Too much to do in London!

No one can truly say they know London well. To know London completely is impossible. London changes faster than pigeons descending into the fountains of Trafalgar Square. Home to inhabitants for over 2,000 years now, London has grown from the protective circle of the Tower to a sprawling metropolis, the ideal platform for constant illustrious activity.

Where there is history there are always tales to tell. Tourists are naturally drawn to the regular tourist attractions, yet it is the true travellers that seek deeper to find the gems of a 2,000 year-old town. It only takes a very small amount of investigating to find something more rewarding, more interesting, more inspiring in London, than the London Dungeons (although it must be said — is a damn good laugh if you can bear the hour long queues!).

For instance, not even a minute’s walk from the London Dungeons is the Hay’s Galleria. This gem is for some totally bizarre reason hidden from all guidebooks and tourist information — no doubt to preserve its lack of thousands of tourists, which would make it a less exclusive haven. Please go there! It’s a beautiful indoor/outdoor menagerie of a few select shops, with a vast concourse of cafes, market stalls, bands, and of course, it overlooks a beautiful part of the Thames.

Turn right from Hays Galleria and you find yourself in a Thames-side walkway next to the newest buildings in town. The architecture is phenomenal, and these buildings are still so new that you can imagine that the cellophane has just been freshly peeled off all the windows. You must visit the Mayor of London’s building (it’s the one shaped like a golf ball), go to the top and marvel at the mind-boggling roundness of it all — plus of course see the spectacular views of the HMS Belfast, Tower Bridge and the Tower of London.

Continue strolling, and you are literally underneath Tower Bridge. Keep walking again and you are now in Shad Thames, a true delight of traffic-free, cobbled streets full of people, giving you a precise feeling of how the London streets felt hundreds of years ago. It is as if these streets have been restored from long ago, thus delivering to the traveller a wonderfully rich blend of old and new all in the same place. Circle around Shad Thames, past the ever-changing Design Museum, and find yourself in Butlers Wharf, a charming quay-side collection of bars and restaurants all overlooking the Thames opposite the equally picturesque St. Katherine’s Dock. Butlers Wharf is the ultimate in romantic settings.

Hays Galleria to Butlers Wharf is one walk of quite possibly hundreds to choose from, in fact, that’s a whole day right there! There are equal delights even if you turned left out of Hay’s Galleria, especially the Clink Street Prison Museum, Vinopolis (Wine Museum), Borough Market, Southwark Cathedral, I could go on…

Great streets, great walks, great museums (forget the big-ones — go to the Children’s museum in Bethnal Green for a real treat). It is frustrating to think that the bulk of visitors to London wind up staying in some of the least interesting areas. Paddington and Bayswater are both great areas, being so close to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens (now home to the finally-completed Princess Diana shrine). Kensington and Earls Court have their highlights too, but there is more to London than the tried and tested tourist routes.

I recently stayed in a five star hotel in the middle of the city on the weekend for less than one hundred pounds a night, and was amazed at exactly how completely empty the city of London was. I was in heaven! There I was in the middle of one of the oldest cities around, and I had it all to myself! City hotels are notorious for being completely empty on weekends, hence the great rates. I am sure tourists pay over the hundred pounds per night threshold to stay in ‘trendy’ Kensington etal, when they could easily stay next to Tower Bridge, St. Paul’s, Millennium Bridge etc, for much less.

Needless to say that the City of London (the financial centre) is absolutely coloured with history, everywhere you go there are buildings proclaiming their 16th century origins, and they are in abundance.

I was recently taken to what is supposedly one of the oldest London pubs in existence called Ye Old Mitre which is located at 1 Ely Court, off Ely Place. This pub is not only hidden from the guidebooks and the common information sources, it is also hidden from the public! I had to be taken there, as I would never have been able to find it unless accompanied. This pub is hidden from the world. It is sandwiched between two narrow streets and therefore completely obscured from any main thoroughfare. It’s address would indicate access from Ely Place when in fact you get to it through a very discreet allyway between numbers 9-10 Hatton Gardens. It has its own courtyard and as you stand supping a pint outside, it is as if you are in Victorian London. Look down the misty streets and it is easy to conjure up an old bobby on the beat blowing his whistle, or Jack the Ripper lurking in the shadows. Oh — and there’s a 150 year old tree growing through the building, to add to the oddity of the pub.

