Walking in London is very different from walking in East Anglia. Not just the surroundings are different, but the very act of walking itself. Even during these weird times, when people moving towards each other anywhere drift aside at the last moment like the opposing poles of magnets, walking in London involves navigating a continuous series of obstacles: traffic, construction sites, pairs and groups of people moving so slowly down the street that you wonder whether they are actually self-propelled, or simply being blown gradually along by the wind.
On a sunny but blustery morning, I set off from King's Cross, down the Gray's Inn Road and left into the Clerkenwell Road. I stopped to look longingly into the window of Terroni's, one of the oldest Italian delis in London, with its familiar enticing aroma of fresh coffee and its air of Italian insouciance. I knew that if I entered there, it would be some time before I left, so instead I crossed the road to Hatton Garden. It had its usual, slightly furtive buzz, with people arriving in dark-windowed cars to conduct mysterious transactions behind closed doors. The shop windows were enticing there too - the glittering star given centre stage in one display could be mine for a mere £25,000. Hmmm...perhaps not today.
At the bottom of Hatton Garden, I turned left into High Holborn towards St Paul's. I must have looked purposeful, as just opposite the Old Bailey, a middle-aged chap half hidden by his umbrella stopped me to ask if I knew where the Old Bailey was. I was so surprised that I looked both ways, up and down the street, to check that I really was where I thought, then pointed to the figure of Justice holding her scales high up to our right. Clearly, Justice is easily missed.
By the time I reached St Pauls, the sun was out and the now white facades were gleaming against a blue sky. I remember these facades as they were before the decades of cleaning: when I was a small child, every part of every building in London, including the graceful dome of St Paul's, was still black with two centuries of coal dust.
I followed the gap between the buildings down to Queen Victoria Street and on to the Wobbly (Millennium) Bridge. The Tate Modern beckoned to anyone out there to come in and see the free exhibitions. I was tempted to see it for once without the crowds, but I still had the south bank of the Thames to explore all the way to Greenwich.
Turning left after the bridge, I walked past the Globe Theatre (open for tours, but sadly not for plays), then through a series of near-tunnels to the ruins of the ancient Winchester Palace. The information board told me that this was once one of the most important and impressive buildings in London. Now it consists of one broken wall, still proudly bearing the wreckage of a rose window. The modern day glass fantasy of the The Shard loomed dramatically behind it.
I continued towards London Bridge, along the river frontage outside the Mayor of London's egg-shaped office, past the enormous, grey bulk of HMS Belfast, then to Tower Bridge. Beyond Tower Bridge, there is a subtle change in the river and the buildings which line it. This is the beginning of the old warehouse areas, now smart apartments, up-market (and empty) shops and expensive restaurants. Hidden among them is the Design Museum, its location chosen, perhaps, because the buildings seem self-conscious about the design potential of their industrial past. Hay's Galleria has a stunning, iron-ribbed roof which grabs attention and tries to suck you in as you walk past it along the river bank.
Gradually, the riverside walk petered out into private areas where no walker can pass, so I had to follow the road on the south side of the old warehouses for some time. The river is invisible here and the sun never shines into these canyons. Eventually, I emerged back on to the Bermondsey river front. A family on hired bikes kept overtaking me, but somehow I kept encountering them again and again. I concluded that the various obstacles, steps, barricades and corners made progress possible only at a walking pace on this urban trail.
Bermondsey gave way to Rotherhithe and its extensive riverside housing development built in the early 1990s. The river is wider here than in the City and suddenly more real as a waterway. Working barges towing containers (probably full of London refuse and processed human waste) made their way jauntily along the choppy water, propelled by the ferocious tidal current. They had names conveying strength and hard work, like "Redoubt" and "Recover".
The view across the river changed quite suddenly from the old warehouses of Wapping to the ultra-modern skyline of Canary Wharf. The skyscrapers seem to huddle together for mutual support in one small area, Canary Wharf Tower still at their heart, even though it is no longer the tallest.
Beyond the river front at Rotherhithe, the skyscrapers on the opposite bank become normal sized buildings again and the river opens out even more, suggesting the beginning of an estuary and the presence of the sea. The sun came out to make the water sparkle over a suddenly surprising expanse of water.
The sunshine was short-lived, however, and I had to take shelter under a convenient tree at the Surrey Docks urban farm while a squall blew through. Then on to Deptford. No amount of development seems to make an impression on Deptford. It remains stubbornly ungentrified, despite its illustrious former life as a royal dockyard. This is still visible in the tongues of water which mark where the old wet docks were. There is even a "Deptford Docks Trail", taking in sights such as the statue of Peter the Great of Russia, who came here in the 18th century to learn to be a shipwright. There are many local stories about him, including how one snowy winter's day he introduced the Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed, to the joys of tobogganing down the steep hill from the Observatory in Greenwich Park. Apparently, he also managed to find time off from his shipbuilding studies to plant a mulberry tree in John Evelyn's nearby garden. It's still there, propped up but alive and in full, green foliage.
Finally, the twin turrets of the Naval College and the triplet masts of the Cutty Sark appeared around the next bend in the river, marking my destination. Greenwich was thronging with visitors, despite (or perhaps because of ) the impending re-lockdown. The park glowed with autumn sunshine and the famous avenue of plane trees, scene in happier times of the start of the London Marathon, shimmered in every shade of yellow and ochre.
For now, this was the end of my route. One day, however, I plan to continue along the Thames, watching it grow wider and less familiar, as it skirts the never-ending edges of London, then wilder as it skulks past the marshes of Dickens fame, until finally it merges into the North Sea along the Kent coast and throws itself round North Foreland.
I would say "Watch this space", but sadly there might be a long wait before the world regains its sanity and I can continue my Thames-side wanderings. In the meantime, it will be back to walking in East Anglia - but nothing wrong with that!
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