When taking a holiday in London, always mind the gap, as the comforting automated female voice would tell you in the Underground. As intuitive as this might seem (don't step in the small gap between the train and the station lest you want to dress up as a pirate for every Halloween thereafter), there is much more to this simple phrase. In London, there are the perfunctory sights: Parliament, the London Eye, Tower Bridge, Covent Garden, Trafalgar, St. Paul's, etc.; they are the essential tourist destinations. But there is a fine gap between just the sights and those sounds, smells, tastes, and vintage culture that underlies so much of the white brick and Victorian sensibility that is London.
For instance, when one is in the West End, or really anywhere in dead central London, taking in a show at the theatre is almost compulsory. There are so many theatres within a 10-square mile radius that it's almost impossible to find an uninteresting bit of live acting. Even better, many of these shows fall under £30 (approximately $45 USD), whereas a hit Broadway show such as Book of Mormon ($69 and up) will gut-punch your wallet for a nice seat without much mercy.
In addition, one is likely to encounter more than a few street and underground musicians on the streets of London. Whether it's in Covent Garden, where musicians have to audition in order to play in the famous brick marketplace, Portobello Road, or in Brick Lane in East London, where one can find a small concert at a dive bar for under a tenner, music is central to London's essence. This is one of those tautologies that ought to be obvious to most people, what with London's rich history of underground music creating some of the largest musical acts in the world.
If your interests lay in the local brew, then look no further than any of London's panoply of centuries-old pubs. Some of the greatest minds in existence presided on those benches, contemplating their next story or discussing the plight of the working class. In fact, Karl Marx is renowned for a late-night pub-crawl around Oxford Street that ended in a daring police escape, according to an account by Wilhelm Liebknecht.
Some might enjoy a quieter time, perhaps taking in a bit of nature while admiring the pristine condition of the Victorian-era buildings; in that case, London is home to the most green space of a city its size. From the gargantuan Hyde Park that takes you by Buckingham Palace and beyond, to the comfortably sized Lincoln's Inn Fields, or Primrose Hill, one can enjoy the cool wind on a stroll through the greenery. If you're lucky, you might come across an event, whether it's an outdoor concert or Hyde Park's Winter Wonderland.
The British, most unfortunately, have a reputation for food that might leave some skittish; that attitude might have been understandable half a century ago, but in the modern age, Britons and Londoners have incorporated the plethora of international foods that have entered the marketplace into their daily meals. You'd be likely to eat some of the most authentic Indian food you've ever tasted near Regent's Park, or some of the most exotic Chinese food in the Chinatown near Soho.
So when you're planning your sojourn to London, think not just of the buildings, the centuries-old architecture, or cloudy days, but of everything else within those buildings that really make London what it is: a city with rich history, a vibrant culture (both underground and otherwise), and delightful people who are more than accommodating to anyone who enjoys all that the city has to offer.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
