I moved to London in the dog days of summer.
After discovering that almost nobody in London has air-conditioning, I spent most of my early days here feeling sweaty 🥵 and looking forward to autumn. However, when I finally felt that fall chill in the air, and the first leaves started take on a yellow-ish tint—as excited as I was—it occurred to me that the beautiful summer aesthetics of this city were about to change. I’m sure that next summer, after I have weathered my first dark, cold British winter, I will have an entirely different perspective on London’s seasonality.
So, in a gesture to future-Peter, who will surely wish that past-Peter had made more of an effort to enjoy the warm weather—sweaty though he may have been—I decided to do a photowalk to commemorate this moment in time. This will be the first of many.
A Walk Through Soho & Fitzrovia 🚶🏻
Today we’re going to walk from Green Park to the BT Tower at sunset. I’d plot out the route of my walk for you on Google maps, but I have no idea what my route actually was. As is my custom, I was trying to get lost. What I can tell you is that this walk will take us through a little corner of Mayfair, and then through neighborhoods called Soho and Fitzrovia. You will see those areas outlined on the maps below.
Having only been here for 1.5 months, I still feel quite under-qualified to be making any sort of statements about London as a whole, but these areas really feel like the “heart of the city” to me. Or, “the city” in the way it tends to be portrayed in the media at least. There are no super tall buildings. It’s not the geometric center of London. There aren’t really any of the top London landmarks here. But it’s dense, it’s posh, it’s beautiful, it is constantly awash with people, and it’s just a stone’s throw away from A LOT of notable things. Hyde Park. Buckingham Palace. I haven’t even been to most of these places yet! But the gravitation fields of these legendary places have infused these areas with a constant buzz. I’ve had been through these areas a few times before I finally brought my camera along, and in each case, the streets were buzzing. It’s a fun place to walk.
I’m not going to throw much information at you right now. I’m just going to show you the pictures so we can enjoy a light article together… for once. 😂
Maybe it’s just a product of my circumstances right now, but I am feeling like a bit of a resistant audience when it comes to London’s many charms. I just moved, everything is new, grad school is starting, I already have deadlines… I think I’m just stressed and focused, so I don’t have time for things like enjoying the present moment. (I know, I know… I’m working on it.) But in spite of myself, there have been some special moments where this laser focus breaks and I find myself just quietly walking down the street in London.
There is a little café in Fitzrovia where Napoli supporters come together for games. (This is Napoli the football/soccer club, of which I am a supporter.) I’ve been there a couple of times now. Despite being close to a lot of hustle and bustle, it’s on a relatively quiet street, peacefully insulated from all that noise.
A few weeks ago I was walking to the tube station from this café through the darkened London streets, and I had one of those moments where that anxious focus-y static breaks, and it’s just quiet.
And I was like, “Wow. I live here… that’s pretty cool.”
I don’t know if people coming to visit as tourists really get a sense of the scale of this place because most major tourist attractions are clustered relatively close to one another. But to me, whose first time in London was the day I moved to London, its size was a bit terrifying. I couldn’t afford to stay in the city center, so I found an Airbnb further afield. Fighting the traffic and crowds to haul my ass back and forth across this city to do apartment viewings was exhausting, and I only covered a small portion of the city in those trips.