Visiting London

In Hyde Park, you can see and photograph the Princess Diana Memorial pissoir.

Parliament Hill in Highgate, is worth a visit. It is one of the highest pionts in London, It was named thus, because you could see The Houses of Parliament from there. It gives a clear view into central London, so if you take a 1000mm lens, you can get nice shots of St Pauls, The Lloyds building. The London eye and all that kind of thing.
It is also a popular Gay cruising area... So I wouldn't look too closely into the bushes, if I were you!

Finsbury Park, has some of the finest resident junkies and alcoholics, to be found anywhere in the capital. You could be asked for a cigarette or a Pound for a cup of tea, in anything up to thirty different languages!. If asked by someone there whether you want to buy some 'gear'... They don't mean camera equipment.

Mowog

I love your tourist guide to London

yes, he's really enticing me to go

Mowog.I lived in london for 10yrs and I love your tour guide, laughing out loud, VERY FUNNY. I think Boris should give you a job writing the official guide.
Zebrasas

Thank you, folks.

I'm available for personal guided tours. - Special rates for PU members!

If you are going to Camden Town (Camden is the borough but CT is the place of interest) you can either walk a short distance to Regents Park and see the early 18th century crescents (also canals and the London Zoo)or take a bus to Parliament Hill Fields. You can take a 10 minute walk up Parliamment Hill for some fine panoramas of the whole of London. As for Mogwog's info re,gay cruising that happens a lot further over to the north of the attached Hampstead Heath. Take a 200mm with you in case you spot George Michael (recently liberated local resident)

So the trip is over.
I over reached in my expectactions of what we would be able to see... Again. Overall it was nice and we had fairly good weather.
Bad luck with the student protests and fellow travellers too tired or cold to walk.
Cops were nice, even those doing security around Westminster, so that was cool.

Holding things, is exta, Gareth!


I hope you're not too disappointed with the trip, edu. - And I do hope you at least made time to visit Chas n Dave's spectacular, world famous theme park. 'Cockneyland' in Bethnal Green. - Fun for all the family!

The trip was ok, just a pitty we didn't do more stuff.
I was going to do the boat tour from Waterloo Pier, but the driver sais it would be faster to do the voyage back by boat rather than bus. So since we had already spent so much time to even get there, we stayed on. It took forever to get to the Tower (passing through protesting students on the southbank), where we found there were no boat trips for 2 hrs because of the tide. It was getting dark pretty quickly, so we went to westminster for a walking tour of the area around Big Ben. Of course we had to get of the tube and walk and then find the whole area closed by police.
At night we were going to the Camden Pub Crawl, which took a while to find because ppl didn't know what I was talking about and gave me bad directions.
It wasn't much of a pub crawl, just a lets get wasted night out, which is fine, but not really what I expected. Then the girls were tired and we had to go home foregoing 3 of the 5 shots included in the £10 ticket. Bummer.
Anyway, last day. Boat trip, a few more decent shots from Big Ben and Parliament and onto Buckingham and the changing of the guard. Which didn't happen Even thought the guy from the bus had assured me that it would be on Friday and not Thursday as per the palace website.

But still, I enjoyed it because London was not disapointing as I imagined it might be. Sure, its not as beautifull as Edinburgh, but its a big city that doesn't feel as harsh as I thought it might.

Unless or course you are gay.


Good friend of mine lives in Finsbury park. I've been there several times

You don't wanna be flashing a DLSR about in Finsbury Park unless you're inside a car safely doing drive by shooting, with your doors locked.

You should have no problems taking pictures anywhere. You can take pictures in the Tube but no flash as it looks just like the lines getting short circuited and can dazzle the drivers.
You can take pictures around all the tourist attractions, after all thats the point! You can even photograph the MI5 HQ. It makes a nice picture from the other side of the river. Of course you will photographed doing it!
Some museums even allow photography inside but again usually without flash. But ask on entry as some don't allow any photography at all.
No security concerns apart from staying out of rough looking areas and housing estates, not that there are many of those around most of the tourist traps.

For Parks, Regent's Park in one of the loveliest I think and not far from Camden.

K.

You have some very strange expectations. London is one of the most fascinating, versatile, beautiful, impressive, and simply great cities in the world.

Dr Johnson's words ring true today. If you're tired of London, you're tired of life. Though I'll add that it's a bad place to be in with no money.

I agree Edinburgh is delightful, but it's a wee provincial place that bears no comparison with the Great Wen.

G

The expectation comes from my trip to NYC. The city felt underwhelming, maybe the expectation was to large.
NYC is fascinating, beautifull, impressive, full of wonder and possibilities, but for me doesn't feel like a nice place to live.
I thought London might be the same. But London did feel like a nicer place to live.

I think I'm more of a provincial kind of person.
Cities with smaller dimensions are easier to accomodate in your mind. hard to explain...
Big cities are great for the awesome loads of stuff you can do, but in practice, you work all day and enjoy a residual amount of the cities social and cultural life. Again, its a personality thing.

There is no good place to be without any money.

So you expected a 2000 year-old capital city, once the heart of the greatest empire the world has seen, and with an immensely rich history, to be like a crassly commercial port of entry on the eastern shores of an ex-colony?

Hmm.

Comparing American cities with the better European ones is always going to make your head spin.

But I do sympathise with people who find the scale of big cities to be rather overwhelming. Coming as I did from the wilds of Africa, London took some getting used to.

G