Hampstead is another great area waiting to be discovered. Covered in green spaces, Hampstead (North London) is perfect for the idyllic setting combined with the close proximity to the big-smoke. Steeped in its own folklore, Hampstead was home to Dick Turpin (apparently he was born at the Spaniard’s Inn — hugely popular and famous pub on the Heath) of which his ghost still roams Kenwood house, and the surrounding woodlands. The high streets of Hampstead, Belsize Park, and the immaculately kept Primrose Hill are possibly the last untouched-by-commercialism streets in London (no Starbucks here!). If you want breath-taking views of the city, historical sites detailing the ‘first entry point into London,’ combined with al-fresco dining, and an altogether more relaxed atmosphere, Hampstead is the place, and less than 15 minutes on the tube to the city centre! Now do you see why it seems frustrating that tourists stay in less desirable areas when they could stay in an altogether more inspiring location, just as close to all the major attractions?

Of course, Hampstead is one of London’s many beauty spots, yet the city is not all about beauty. As with any home to approximately 10 million people, varied activity is rife. London events cannot help but affect all, every Londoner has an opinion on the congestion zone,  in fact on any topic you care to mention. Start a conversation with any London black-cab driver — typically famous for their outspoken views, and you will find yourself immediately thrown into the debate of the day.

So, when visiting London do not even attempt to see it all — you cannot.

In a city where already this year a Roman road has been uncovered a mile below ground level dating back to 1 AD, and where Paddington workers uncovered Brunel’s first iron-bridge (one they didn’t even know existed) — London is forever creating wonders on a regular basis

and the winner is…. London!

Well, on true London marathon day form it began raining, but honestly - that’s a good thing, once you get moving from Greenwich, you need that light spray to keep you cool, and anyway, after about 11ish it soon brightened up!

Yesterday in training for the big london hotels run on June 1st I ran 20 miles across the nearby forest, it was a liberating run. This time (pop-pickers) I was mainly listening to the Doors, the stones, and quite randomly (for me anyway) Glen Campbell (I know, I think by listening to Glen Campbell AND using the phrase ‘pop pickers’ I can safely extract myself from the ‘young’ bracket, and it doesn’t matter how much txt spk I use 2 b spr trendy (trendy?! ha, another giveaway – don’t tell my rents), err, where was I?

Seeing the London marathon is an astonishing spectacle & hugely overwhelming. Firstly on marathon morning – you gotta get there! Me I always travelled in from London so this meant getting onto the train at London Bridge, the great news is that a train leaves every few minutes… bad news is every single one of those sardine cans is jam packed, albeit with friendly fellow runners. So you squeeze on the train, swap a few angst-ridden thoughts with virgin runners (or scare them by saying you’ve done the marathon loads, either way), then 10 mins later you walk (passing the Novotel London Greenwich of course – hi guys!), and then you find your start zone. There are millions of people everywhere which is great, setting the amazing atmosphere already, and as per the advice of all marathon runners…. you got to go to the loo! The queues of course are a mile long, but let’s leave that part there! You jumble into the start zone, and while you wait there for 15mins or so the same thoughts always go through your mind….

What am I doing here?
I haven’t done enough training
I’ve got 26.2 miles in front of me
I am dying for a weeee
Everyone else looks fit and has shiny expensive trainers
Breathe breathe breathe….

and then you’re off, everyone’s cheering, you feel good, you feel elated, man – this is going to be a great chilled run, I might even do my personal best, ah this is a breeze…… and you haven’t even passed the start line yet – that’s another 5 mins away!

