Travel Tale: London

We lived in St. John’s Wood throughout our expat immersion; other neighborhoods held more of a mystique for me. Primrose Hill Village, north of the main shopping area of Oxford Circus, is one of the hippest neighborhoods in London. In the late ’90s it became our favorite destination for freshly roasted chickens, pastries and used books. Graced by such celebrities as Gwyneth Paltrow (yoga class), Gwen Stefani (dogwalking) and Jude Law (strolling in the park with his children), the area is adjacent to a large, hilly park, Primrose Hill, which has one of the best views in London. See an interactive map of Primrose Hill Village’s unique shops on 21st Century Village, a London neighborhood resource.

Primrose Hill was my evening haunt during the fall cross-country running season, where we ran seemingly endless laps around the park’s 1.4-mile inner perimeter. Sometimes, faster workouts required us to dash across the street to the bigger Regent’s Park and run circles round Queen Mary’s Rose Gardens.  In the spring, Regent’s Park and its profusion of flowers and strolling citizens are more impressive: stop and smell the roses; row a boat around the lake; grab a free lawn chair and read; or play softball, a popular after-work sport among Londoners.

A few minutes’ walk from Primrose Hill Village was our home of St. John’s Wood, where you’ll find some of the best elementary schools in London and a host of great restaurants and shops. The “high street,” the main drag of a neighborhood, is an essential visit (check out an interactive history of high streets). Like Hampstead High Street to the north and west, “the Wood” is increasingly chic, full of boutiques, upscale cafes and patisseries, and inevitably, a Starbucks, which opened in 1999. Take a tour of St. John’s Wood High Street’s offerings at Street Sensations.

London’s urban plan is unlike any other—it looks like it doesn’t have any plan. Unlike most cities, council housing, or “projects,” aren’t sequestered in their own neighborhoods or the outskirts of the city; they coexist with Victorian and Edwardian houses and shiny, glass apartment buildings. This accounts for London’s melting-pot atmosphere, where a home could mean a council flat, a tiny gatekeeper’s cottage, a canal boat, a penthouse overlooking the Thames River or a mansion. But London has one of the lowest skylines of any major city. Recently this has started to change: seemingly out-of-place office buildings have started to alter the architectural character. The Sunday Telegraph analyzed some of the additions in 2007, noting that, “Of the tallest 50 buildings conceived for London’s skyline, just five have ever been built.” This is good news for those who would like to keep London’s character the way it’s been since the 17th century, following the Great Fire of 1666, which destroyed 80 percent of the city.

Because of London’s vast, labyrinthine construction, even longtime residents of the city can feel as if they’ve gone to another city just by visiting another neighborhood. In the late ’90s, our Underground line, the Jubilee line, which runs roughly north to south, was extended to include some enclaves deep in the city, including the newly opened Tate Modern on the south side of the Thames. Like tourists, my sister and I nearly got lost trying to get there, confused by London’s typical curving streets with names completely unrelated to cardinal directions or numbers. But this may be a requirement of the Tate Modern experience: housed in an old power station, the museum is a butterfly of modern art enclosed in a brown brick cocoon. It’s a refreshing alternative to the more establishment Tate Britain, Victoria and Albert Museum, Natural History Museum, and the National Gallery, which are all easier to get to. The Tate Modern seems to challenge you to visit it.