From Her Majesty

I had always considered London a grey city, without ever seeing it. I have to change my mind. Taking off from Parma with Ryanair, after problems due to a (1) extra kg, we arrive at Stansted perfectly on time. Terravision bus and here we are in London. First contact with a city full of people rushing around, compared with my little and sleepy Parma. We arrive at the Royal National Hotel, huge with 1600 rooms but in the centre, in the Russell Square area, so very convenient for the tube. Nothing special, but it was only needed for sleeping and breakfast, very poor. We immediately started covering kilometres on foot. In six days we visited everything we could, certainly a small part but still enough to make us realise what it is like.

Beautiful, with streets that are not too big and picturesque neighbourhoods like Victoria Street, Piccadilly Street, Trafalgar Square, Camden Town with its very strange shops. A tip for those who have never been to London: buy the Oyster card, you can use it on the tube, bus and train. They say London has improved as far as food is concerned, I don't know how it was before but if now you eat better................. The old pubs are very beautiful because they keep that old London atmosphere you see in films, they serve fast food, fish and chips, a beer and off you go with twelve pounds. Expensive, quite expensive, entry to Westminster Abbey costs 15 pounds, St Paul's Cathedral 16 pounds, Tower of London 16 pounds and so on. Only the National Gallery and the British Museum are free entry.

On the tube on the escalators you have to stand on the right because you must leave space to be overtaken, they are always in a hurry. Take a ride on the double-decker buses without a precise destination, it is very interesting to see the city like that, get off, visit a neighbourhood, then get back on another number and so on. You must not miss Portobello market on Saturday, you find everything and more, watch out for rip-offs. Until the next trip and SAFE TRAVELS to those setting off