Just back from a wonderful holiday trip to London, and I have a tip I want to share. London is famous for being a great town for walking – you can go anywhere by public transportation and talk a walk in the area, which is most likely to have all kinds of interesting buildings, parks, shops, pubs and other attractions. While some people have an almost magical talent for finding their way around, seeing all the right things, the rest of us usually have to resort to guided tours or walking suggestions in our travel books. But if you are going to London, and if you own (or can borrow) an mp3 player, it doesn’t have to be like that.
Robert Wright authors a podcast called London Walks, which, so far, provides not less than 21 walks through the streets, roads, parks and alleys of London – entirely free of charge. Most of the walks takes around 1 hour to complete (provided you don’t take advantage of your pause-button to study something of particular interest) and some walks can be combined into longer walks to keep you occupied for half a day or more. All walks begins and ends at subway stations (mostly in zone 1, that is; central London), and takes you through as different areas as City of London, Soho, Chelsea, Kensington, Westminster and many more.
But the best thing about these podcasts is Robert Wright himself. He has the perfect British accent, and while I have no idea how old he is, he is old enough to feature a very pleasant baritone voice – in fact, being quite ignorant of various British dialects and accents, I personally think of Hugh Grant when I hear his voice. Wright is also an expert in digging up relevant and interesting information about the places you visit during the walks – you get both the facts and the historical perspective, without ever getting bored.
While I’ve only walked 5-6 of the walks – and listened to the two more factual podcasts about the London airports and public transportation – I can really recommend The Great Walk, which consists of three podcast episodes: London Bridge – Westminster – Hyde Park – Kensington. Below are a couple of my photos from some of the walks:
Not Hugh Grant, although I am flattered to be thought to sound like him. I came across your wonderful page when it came up on Google, and am pleased to leave a comment by way of thanks. I am in my late 50′s actually. A retired retailer, who is now an Anglican priest in West London. I hit on the unique idea of live, real time walks a year or so ago, and have been delighted with the huge response, which make the whole thing worthwhile. Glad you enjoyed them.
Best wishes
Robert
Glad to hear from you, Robert. A unique thing about your podcasts, I’ve come to think of, is probably also their durability compared to most other podcasts, which are most often news. People can continue to enjoy your podcasts many years from now – heck, I’ll probably even talk some of the walks again, once I get the chance to go to London again in the next couple of years.