London - playing tourist in my own city
On my walking tour, I started to appreciate that London isn't a world apart from Paris. We share similar metro/underground systems and we both have a river cutting through our cities in a similar fashion. London even has a semi-decent cafe culture these days and there are many public parks where people can lounge about in the sun. I do think the average level of civility seems a bit lower in London than Paris, but then I was surprised to see pianos left outside in the open air for public use, both at The British Library and Leicester Square.
As I mentioned earlier, London appears to be more diverse when it comes to both people and prices. The large slice of pizza pictured above cost a mere £1.90 in Leicester Square, for example. However, Paris is far more aesthetically pleasing with a much higher ratio of boutique stores versus big name chain stores. Contrast that with this image I took in a street in London. It isn't very clear but in a row we have: KFC, Starbucks, Costa, McDonalds, Pret A Manger, Flights Express, WHSmith, and Tesco. Pretty bland but I guess it's what customers want, and if it means lower prices you can count me in as well.
2 comments:
I'm enjoying your musings on Paris and London.
I did a similar series of trips several years ago and found Paris the more picturesque of the two cities, since there was less modern construction, but London definitely had a much more varied and interesting museum/gallery scene. I went to the Musée de l'Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris and the Palais de Tokyo and both were something like 5 euros to get in and were pitiful in comparison to the (free) British Museum and the Tate Modern, which I saw the week after.
Thanks tonestandard, doing Paris on a shoestring meant Monde Arabe and Palais de Tokyo were missed from our trip, but from the sound of things and from what I read elsewhere, that is no bad thing. As you say, London's museum's and galleries are pretty darn good and free as well. I've wondered about the British Museum a few times now and love it. The Tate Modern didn't do that much for me but found the National Gallery off Trafalgar Square to be a real gem of a place.
The pollution, hustle and bustle, and general heavy industrious nature of London can bear its weight on Londoners after a while, but then there is always Paris and the countryside to escape to for a change of air!
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