foul mood.

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Laura: Parks are some of my favorite places to go and spend my time. I find them to be really relaxing and a nice place to sit and mediate and think about life. I love Regents Park. It is so beautiful. I loved the landscaping of the park and all of the fountains that they have placed inside the park. On this walk I didn’t know what the book was talking about a lot of the time. When it would talk about all of the Terraces and buildings I didn’t know where they were or what I was supposed to be looking at. But I like walking around and seeing the little pond and all of the birds everywhere. It is just as I imagine England being.

Bankside and Southward

January 17th, 2011

Maddy:

I enjoyed this walk because it brought me along a side of London I had yet to explore. Throughout this walk I saw the Millennium Bridge, the Tower Bridge, the Tate Modern Museum and a variety of other notable landmarks.

To tell the truth, I was a little disappointed by the Tower Bridge. After all the age-old hype, I was expecting something a little more grandeur than the asphalt creation it really was. Even so, it's all okay because the Tower and Millennium Bridge are both fantastic in their own right.

My favorite part of the walk was being able to walk along the Thames River. Even though it was a little dirty and lackluster, I really enjoyed seeing some of London's natural landscape.

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Laura: I really liked this walk and being able to walk along the Thames. It might be a very dirty and gross river but in a way I find it quite beautiful. It was fun finding the Borough Market. We went on a weekday so only a few food stands were open. I think it would be really fun to go back to the market when it is open and plan to do so before I leave. I really liked seeing the globe theatre up close. I have seen it before but from really far away. It has such great history. It would be really fun to go and see a play there. I think that my favorite part of the walk was just walking along the Thames and seeing all of the bridges. I also made it a point to walk across the London Bridge and the wibbly wobbly bridge. I am not sure what the actual name of that bridge is but it is the one that is in the Harry Potter movie.

Soho to Trafalgar Square

January 10th, 2011

Maddy:

This was the first of the four walks I completed. I was a little apprehensive in the beginning, I had heard the walks were fairly long and especially brutal if it was cold out. However, shortly after starting out I realized how interesting it was to learn about the history of the area while in the middle of it.

Soho was an especially interesting area. I read in one of my guide books that it was the "young and hip" part of town. After walking through, I believe it! We saw 20th Century Fox studios, along with some other film studios and publishing houses. We saw plenty of bars, clubs and pubs, which seem perfect for those twenty-something year olds ready to mingle.

My favorite part of the walk was the "Votes for Kisses" plaque we passed for the Duchess of Devonshire. I saw a film about the Duchess and seeing somewhere that she spent time was exciting and really brought history to life for me. I also loved when we passed the water pump responsible for the cholera outbreak in 1854. It was neat to learn the history behind the cholera outbreak, as I had never really learned the details.

One part of the walk I was a little less impressed with was Chinatown. I was pretty excited to explore this part of town and I was disappointed when it seemed to be predominately tourist shops.

Overall, I enjoyed walking through Soho and I especially loved ending in Trafalgar Square, which is one of my favorite places in London so far.

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Laura: This is the first walk that I went on. I really liked going out into London and being able to learn about little bits of history that I wouldn’t have learned otherwise. It was fun walking through China town and seeing all of the restaurants and shops in there. I think that my favorite part of the walk was the water pump that caused the outbreak of Cholera. It is amazing to think that such a small thing can spread such a terrible disease and kill so many people. I also liked seeing all of the pubs that are in the Soho area. Pubs just seem so British to me. It is once you get back into areas like that and off of the main streets that you can really see England as the English see it and I really like that.