TRIP PLANS #1: LONDON

I've been to London many times and know the main parts of the city very well. I enjoy visiting London but this time I'm stopping for just a couple of days en route to Wales where I want to spend more time with my cousins. As with all my trips back to old familiar places I always try to find something new to see and do. I like going on the walking tours. I've been on a few self-guided tours. But I enjoy the group tours with the knowledgable guides that tell funny anecdotes and take you to places you would likely miss or not go to alone.

I've been on several in the past, one of the most memorable being the Jack the Ripper Tour. This time I wanted something more focused on the arts or writers. So I've done some research and come up with a couple, both Saturday tours that I can do the weekend I'm in London.

One is the London Beatles Walks. Now that sounds like a lot of fun. You get to go to the place where A Hard Day's Night was filmed, the restaurant featured in Help! and the former Apple Shop. You'll see the apartment where Ringo, John and Yoko stayed and the house where Paul lived. It was in that house that John and Paul wrote I Want to Hold your Hand. And as a grand finale, you get to see the legendary Abbey Road crosswalk.


The other walking tour I think I'll go on is in the evening and it's The Old Hampstead Village Pub Walk. This is London's most villagey atmosphere. According to the blurb about it there's a super cast of characters too: Dick Turpin, the painter Constalbe, the poet Keats, Freud, D.H. Lawrence right down to George Michael and Boy George, Elizabether Taylor and Rex Harrison, Peter O'Tolle and Jeremy Irons. Sounds fascinating! And I bet the pints are good too.

I've already booked my accomodations. I always stay at the Indian Y which is conveniently located and reasonably priced (it includes breakfast and dinner). I just have to book my Heathrow B&B for my return trip from Wales when I catch an early flight off to Frankfurt where I'll stop a few days visiting with Patrick in Mainz.