At first you’re milling through the streets of Woolwich & Greenwich, it’s all very chilled, there’s a couple of cracking pubs initially that you pass, usually they’re blaring out goodwill messages on a PA, though I do recall in ‘07 there was an Elvis singing his choons on the top of the pub roof – classy.

6 miles and you’re juusstt about passing Greenwich observatory & the Cutty Sark, the streets are crammed here full of spectators, charities are cheering you on, children are handing you out jelly babies, oranges, sausages, all sorts of stuff, and then you head on up to Deptford & Rotherhithe. This is a long road (Salter Road) but wide ‘n nice, and there’s a cracking shower spray to run through. It’s around this point (mile 9ish I think) that you begin to think, yeah, I can do this, I have trained well, and loads of people have sponsored me, am not gonna let them down, and then before you know it – you’re at Tower Bridge – the almost half-way point – this is a great point on the route. Running over Tower Bridge, you (or I) feel proud. You feel proud to be alive, proud to be running, proud to be in London/a Londoner, my god, you could be prime minister if you wanted to be, anything is now possible. The noise on Tower Bridge is immense, you are a hero, it is a fact, but then….

You turn right en-route to the Docklands (yet you know that the end of the route is left – turn around turn around!), and then disaster! for the first time on the route you get to see the mega-athletes, the Paula Radcliffes running the opposite way towards the finish – they’ve already done 21 miles, and you – you’ve not even gone passed the 14 mile mark AND you’ve got to do a while big b*stard run around the whole of the Docklands. This is where you need a boost, the biggest boost in fact. For a few marathons (ahem) I did, I ran for Cancer Research UK, and they have a few main roadside support bases along the way, I think one of these was on mile 15, the cheer they give you when you run past them is all you need to give you the all-important motivation boost (love you guys), but still 6 or 7 miles round the docks… there’s no getting away from it, you just got to get your head down, turn up the i-pod and pray that James Brown will get you through.

Somehow, you emerge out of the docklands! You pass the old mint building, you glimpse a site of St Katherine’s Dock down some side streets, then, lllaaaaaaa, like the sun screaming out from behind the clouds you see Tower Bridge again, but it is not like before, this time it is even brighter, even bigger, even better, because – you’re only 5 miles from the end baby, only 5 miles after those 21 – easy peasy, or is it

No, it’s not. “The Wall” if it happens to you, usually happens here. You stop dead. You don’t want to, but nothing moves. The crowd are cheering at fever pitch, your emotions are playing havoc in your mind, you want to cry (I did once), you want to dissappear, you want to do anything but just stand there as 1000s fly by you, but you can’t – you’ve hit the wall.

Somehow… you scrape yourself off the floor, your legs somehow begin to move again, somehow you don’t feel the pain, and somehow just thinking of why you are doing this (your family, your friends, the loved ones you have lost, your sponsors, the charity you’re running for, the pain & suffering in the world that you’re making a small contribution to making right, the camaraderie of the runners telling you to ‘come on son, nearly the end’, the spectators screaming & willing you to go on, they’re standing there all day in the rain supporting you, London for relentlessly raising millions and providing an incredible day for the whole city) spurs you on to somehow getting to the holy finish line.

The last mile always seems to be the longest (errr, well it is actually 0.2miles longer) away, Buckingham Palace seems furter away than normal, but seriously – this is where the crowd sing you magically to the end. You fly through the finish line, if you’re a first timer you cry (I did  – all the year’s training, the highs and lows, it all comes out when you cross that line) and then you say you will never do it again (but you do the next year & do it even better because now you have learnt how to improve & the magic of the day is so immense you cannot imagine NOT doing it).

Phew, I think that may well just about describe the run on the day.

It is the greatest day in London by miles (geddit?) and I will always be proud to be a part of it.

Congrats to Julian Payne, GM of the Threadneedles Hotel, who completed the London Marathon today in 4h 2mins, he’s a true ledge.

The ballot for the 2011 London marathon opens on 4th May 2010.